Rating:

A movie came out a few years ago that effectively put an end (temporarily, of course) to the serial killer film as we know it, because it was so unique, so original, and so clearly difficult to top, people gave up trying. What’s more, it launched nearly a decade-long spat of films which belonged to a trendy offshoot of the horror genre, known as “Torture Horror.”

No, this film was not Saw. Hardly. It was called Seven, and long before Saw’s Jigsaw murderer tried to teach us that our vices were worth dying for; before Touristas wanted us to believe that Americans deserve the wrath of the third world; and light years ahead of Hostel’s feeble attempts to punish the rude and the young for sport, Seven was a film which analyzed and dissected our ills as a society, while humanizing a serial killer, his victims, his captors, and society at large.

The others, beginning with Saw, stand for nothing but utter dehumanization.

And of course it was only a matter of time before a fan of Seven–a film which left all the gruesome torture to our imaginations, and forced us to focus on the cause and effect of the acts rather than the acts themselves–decided “Hey, what if I made a movie like Seven, only I showed nothing BUT life-instructive torture?”

Thus began the modern renaissance of the Torture sub genre.

It’s exploitative, it’s unoriginal–but hey, no one said it couldn’t be entertaining, and that’s exactly what Saw (somehow) is.

I credit director James Wan with the success of the film, primarily because other than an under-used Danny Glover, the acting is atrocious (Cary Elwes turns in a horrendous performance that makes you long for the days of Robin Hood: Men in Tights); the writing is second rate (the storyline is barely intriguing, but mostly recognizable as a thematic copycat); and, most egregiously, it has a ludicrous “twist” ending which can act as a perfect definition for Deus Ex Machina.

Yes, Saw is an honorary member of the “let’s turn your viewing experience into the cinematic equivalent of a Cracker Jack box” school of filmmaking.

But, I say it again, thanks to director Wan, torture has never seemed this sexy-cool (and hasn’t since).

And even this review does the film a disservice. Saw incorrectly gets lumped into the “torture porn” category of horror, when really it’s far more psychological.

The two main victims go through some awful ordeals, certainly, but it’s all fairly mild–and definitely self-inflicted–compared to the “helpless beautiful woman has her intestines removed with hacksaw” scenes that other films like to exhibit. Even the flashbacks of the ancillary victims we see as the detectives follow Jigsaw’s demented wake are light on gore and heavy on psychodrama.

It’s a fair film for a first viewing, simply for novelty’s sake, but there are no characters (again, except for Danny Glover’s curiously deep bit role as an obsessive detective), there are no legitimate outcomes (which is why there are about seven of them), and the twist leaves you feeling like you’ve just driven two hours down a fascinating country road only to find that you’ve ended up at your house again.

But you can’t deny that it was a fun ride.

If you don’t like Saw, you will also totally hate:

If You Hated This, You Will Also Totally Hate:

• Saw IV
• The Last House on the Left (Original)
• Saw Series in a Nutshell
• Pelts
• Family