I thought it was creepy, scary, and shocking in some moments. However, I was in a theater full of disruptive asses who talked and laughed throughout the movie, so much so that we couldn’t hear the dialogue in certain parts. It was hard to get the suspenseful momentum going with this going on. I was very upset that I paid $18 for two tickets to sit there amongst a bunch of rude people who obviously have no sense of how to behave in a movie theater. I’m calling to complain today.
What theater did you go to? I’ve yet to find one in this fair city where movie patrons know how to behave.
Are you in Indy? This was the Glendale Mall theater. The only decent theaters I know of in town are Castleton Arts and Key Cinemas. I’ve gotten irritated at all the mainstream ones.
Yup. I usually catch movies at Eagle Creek, but the people there are horrible. Castleton Arts *is * great, but I never get a chance to get down to Key - which is a shame, since they always have such great movies playing.
What was the deal with Adam, anyway?
[spoiler]As the madman tells Adam, the key was in the tub, and has since been sucked down the drain. Does he tell Adam that because there is still a chance of escape? Can he really find the key somewhere in the pipes in the dark…and how?
Or does the fact that the killer says “Game Over” and shuts the door mean that Adam has lost the game and is going to die slowly? And how was Adam supposed to win, anyway? His only role in this challenge was to get killed. Since he survived, shouldn’t he be set free per the killer’s motive to make people appreciate life? [/spoiler]
He was the character I liked most, and unfortunately I had laughing people during the last few minutes, so I couldn’t hear some of the dialogue and the ending lost a lot of its impact. 
Yeah, I don’t get what all the laughing was about. To me, there was very little that was funny about the movie. Maybe a couple of moments of absurdity, but overall I didn’t find it nearly as funny as the theater full off asses I saw it with.
I suppose I’m an ass too because even though I rarely laughed out loud, I found most of the really dramatic moments at the end to be absurd to the point of hilarity.
I think it says something about the movie that a lot of people here seem to have seen it at a theater where people LAUGHED during supposedly serious parts. I don’t think it’s that the theater was full of asses but that the movie really was that ridiculous.
Not asses because they laughed, asses because they talked throughout the movie at full volume, at times making it difficult to hear what was going on in the movie. The laughter was weird, but if that’s your reaction you’re entitled to it.
And the shouting, “Go Danny, come on…” and yelling at other various characters also played into the general rudeness of the crowd, not to mention the women behind me smacking and popping their gum throughout.
Ahh, in that case… asses indeed.
Yes, at the theater where I saw it (NYC) the entire audience was laughing at the end. Not because it was funny, but because it was so damn stupid and over the top and illogical that it was ridiculously absurd and the only thing one could do was laugh at how horrible the ending was.
Which was pretty sad, because it could have been a great movie, if the writers actually had a plan of where they wanted to go with it, instead of just throwing out a random mish-mosh of “cool looking” scenes. (And enough with the high-speed camera freak-outs. It was cool the first time, stupid and pointless the next several times it was used!) This is one of those films that makes absolutely no sense whatsoever once you actually try to think about what just happened.
I really wanted to like this one. I loved the trailer and saw the film opening night. I had read reviews that compared it to one of my favorite films, Se7en. Please, do not compare this to Se7en! It is insulting to the film to compare Se7en to this pointless rip off!
The one positive thing about the film, I was so glad to see Michael Emerson getting a big part in a well-known film! Not that anyone else in the audience knew who he was (which is also why I knew he was the bad guy the second I saw his face), but I had seen him on Broadway several years back and he really is a wonderful actor and a really sweet guy. Here’s hoping he continues, but this movie does not.
I enjoyed the film. It was the first ‘horror’ film in a long time to actually make me look away at parts.
But I along with everyone else it seems, am left with the question - “They didn’t see the ‘dead’ guy BREATHING?”
Another question I had was, so they were told that all the blood on the floor is full of the poison that was (supposedly) in the ‘dead’ guy. And that it’s so lethal a small drop can kill you, as evidenced by the cigarettes with which the note is understood to mean that Dr. Gordon can kill Adam by putting blood on the cigarette for him to then smoke. (Yes, I know that they fake it in the film and don’t smoke the bloody one.) But, the “dead” guy has been laying in a faceful of the stuff the whole time! Which means the blood couldn’t be poisonous. So what was the whole point of the cigarettes if they wouldn’t have even worked if he did smoke the bloody one?!
That’s what I mean by interesting scenes that add up to nothing and totally fall apart when thought through.
And sawing through his foot instead of using the blade to reach the phone…? That’s when the film reached rock bottom for me.
I just didn’t get what the “lesson” was. They set it up so that in the backstory each victim was being taught a lesson by being punished for taking life for granted - the healthy, well off guy who tried to commit suicide, etc.
But in this case - who’s being taught what? The doctor? He’s being taught a lesson for… telling patients they had to die? (it was mentioned specifically) Or because he was going to cheat on his wife? In either case, what the hell does killing a guy have to do with either of those, as a way to appreciate life?
And the camera guy - how was he taking life for granted? What was he supposed to learn by… being killed? Or was he just a random victim?
They made it somewhat coherent and interesting by making the previous victims guilty of taking life for granted and being punished by this guy - but then nothing from that backstory seems to apply in this case, making the whole backstory aspect pointless.
I saw this movie today, and i really enjoyed it, despite the fact that i agree with many of the points made here about plot holes and unexplained motivations.
All i want to add is that i was pretty amazed at the guy in front of me, who had his ten-year-old son with him in the movie. I’m not one of those people who thinks that children should be kept in a cocoon until they’re 18, but i’m really not sure that “Saw” was appropriate viewing for someone so young.
Am i turning into a fuddy-duddy?
If you are, then so am I. ‘Saw’ is not appropriate for a 10 year old.
I haven’t seen a movie this “creepy” in awhile. The suspense was nicely built in several parts and that damn clown was creepier than any movie “monster”.
Sadly, Cary Elwes gave the worst performance I’ve ever seen in a major motion picture. He blew Sofia Coppolla’s Godfather III performance right out of the water. It was first distracting, then cringeworthy, then just downright hilarious.
The movie was also full of more plot holes than probably any other wide-release movie I’ve ever seen. A lot of them have been mentioned here but the list is nowhere near exhaustive yet.
If the madman had a gun in one hand and a tape recorder in the other, how was he shocking them?
In what kind of building would you find a room with: a bathtub, a toilet, two urinals, two two-way mirrors, exposed plumbing, and a huge, unevenly graded sliding door?
How did the madman get up and walk away from the shotgun blast to the back?
Pretty sure the orderly he kidnapped/threatened who was watching the cameras was the one administering the shocks as he was instructed.