“I fell asleep in my shithole apartment and wake up in an actual shithole.” – Adam

So begins Saw, a modern horror/thriller that tried so hard to be Seven, but ends up being diversionary entertainment. The premise is mysterious: two men wake up on opposites sides of a dingy bathroom with their legs cuffed to pipes while a blood-drenched body lies motionless in the middle of the room, quickly setting the tone for the entire film. Like Seven, dingy setpieces and rumpled characters are the norm. Adam (Leigh Whannell, the screenwriter) is an angst filled twentysomething that appears to be innocent. Lawrence Gordon (Cary Elwes) is a self absorbed doctor that has an idea who might have put them there. They each receive a hacksaw, obviously too dull to saw through the heavy chains. The mind begins wandering into dark places.

The Jigsaw Killer, as he was so aptly named, takes pleasure in putting people into life-threatening situations where a solution for escape is presented but never easy to execute. Example: a young drug addict has her head placed in a mechanism that looks like it was stolen from the discarded props of Nine Inch Nails’ Closer video. There is a timer on it that will basically decapitate her if she doesn’t remove it. The key to unlock the device is in the stomach of a man in the room with her. She is told the man is dead. A knife lay nearby. What’s it going to be?

The fact that most of the victims of this killer are society’s outcasts or miscreants lends a definite air of Seven’s righteous vengeance. All of the situations made me squirm – probably as much as watching the last hour of Requiem for a Dream where the main characters’ lives disintigrate right in front of you. Though don’t think I’m comparing artistic values, because that’s just not fair.

For an independent film, Saw deserves some credit.The entire film was shot in 18 days under a very reasonable budget, managed to secure some well known actors, and was entirely conceived by first-time film makers James Wan (Director) and screenwriter Whannell. From the outset it becomes obvious that these two grew up with a steady diet of Ministry and sketching ghoulish scenarios in their five-star notebooks. Indeed, the things they came up with were enough to leave their mark on my supposedly video game desensitized mind.

Although the story is told by Elwes through flashback, it is primarily seen through the eyes of Danny Glover’s character who is a detective that has taken on the Jigsaw Killer’s case. At times there are even flashbacks within flashbacks, which are meant to clarify but only come across as those conversations where you’re talking to a person who has trouble completing a whole sentence. With these parenthetical scenes, you’re meant to learn about the killer’s motivations, and maybe even about Glover’s detective, who loses his partner after almost catching the notorious killer. Though at the end so many wires have been crossed the solution to Saw’s puzzle is almost insulting. I’ll get to that.

One of the things that drives us completely crazy while watching a horror movie is the way the characters deal with suspenseful situations. Wandering into darkened houses, leaving the door unlocked, opening the closet – the cliches we’ve come to appreciate as moviegoers. As a convention it still seems to work, though in Saw none of the characters are developed enough for you to care for their well being, and you end up wanting to throw a brick at the screen, not offer your advice to it. There was a scene near the movie’s climax where Dr. Gordon’s wife (held hostage, of course) manages to wrestle the gun away from her captor and pauses. Yes, this is the man that broke into your house and threatened you and your daughter with this exact weapon. The guy that already said he was going to kill you. This requires pause for thought? Infuriating.

Elwes successfully hams it up at the end, providing a completely over-the-top breakdown scene, but at that point I really wasn’t able to get over the fact that he had just severed his own foot to answer a cell phone. I mean what does it take for a man to consider sawing his own foot off? Would it even be possible to “walk away” from the scene as Elwes’ character does, with all that blood loss? The fact that the film makers were even considering these questions seems like an even more disturbing thought. To get inside this fictional serial killer’s head and come up with these completely gruesome methods by which people either kill or mutilate themselves certainly smacked of the scenarios in Seven, but in terms of actual social commentary they were as vapid as the acting.

After witnessing the morbidly fascinating puzzles and thinking this movie might actually have something to say, the completely asinine ending reveals itself. The only thing worse than a script that depends on flashbacks to tell a story is a script that gives you a completely plausible solution to the mystery and then craps out something totally different for the sole purpose of fucking over the audience. Maybe you want to graduate from watching the death defying stunts of Real TV. This might be a reason to watch Saw. Though don’t be disappointed when you realize that past the superfluous gore lies a film that is only impersonating the cultural resonance of Seven.

Also in the DVD pile was Shaun of the Dead, last year’s darling of so many zombie movie fans. I enjoyed it, and for me it captured the widespread working class/corporate cog malaise that has preoccupied Western culture. Though the movie’s endgame lapsed into the requisite melodrama that any mainstream movie must contain for acceptance, I must congratulate the filmmakers for the nod to gamer culture when Shaun finally gets his hands on a Winchester rifle to defend against the zombie throng. Maybe the haters will finally realize who the best people to have on your team are during a zombie invasion.

you’re tender and you’re tired