15. Saw
Friday, October 9, 2009 at 12:55PM | Will LeBlanc 
SURPRISE!! I know I'm about the most actively negative voice out there against the Saw series, but I legitimately think the first one is a good movie, and didn't feel like it would be a proper horror retrospective if I left of a movie that made this much of an impact. Well, it made the list only after I decided to leave of the horror-comedies like Shaun of the Dead, Dead and Breakfast, Lesbian Vampire Killers and most recently Zombieland, but I'm still not ashamed to say that Saw 1 deserves to be here among the modern horror classics.
Saw is basically a battle of accents between two dudes who are stuck in a shit covered room together, neither of which had a father that played catch with them even once in their lives. Even though they're standing roughly 12 feet apart, they're constantly tossing things back and forth while missing each other by a mile each and every time. It's actually pretty terrible. But aside from hidden British accents and some pretty bad over acting at the end, the movie is a pretty solid first installment and the look and feel of the film have inspired countless Saw/torture porn clones not the least notable is Hostel (crap).
I probably appreciate Saw more now that I have seen a couple of the sequels and realized that this is the only one with any semblance of story worth talking about and isn't just an hour and a half of people stumbling through traps and being brutally maimed. The sequels are like eating gravy but no mashed potatoes, there's no substance. But I like substance.
Forgetting that Danny Glover was in the original was probably the best thing I could have done in the 4 years it's been since I've seen it, because then when he showed up I was like "OH DANNY GLOVER!" I also sort of forgot he goes gay crazy for his dead partner, Singh, one of two Lost cast members kicking around this horror staple.
Saw is not an amazing movie, but good intentions were there. Minus some really unnecessary flashy editing, and a little bit better pieced together story the film would have been great. It just makes me sad watching it to compare where it could have gone to where it went. So I recommend sitting down with Saw and all of its short comings and lamenting the death of a good franchise.
Reader Comments (2)
haha, you're still very pessimistic about this movie. You keep saying "it's a good movie" but then saying, "but it also sucked" make up your mind!
I thought that the first saw was pretty awesome, my only disdain was for he horrible acting which isn't too noticeable at the beginning, but unavoidable at the end. Plus the twist BLEW my mind. I'm normally pretty good at predicting where a movie is going to head next, but this one surprised the crap out of me.
These are so creative compared to 80's slashers, especially the way there's always a reason why everyone dies, as opposed to a crazy guy running around with an axe . . . it's a good choice