“Saw” is the horror-hit of the moment. Even though it is made by a Japanese director, the film is pretty American. As a matter of fact, “Saw” joyously builds further on the trend of dark and extreme horror/thrillers about serial killers. Not too original. What may have caused the popularity of this film, is that it goes quite a bit further than “Silence of the Lambs, “Se7en” or “Ressurection”. But again there is a serial killer loose with ‘moral’, showing his victims what fails in society. The film is about two men who find themselves chained to pipes in an old toilet-room. One of them knows about a serial killer who plays games with his victims. Either they do something terrible or they will die. “Technically he isn’t a killer, since he didn’t kill anyone”, a police-officer says about the “Jigsaw” killer, which is true. “Saw” is a deeply psychological and very extreme film with as underlaying question: “how much blood would you shed to stay alive?” Killing a person, mutilating yourself, the victims get their choices and the Jigsaw enjoys the show.
I don’t think I heard anyone who didn’t think this film is brilliant. Personally I don’t think it is particularly good. The story is not very original, like I said, yet another ‘moralistic serial killer’. The ways the victims die are extreme in their geniosity, but also extremely far-fetched and not credible. Also there are actually two ‘cases’ that we follow in the film, but with flashbacks your get to see about other victims for the sole purpose of Wan being able to show what can come out of his sick mind. Don’t get me wrong, if you want a dark and extreme horror, this is your film, but script is in a way ingenious, but I get a bit tired of all these ‘intelligent horror films’ about serial killers. And then of course a sequal is already anounced, not even by the same director. The lack of inspiration of the filmbusiness…