Saw
(2004)
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When Adam (Leigh Whannell) is jolted back to consciousness after nearly drowning at the bottom of a decrepit bathtub, he awakes to find himself chained to a rusty pipe inside a dark torture chamber. There is someone else in the room. Dr. Lawrence Gordon (Cary Elwes) has also just regained consciousness and is chained to the opposite side of the space. Between them a man is lying in a pool of blood after apparently shooting himself in the head with the pistol in his hand. Adam and Dr. Gordon piece together the clues left behind by the deranged criminal mind that has brought them together and finally realize that they, too, must make a seemingly impossible set of choices for their lives. |
It is perhaps inevitable that this unsettling debut from director James Wan will be compared with Se7en. Not only do they share similarly skewed serial-killing themes, but their style, tension and sheer viciousness put them in the same genre pigeonhole. Told, unusually, from the point of view of the victims, this well-acted thriller chillingly questions how far an individual will go to stay alive. Leigh Whannell (who also wrote the screenplay) and Cary Elwes become the latest playthings of a game-obsessed psychopath, finding themselves chained to opposite walls in a crumbling, subterranean bathroom, with no recollection of how they got there. With its jerky, grainy cinematography and nerve-jangling industrial soundtrack, the film is more disturbing than terrifying. It's like an extended Nine Inch Nails rock video as imagined by Dario Argento. However just when you think you've got it sussed, the movie throws in some audacious twists, resulting in one of the most memorable climaxes in recent screen history.