Saw (film): Difference between revisions
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The film then presents [[flashback]]s of two of their captor's previous victims: [[List of Saw characters#Paul Stallberg|Paul Stallberg]] and [[List of Saw characters#Mark Rodriguez|Mark Rodriguez]]. Both men failed to escape, and hence had pieces of skin cut from them in the shape of a [[jigsaw puzzle]] piece; thus the genesis of referring to him as the "Jigsaw Killer". (Lawrence comments that this is a misnomer, as he never directly murders his victims nor places them in situations where death is unavoidable.) A while later we are shown the plight of Jigsaw's only known survivor, a highly traumatized [[heroin]] addict named [[Amanda Young]] ([[Shawnee Smith]]), who believes that her experience in the [[List of traps in the Saw film series#Jaw splitter|test]] has made her a better person in the end. |
The film then presents [[flashback]]s of two of their captor's previous victims: [[List of Saw characters#Paul Stallberg|Paul Stallberg]] and [[List of Saw characters#Mark Rodriguez|Mark Rodriguez]]. Both men failed to escape, and hence had pieces of skin cut from them in the shape of a [[jigsaw puzzle]] piece; thus the genesis of referring to him as the "Jigsaw Killer". (Lawrence comments that this is a misnomer, as he never directly murders his victims nor places them in situations where death is unavoidable.) A while later we are shown the plight of Jigsaw's only known survivor, a highly traumatized [[heroin]] addict named [[Amanda Young]] ([[Shawnee Smith]]), who believes that her experience in the [[List of traps in the Saw film series#Jaw splitter|test]] has made her a better person in the end. |
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Meanwhile, [[List of Saw characters#Zep Hindle|"Zep" Hindle]] ([[Michael Emerson]]), an orderly at Lawrence's hospital, breaks into the Gordon house and captures Lawrence's wife, [[Gordon family (Saw)#Alison Gordon|Alison]] ([[Monica Potter]]), and daughter, [[Gordon family (Saw)#Diana Gordon|Diana]] ([[Makenzie Vega]]). Through video surveillance, he observes Adam and Lawrence in the bathroom, unaware that the house is being monitored by [[List of Saw characters#David Tapp|David Tapp]] ([[Danny Glover]]), a [[detective]] who is unhealthily obsessed with the case. Disbarred from the police force after his partner, [[List of Saw characters#Steven Sing|Steven Sing]] ([[Ken Leung]]) was [[List of traps in the Saw film series#Quadruple shotgun hallway|gunned down]] after the two illegally broke into one of Jigsaw's |
Meanwhile, [[List of Saw characters#Zep Hindle|"Zep" Hindle]] ([[Michael Emerson]]), an orderly at Lawrence's hospital, breaks into the Gordon house and captures Lawrence's wife, [[Gordon family (Saw)#Alison Gordon|Alison]] ([[Monica Potter]]), and daughter, [[Gordon family (Saw)#Diana Gordon|Diana]] ([[Makenzie Vega]]). Through video surveillance, he observes Adam and Lawrence in the bathroom, unaware that the house is being monitored by [[List of Saw characters#David Tapp|David Tapp]] ([[Danny Glover]]), a [[detective]] who is unhealthily obsessed with the case. Disbarred from the police force after his partner, [[List of Saw characters#Steven Sing|Steven Sing]] ([[Ken Leung]]) was [[List of traps in the Saw film series#Quadruple shotgun hallway|gunned down]] after the two illegally broke into one of Jigsaw's lair, find a man tied to a chair with two drills mounted on both sides, tapp and sing hide when jigsaw walks in. Tapp and Sing jump out and and subue jigsaw. In the process, the drills become activated. While sing trys to save jeff, tapp has his throught slashed by jigsaw. Sing shoots the drills and saves jeff. Sing picks up the chase, but is gunned down by a trip wire. |
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In the bathroom, Adam and Lawrence attempt to stage Adam's murder, however, a strong electric shock is sent through Adam's chains, foiling the ruse. Lawrence later finds a [[cell phone]] that cannot make calls, but receives one from his wife, who warns Lawrence that Adam is lying to him. Adam explains that he had been paid by Tapp to trail and photograph Lawrence. In a pile of photographs (which Adam hid from Lawrence when discovered with the hacksaws), the two find one of Zep following Lawrence. Just as this realization is made, however, Adam realizes that it is six o'clock, the deadline. |
In the bathroom, Adam and Lawrence attempt to stage Adam's murder, however, a strong electric shock is sent through Adam's chains, foiling the ruse. Lawrence later finds a [[cell phone]] that cannot make calls, but receives one from his wife, who warns Lawrence that Adam is lying to him. Adam explains that he had been paid by Tapp to trail and photograph Lawrence. In a pile of photographs (which Adam hid from Lawrence when discovered with the hacksaws), the two find one of Zep following Lawrence. Just as this realization is made, however, Adam realizes that it is six o'clock, the deadline. |
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Revision as of 14:27, 29 February 2008
- This article is about the 2004 horror film, Saw. For series information, see the article: Saw (film series).
| Saw | |
|---|---|
| File:Saw poster.JPG Saw film poster | |
| Directed by | James Wan |
| Written by | James Wan Leigh Whannell |
| Produced by | Gregg Hoffman Peter Block Lark Bernini |
| Starring | Cary Elwes Leigh Whannell Danny Glover Monica Potter Michael Emerson Tobin Bell |
| Cinematography | David A. Armstrong |
| Edited by | Kevin Greutert |
| Music by | Charlie Clouser Fear Factory Pitbull Daycare Front Line Assembly |
| Distributed by | Lions Gate Entertainment |
Release dates | October 29, 2004 |
Running time | 102 min. |
| Country |  United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | USD 1,200,000 (estimated) |
Saw is a 2004 horror film, and the first installment of the Saw film series. It was directed by James Wan and co-written by Wan and Leigh Whannell. It was filmed in only 18 days along side James Wan, Marcos Zarvous and Gregg Hoffman. Saw was first shown at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2004 and saw an international release later that year on October 29. The movie spawned a series of sequels, Saw II, Saw III, and Saw IV.
Saw is focused on two men who find themselves locked in a disused bathroom with instructions for one to kill the other, or he and his family will be killed in turn. The characters attempt to escape while the police investigate and attempt to capture the criminal responsible, the "Jigsaw Killer".
Originally rated NC-17 for strong, graphic violence, the film was slightly edited to achieve an R rating. The unrated version is available as the Saw: Uncut Edition, a DVD special edition that was released around the same time that Saw II was released theatrically.
Plot summary
Saw opens in a disused industrial bathroom, where photographer Adam Faulkner (Leigh Whannell) and Dr. Lawrence Gordon (Cary Elwes) wake up, chained by their ankles to pipes at opposite corners. Between them is a corpse (Tobin Bell), lying in a pool of blood and holding a revolver and a microcassette recorder. Both men discover microtapes in their pockets and play them; Adam's tape only gives him the challenge of escaping, while Lawrence's reveals that he must kill Adam in eight hours, or his wife and daughter will die and he will be left in the bathroom to die. Hacksaws are soon discovered; neither is sufficiently sharp to cut through chain, and Adam accidentally snaps his in frustration. Lawrence realizes that the saws are meant for their own feet.
The film then presents flashbacks of two of their captor's previous victims: Paul Stallberg and Mark Rodriguez. Both men failed to escape, and hence had pieces of skin cut from them in the shape of a jigsaw puzzle piece; thus the genesis of referring to him as the "Jigsaw Killer". (Lawrence comments that this is a misnomer, as he never directly murders his victims nor places them in situations where death is unavoidable.) A while later we are shown the plight of Jigsaw's only known survivor, a highly traumatized heroin addict named Amanda Young (Shawnee Smith), who believes that her experience in the test has made her a better person in the end.
Meanwhile, "Zep" Hindle (Michael Emerson), an orderly at Lawrence's hospital, breaks into the Gordon house and captures Lawrence's wife, Alison (Monica Potter), and daughter, Diana (Makenzie Vega). Through video surveillance, he observes Adam and Lawrence in the bathroom, unaware that the house is being monitored by David Tapp (Danny Glover), a detective who is unhealthily obsessed with the case. Disbarred from the police force after his partner, Steven Sing (Ken Leung) was gunned down after the two illegally broke into one of Jigsaw's lair, find a man tied to a chair with two drills mounted on both sides, tapp and sing hide when jigsaw walks in. Tapp and Sing jump out and and subue jigsaw. In the process, the drills become activated. While sing trys to save jeff, tapp has his throught slashed by jigsaw. Sing shoots the drills and saves jeff. Sing picks up the chase, but is gunned down by a trip wire.
In the bathroom, Adam and Lawrence attempt to stage Adam's murder, however, a strong electric shock is sent through Adam's chains, foiling the ruse. Lawrence later finds a cell phone that cannot make calls, but receives one from his wife, who warns Lawrence that Adam is lying to him. Adam explains that he had been paid by Tapp to trail and photograph Lawrence. In a pile of photographs (which Adam hid from Lawrence when discovered with the hacksaws), the two find one of Zep following Lawrence. Just as this realization is made, however, Adam realizes that it is six o'clock, the deadline.
Allison manages to free herself from Zep, and a struggle ensues. Gunshots are fired, which attract the attention of Tapp. As Allison and her daughter flee, Tapp pursues Zep, who is intent on killing Lawrence. Lawrence, believing his family to be dead, is flung into desperation. He uses the hacksaw to cut off his foot and shoots Adam with the revolver held by the corpse.
During a fight in the sewers, Zep shoots Tapp fatally. He arrives in the bathroom, shocked to discover Adam's body, though he insists that Lawrence is too late. Before he can kill Lawrence, however, Adam springs from the floor and murders Zep with a toilet tank cover. After Lawrence crawls away to find help, Adam searches Zep for a key to his chain but instead finds another microcassette player. The tape plays instructions for Zep to murder Allison and Diana if Lawrence fails, thus revealing him to be only a pawn in Jigsaw's game.
The body in the room then slowly rises to his feet and removes a latex mask. He is John Kramer, a terminal brain cancer patient of Lawrence's who was friends with Zep. Adam reaches for Zep's handgun, but Jigsaw stuns him with a remote-controlled electric current, triggering a flashback sequence that runs through the vital shots of the film. As he flicks off the lights in the bathroom, Jigsaw repeats his words to Amanda: "Most people are so ungrateful to be alive. But not you. Not anymore." He then shouts, "Game over!" before slamming the door shut, sealing Adam in the bathroom, as he screams in despair over the credits.
Cast
| Actor | Role |
|---|---|
| Cary Elwes | Doctor Lawrence Gordon |
| Leigh Whannell | Adam Faulkner |
| Danny Glover | Detective David Tapp |
| Monica Potter | Alison Gordon |
| Michael Emerson | Zep Hindle |
| Ken Leung | Detective Steven Sing |
| Makenzie Vega | Diana Gordon |
| Tobin Bell | John Kramer |
| Shawnee Smith | Amanda Young |
| Dina Meyer | Detective Allison Kerry |
| Alexandra Bokyun Chun | Carla |
| Benito Martinez | Brett |
| Mike Butters | Paul Stallberg |
| Paul Gutrecht | Mark Rodriguez |
| Ned Bellamy | Jeff |
| Oren Koules | Unnamed man |
| Avner Garbi | Father |
| Hans Raith | Detective |
Reception
Saw was a financial success. Shot on a meager budget of about US$1.2 million, it earned over $55 million at the box office in the U.S. alone and $102,917,772 worldwide.[1]
Critical responses were mixed; it earned a 45% rating from Rotten Tomatoes, and a 29% rating from the most esteemed professional critics, qualifying it as "rotten." General complaints expressed dissatisfaction with the acting and dialogue and noted the problematic story structure and twist ending. Critics who enjoyed the film, however, cited the finale as a strong point and remarked that the movie's premise was original. [2]
Impact
With the emergence of the torture porn genre in the 2000s, the Saw film series, along with similar films such as Hostel and The Devil's Rejects, is frequently singled out as an example of the prevalence of exploitive graphic violence and gore in horror films, though Saw has a significantly less amount of gore. [citation needed]
The premise of Saw has sparked a rise in interest in psychological horror villains and copy-cat films, such as Are You Scared. Its effect can be compared, to a lesser extent, to that of Die Hard on the action film genre. [citation needed]
Saw occupies the third slot on Bravo's Even Scarier Movie Moments for the scene in Lawrence cuts off his own foot. [3] This scene, Amanda's test and the razor wire maze scene were grouped among the scariest film scenes of all time on FilmSite. [4]
Soundtrack
- Main Article: Saw (soundtrack)
Megadeth's song "Die Dead Enough" was originally set to be featured in the movie,[5] but was not used for undisclosed reasons.[6]
Unrated edition
The unrated edition of the film is approximately eight seconds longer than the theatrical version. The additional shots include a close-up of the body on the bathroom floor, additional forensic photographs of Jigsaw's victims, a short segment of Paul crawling through razor wire, Amanda sifting through a man's intestines looking for a key to her trap, and Lawrence sawing through his foot.
There is also an Easter egg on the uncut DVD titled "See Saw in 60," which consists of three jumpy and humorous one-minute condensed versions of the film. Two are presented using dolls with crude faces drawn on them; sound clips from the movie are used for one, high-pitched squeaky voices for the other. The third is made using actual footage from the movie and the squeaky voices. Similar Easter eggs were used on later uncut releases of the sequels.
See also
- Torture porn
- Saw, the original 2003 short film
- Saw: Rebirth, the comic book prequel to Saw
References
External links
- Official SAW Website & Fan Club
- Official site
- Saw at IMDb
- Saw at Rotten Tomatoes
- Official World of Saw at UGO
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