SAW WEEK ON IHDB
"SAW" released on October 29th, 2004
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Adam (Leigh Whannell), a photographer, awakens in a bathtub in a large dilapidated bathroom, and finds himself chained at the ankle to a pipe. Lawrence Gordon (Cary Elwes), an oncologist, is similarly shackled across the room, and between them is a corpse holding a revolver and a microcassette recorder. Each man has a tape in his pocket, and Adam is able to retrieve the recorder. Adam's tape urges him to escape the bathroom, while Lawrence's tape tells him to kill Adam by six o'clock, or his wife and daughter will be killed and he will be left to die. Adam finds a bag containing two hacksaws inside a toilet tank; they attempt to cut through the chains, but Adam's saw breaks and he throws it at the mirror in frustration. Lawrence realizes that the hacksaws are meant for their feet and identifies their captor as the Jigsaw Killer, whom Lawrence knows of because he was a suspect five months before.
Flashbacks show that while Lawrence was discussing the terminal brain cancer of a patient, identified as John (Tobin Bell) by an orderly named Zep Hindle (Michael Emerson), with his medical students, he was approached by Detectives David Tapp (Danny Glover) and Steven Sing (Ken Leung), who found his penlight at the scene of a Jigsaw "game", of which at least three have been investigated. Lawrence's alibi clears him, but he reluctantly agrees to view the testimony of the only known survivor, a heroin addict named Amanda Young (Shawnee Smith), who believes Jigsaw has helped her from a "reverse bear trap". Meanwhile, Alison (Monica Potter) and Diana Gordon (Makenzie Vega) are being held captive in their home by Zep, who is watching Adam and Lawrence through a camera behind a two-way mirror in the bathroom. The house is simultaneously being watched by Tapp, who has since been discharged from the force. Flashbacks show that Tapp became obsessed with the Jigsaw case after hearing Amanda's testimony, and eventually found Jigsaw's warehouse using the videotape from her game. He and Sing entered the warehouse, where they apprehended Jigsaw and saved a man from a drill trap, but Jigsaw escaped after slashing Tapp's throat, and Sing was killed by a shotgun trap while pursuing him. Convinced that Lawrence is Jigsaw, Tapp began stalking him after his discharge.
Above: Strangers Dr Lawrence Gordon (Cary Elwes) and Adam (Leigh Whannell) wake up in a strange bathroom - with a dead body in the middle of the room!
In the bathroom, Lawrence finds a box containing a lighter, two cigarettes, and a one-way cellphone. He then recalls his abduction: he was trying to use his phone after being trapped in a parking garage, and was suddenly attacked by a pig-masked figure. They try to use a cigarette dipped in the corpse's "poisoned" blood to stage Adam's death, but the plan fails when Adam is zapped through his ankle chain. Adam then recalls his own abduction: he woke up in his photo development room to find the power was out and, after finding a puppet, was attacked by a similar pig-masked figure. At gunpoint, Alison calls Lawrence and tells him not to trust Adam, who admits that he was being paid to take photos of Lawrence, many of which were in the hacksaw bag. Adam also reveals his knowledge of Lawrence's affair with one of his medical students; Lawrence had been with her before he was abducted. Lawrence realizes from Adam's description that Tapp was paying him. Adam finds a photo that he didn't take, of a man staring out a window of Lawrence's house, whom Lawrence identifies as Zep. Unfortunately, the clock then strikes six as he realizes this.
As Alison, who managed to free herself, calls Lawrence at gunpoint again, she fights Zep for the gun. The struggle gets Tapp's attention, and he saves Alison and Diana and chases Zep to the sewers, where he is eventually shot during a struggle. Lawrence, aware only of gunshots and screaming, is zapped as well and losing reach of the phone; in desperation, he saws off his foot and shoots Adam with the corpse's revolver. Zep enters the bathroom to kill Lawrence, but is knocked down and beaten to death with the toilet tank cover by Adam, who only suffered a flesh wound. As Lawrence crawls out of the room to find help, Adam searches Zep's body for a key and finds another microcassette recorder, which reveals that Zep was another victim, following the rules of his own game to obtain an antidote for a slow-acting poison in his body. As the tape ends, the "corpse" rises and is revealed to be Lawrence's patient, John, the real Jigsaw Killer. He says the key to the chain is in the bathtub, which was drained when Adam awoke. He zaps Adam when he tries to shoot John and loses reach of Zep's pistol, and then John turns off the lights and seals the door, leaving Adam to die, telling him "game over!"
Jigsaw: [on audio tape] Dr. Gordon, this is your wake-up call. Everyday of your working life you have given people the news that they're gonna die soon. Now you will be the cause of death. Your aim in this game is to kill Adam. You have until six on the clock to do it. There's a man in the room with you. When there's that much poison in your blood, the only thing left to do - is shoot yourself. There are ways to win this, hidden all around you. Just remember, X marks the spot for the treasure. If you do not kill Adam by six, then Alison and Diana will die, Dr. Gordon... and I'll leave you in this room to rot. Let the game begin.
Top and Above: Gordon and Adam struggle to figure out why they are imprisoned
After finishing film school, Australian director James Wan and Australian writer Leigh Whannell wanted to write and fund a low budget feature film, taking inspiration from the independent horror film The Blair Witch Project, and Darren Aronofsky's Pi. The two thought the cheapest script to shoot would involve two actors in one room. Whannell said, "So I actually think the restrictions we had on our bank accounts at the time, the fact that we wanted to keep the film contained, helped us come up with the ideas in the film." One idea was to have the entire film set with two actors stuck in an elevator and being shot in the point of view of security cameras, before Wan pitched the idea to Whannell of two men chained to opposite sides of a bathroom with a dead body in the middle of the floor and they are trying to figure out why and how they are there. By the end of the film they realize the person lying on the floor is not dead and he is the reason they are locked in the room. Whannell initially did not give Wan the reaction he was looking for. He said, "I'll never forget that day. I remember hanging up the phone and started just going over it in my head, and without any sort of long period of pondering, I opened my diary that I had at the time and wrote the word 'Saw'."
The character of Jigsaw did not come until months later, when Whannell was working at a job he was unhappy with and began having migraines. Convinced it was a brain tumor, he went to a neurologist to have an MRI and while sitting nervously in the waiting room he thought, "What if you were given the news that you had a tumor and you were going to die soon? How would you react to that?". He imagined the character Jigsaw having been given one or two years to live and combined that with the idea of Jigsaw putting others in a literal version of the situation, but only giving them a few minutes to choose their fate.
Whannell and Wan initially had $30,000 to spend on the film, but as the script developed it was clear that more funds would be needed. The script was then optioned by a producer in Sydney for a year but the deal eventually fell through. After other failed attempts to get the script produced in Australia from 2001 to 2002, literary agent Ken Greenblat read the script and suggested they travel to Los Angeles, where their chances of finding an interested studio were greater. Wan and Whannell initially refused, due to lack of traveling funds but the pair's agent, Stacey Testro, convinced them to go. In order to help studios take interest in the script, Whannell provided A$5,000 (US$5,000) to make a seven-minute short film based on the script's jaw trap scene, which they thought would prove most effective. Whannell played David, the man wearing the Reverse Bear Trap. Working at the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Whannell and Wan knew cameramen who were willing to provide technical assistance for the short, Wan shot the short with a 16mm camera in over two days and transferred the footage to DVDs to ship along with the script.
Jigsaw: [on audio tape] Rise and shine, Adam. You're probably wondering where you are. I'll tell you where you might be. You might be in the room that you die in. Up until now, you've simply sat in the shadows watching others live out their lives. But what do voyeurs see when they look into the mirror? Now I see you as a strange mix of someone angry, yet apathetic. But mostly just pathetic. So are you going to watch yourself die here today, Adam, or do something about it?
Adam: I don't get it.
Top: Meanwhile, Detectives David Tapp (Danny Glover) and Steven Sing (Ken Leung) hunt elusive serial killer (above) Jigsaw (Tobin Bell)
In early 2003, while in Los Angeles and before they met with producer Gregg Hoffman, Hoffman's friend pulled him into his office and showed him the short. Hoffman said, "About two or three minutes into it, my jaw hit the floor." Hoffman quickly showed the short and script to his partners Mark Burg and Oren Koules of Evolution Entertainment, who read the screenplay that night and two days later offered Wan and Whannell creative control and 25% of the net profits. Even though Wan and Whannell received "better offers" from studios like DreamWorks and Gold Circle Films, they were not willing to chance Wan's directing and Whannell acting in the lead role, and signed with the producing team's newly formed company Twisted Pictures. To finance Saw, Hoffman, Burg and Koules took out a second mortgage on their Los Angeles offices, and gave the production a budget of roughly $1.2 million. Wan himself took a gamble and took no "up front" salary for the movie and opted for a percentage instead.
While casting for Saw, Wan and Whannell fine-tuned their script, removing certain scenes to keep the bare essentials of the plot. One scene altered early was the scene where Gordon turns off the lights and whispers to Adam. Originally The characters were to cut open opposite ends of a long pipe with their hacksaws and speak through it, but was later cut because Wan decided that the characters being able to cut through a pipe made no sense if they couldn't cut through their chains - the scene was actually filmed later, and then cut again during editing. Also in the original script, the Zepp character was to do strange acts with Alison's underwear in her drawers, but Whannell cut it out as he thought it was a bit 'too far' and it was rewritten as the gun and the listening of the heartbeat.
Jigsaw: [on videotape] Hello Amanda. You don't know me, but I know you. I want to play a game. Here's what happens if you lose. The device you are wearing is hooked into your upper and lower jaw. When the timer in the back goes off, your mouth will be permanently ripped open. Think of it like a reverse bear trap. Here, I'll show you. There is only one key to open the device. It's in the stomach of your dead cellmate. Look around Amanda. Know that I'm not lying. Better hurry up. Live or die, make your choice.
Top: Gordon's wife, Alison (Monica Potter) is also held captive by Zepp (Michael Emerson);
Above: One of Jigsaw's earliest victims - Amanda Young (Shawnee Smith)
When casting agent Amy Lippens asked Wan who he wanted to play the character of Amanda, on a whim, Wan suggested actress Shawnee Smith, on whom he had had a crush since his teen years. He was surprised when Lippens came back a few days later and told him that they had secured her for the role (interestingly, Lippens also cast her ex-husband in the role of Mark, the man who burns himself alive). Even though Smith originally turned the role of Amanda down (calling the script "horrific."), the actress reconsidered after viewing Wan and Whannell's short film. Similarly, Cary Elwes was sent the short film on DVD and immediately became interested in the film. He read the script in one sitting and was drawn in by the "uniqueness and originality" of the story, and accepted the role of Dr Lawrence Gordon; to prepare for his role as an oncologist, he met with a doctor at UCLA's Department of Neurosurgery. On taking the role of Jigsaw, actor Tobin Bell said, "I did Saw because I thought it was a fascinating location for a film to be made. These guys locked in a room, to me, was fresh. I did not anticipate the ending when I read the script, so I was quite caught by surprise and it was clear to me that if the filmmakers shot the scene well, the audience would be caught by surprise as well. The film was worth doing for that moment alone." Veteran actor Danny Glover was cast late in development as David Tapp, giving the independent film some "star power", although due to budget limitations, the filmmakers needed to complete all of Glover's scenes in just two days.
Ken Leung as soon cast as Tapp's partner Detective Steven Sing, with Dina Meyer joining the cast in her first (of five!) appearance as Detective Allison Kerry. Monica Potter and Makenzie Vega were also cast as Gordon's wife and daughter, Alison and Diana, with Michael Emerson playing their captor, Zep Hindle. Producer Oren Koules even cameo-ed in Saw as Amanda's cellmate Donnie Greco (Koules would reprise the character in flashback sequences for Saw III and Saw IV, where it is revealed he was Amanda's drug dealer).
Above: To save his family, Gordon uses the saw to amputate his own foot!
After a 5-day pre-production schedule, Saw began principal photography on September 22, 2003, at Lacy Street Production Facility in Los Angeles with an estimated shooting budget of $700,000. Since most the sets were already standing (only needing set decoration and props), the bathroom set was the only one required to built. Due to the tight, 18-day shooting schedule, Wan could not afford to shoot more than a couple of takes per actor, with Danny Glover completing his scenes in two days, Monica Potter and Makenzie Vega shooting their scenes in three days, and Shawnee Smith requiring only one day of shooting on set. Producers Koules and Burg stated actress Shawnee Smith was battling a terrible case of the flu, complete with a fever of 104 degrees, while shooting her scenes. Regarding the schedule, Wan stated, "It was a really tough struggle for me. Every day, it was me fighting to get the shots I did not get. I had high aspirations, but there's only so much you can do. I wanted to make it in a very Hitchcockian style of filmmaking, but that style of filmmaking takes time to set up and so on...", adding the style became "more gritty and rough around the edges due to the lack of time and money that we had to shoot the movie with" and it ultimately became the aesthetic of the film.
The bathroom scenes were the last to filmed over a 6-day schedule, with Wan shooting the scenes in chronological order in order to make the actors feel more what the characters were going through. Cinematographer David A. Armstrong also used the camera movements to reflect the two main characters emotions and personality. He filmed Dr. Gordon with steady controlled shots and Adam as hand-held shots to capture their emotions of the situation. After a grueling production schedule, filming on Saw wrapped on October 11, 2003.
Wan and Whannell would later return for several re-shoots, but with the original actors now unavailable, Whannell played the parts himself. Wan the carefully used close-up shots of the characters' bodies, avoiding showing their faces. Whannell played Detective Sing (Ken Leung's character) entering the building with a shotgun, and the body of Sing falling down after being shot. Also, the close-up shots of Shawnee Smith's character's hands in her torture/murder scene were Whannell's, even wearing a wig to make his shadow on the wall appear more like Smith's! Later in post-production, James Wan discovered that he didn't have enough shots or takes to fill out most of his scenes. So he and editor Kevin Greutert created their own filler shots by doctoring some of them to make them look as if they were filmed through a surveillance camera. "We did a lot of things to fill in gaps throughout the film. Whatever we cut to newspaper clippings and stuff like that, or we cut to surveillance cameras, or we cut to still photography within the film, which now people say, 'Wow, that's such a cool experimental style of filmmaking', we really did that out of necessity to fill in gaps we did not get during the filming," he explained. Since then, this particular style would become the standard for the remaining films in the series.
Above: Leigh Whannell, Tobin Bell and Michael Emerson on set
Lionsgate picked up Saw's worldwide distribution rights at the Sundance Film Festival just days before the film premiered on January 19, 2004. There it played to a packed theater for three nights to a very positive reaction, and was later chosen as the closing film at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 18, 2004. Lionsgate had initially planned to release the film direct-to-video, but due to the positive reaction at Sundance, they chose to release it theatrically by Halloween instead, premiering on October 1, 2004 in the United Kingdom, October 29, 2004 in the United States and December 2, 2004 in Australia.
Critical reception to Saw was generally mixed on it's release. Empire's Kim Newman gave the film four out of five stars. He said Saw is styled like early David Fincher films and "boasts an intricate structure - complex flashbacks-within-flashbacks explain how the characters have come to this crisis - and a satisfying mystery to go with its ghastly claustrophobia." He ended his review saying, "As good an all-out, non-camp horror movie as we've had lately." Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly gave the film a B minus, calling it "derivative and messy and too nonsensical for its own good." He described Jigsaw's intent as "to show you the serial killer lurking inside yourself." Gleiberman criticized Elwes' performance by saying, "[Elwes] ought to be featured in a seminar on the perils of overacting." Daniel M. Kimmel of the Telegram & Gazette called it "one of the most loathsome films this critic has seen in more than 20 years on the job." Carina Chocano of the Los Angeles Times also gave the film a mixed review saying, "Saw is so full of twists it ends up getting snarled. For all of his flashy engineering and inventive torture scenarios, the Jigsaw Killer comes across as an amateur. Hannibal Lecter would have him for lunch." She said the film "carelessly underscores its own shaky narrative at every turn with its mid-budget hokiness." Despite reviews, Saw would gross an impressive $55 million at the US and Canadian box office, and with added foreign grosses, make a little over $100 million in theaters, making a Saw a certified hit for Wan and Whannell.
[last lines]
John: [voice over] Most people are so ungrateful to be alive, but not you, not any more...
[begins to close door]
John: GAME OVER!
Adam: Don't! Don't!
[screams, screen goes black]
Adam: NO!
[screams of anguish fade out]
Top: Debut director James Wan on set;
Above: Wan with Cary Elwes
The success of the film prompted a green-light of a sequel soon after Saw's opening weekend, although by then Wan and Whannell had moved on to other projects. Saw II would be released the following October with director Darren Lynn Bouseman, who would also go to direct Saw III (2006) and IV (2007). Saw-series production designer David Hackl would step up to direct Saw V (2008), with original Saw editor Kevin Greutert directing Saw VI (2009) and Saw 3D (2010). On October 31, 2014, in honor of the film's 10th anniversary, Saw was re-released to theaters for one week, but performed poorly at the box office, grossing less than $1 million. However, all the films in the Saw series have gained a cult following on DVD, and has also featured in numerous other media. The first video game in the series, Saw, set between first and second film in the series, was initially released on October 6, 2009, with a sequel Saw II: Flesh & Blood, released on October 19, 2010 for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, ten days before the release of the seventh film, Saw 3D. Saw has also been featured in the graphic novel Saw: Rebirth, a comic book prequel to the original film released to promote Saw II.
Thorpe Park in Surrey, England opened "Saw: The Ride" a Gerstlauer Euro-Fighter roller coaster themed around the franchise, which opened on March 13, 2009. It features an enclosed dark ride section with special effects, before cars travel outside and are pulled up a 100-foot vertical lift hill into a steep 100-degree drop. Thorpe park also opened a temporary Saw attraction called "Saw — Movie Bites" for their 2009 Fright Nights event, while Universal Studios made a Saw-themed horror maze for their 2009 Halloween Horror Nights, based on characters, traps and scenes from the films (at the Universal Studios Hollywood rendition of Horror Nights it was titled Saw: Game Over, while at the Universal Studios Florida rendition, it was simply titled Saw).
While the films are often compared to others in the genre (Seven and Hostel for example) and classified as torture porn by critics, the creators of Saw disagree with the term "torture porn", with Whannell stating, "I guess the term 'torture-porn' doesn't affect me one way or the other. I don't love the term, nor do I really hate it. For me, it's kind of hard to have any bad feelings about the term, because I guess torture-porn has given me a lot of good things, like being able to work in the film industry and work as a screenwriter. I guess I'm just thankful to be part of a film that made it, and anything after that is just a champagne problem". Wan himself stated to the South China Morning Post while promoting The Conjuring 2 that, “I think when people go back and watch the first Saw film, they’re actually shocked at how tame it was. It really is the sequels that give the impression of a more violent movie – and I did not direct any of the Saw sequels at all. It wasn’t just the blood and guts that attracted me to the first film; it was more the suspense, the crafting of the tension sequences – those were the things that I was most keen on. And now, with my body of work, people can make their assessment.”
ROTTEN TOMATOES SCORE: 48%
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