# Why Saw is Dumb (Open Spoilers) **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [October 17, 2009, 2:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-saw-is-dumb-open-spoilers/514138 "2009-10-17T14:02:43Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![handsomeharry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e9c0ed/32.png) [@handsomeharry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handsomeharry)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2009, 3:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-saw-is-dumb-open-spoilers/514138/41 "2009-10-20T03:40:03Z")
> [@cricetus](#): > > So I finally saw Saw and while it was an effective enough slasher-type film, the more I think about it the more stupid I realize it is. I don’t go into any movie looking for loop holes but some stuff is just too stupid to ignore. > > And in many ways it is a smartly made movie, but it’s also completely stupid. And here’s why. Completely spoiled – stop now if you haven’t seen it and ever plan to. > > 1. OK, John the actual bad guy and the doctor and Zep are all in the hospital room when the doctor is called away to go talk to the police about the Jigsaw killer’s latest (lucky) victim, Girl With Thing on Head. They even flash to that scene at the end when John is revealed as the real Jigsaw killer. OK, so how is he supposed to be doing these elaborate games while he’s dying of cancer? Even if he’s that badass, he can’t be in two places at once. > > 2. That scene also suggests the doctor saves his life. Some gratitude. He saved you from extremely invasive cancer. “Yes, but he called me ‘the patient’ instead of ‘John’. I have a name!'” Wow. Petty. > > 3. You know, there really aren’t that many ways to knock people out cold/solid enough to drag them somewhere and put them into an elaborate trap, then have them wake up instantly completely alert enough to understand that they’re in some weird-ass game and able to function well enough to play. > > 4. Nor are there all these “slow acting poisons” that kill anyone in a precise amount of time but leave them able to function mentally and physically right up until the final tick. > > 5. Adam wakes up in a bath tub, and John is on the floor on a pool of blood with some kind of dead guy suit. Explain how he managed that. Submerged the young man, then in a split second before Adam wakes up towels off, arranges himself in the dead guy suit on the floor… > > 6. And seriously, nobody noticed him breathing at all? Not even a little? > > 7. Since when do the police say, “OK, suspect with a solid alibi. We want you to stick around and watch this witness testimony.” Is that even legal? > > 8. For that matter, why does the Danny Glover character obsess on the doctor as a suspect even though he had an alibi? “Ooh, but we found a PEN at the scene of the crime! Nobody ever makes off with pens from doctors offices. No sir.” > > 9. Because it also makes perfect sense to suspect him. Doctors have so much free time to arrange elaborate murder games for strangers for no reason. > > 10. John couldn’t really know that Adam would lose the key down the drain right off the bat. Maybe Adam just gets out of the tub, finds the key, let’s himself go, and wanders off to get the police. “The key to that one is in the tub!” is a great last line of the movie, no doubt about it, but it seems like a lot to risk the entire game on. > > Just some of the reasons it’s dumb… and I didn’t even mention the character of Zep. I think all of your objections are really a bit nitpicky. For a horror/drama, this one was no worse than many others, and in many ways, was quite superior. I can’t remember enough to comment too much about it, but the list above is not at all fair in trying to dissect this kind of movie. Cops, being people like the rest of us, do dumb things, doctors DO have free time, there are enough poisons/nerve agents out there with which most people are so unfamiliar that it isn’t too taxing to believe such stuff. If somebody had told me what a buzz I would get when I went into my surgery, I wouldn’t have believed them, so I can venture that many doctors can tell us some things about drugs that would make the plot within, if just barely, the suspended disbelief range. btw, it is really unfair to attack the waking at the same time thing. If you want to have that kind of reality in it, you’d need about a 5 hour movie. The alleged stiff on the floor difficulty would not even enter into discussion. If you were locked in a room with a body on the floor and a pool of blood by a guy’s head, and a bad smell in the room, and I can’t remember the rest, nobody would look at him after their initial discovery. What else would there be to look for? Green? Flies? Rigor mortis? No, you are being hypercritical, and doing an injustice to a good horror movie. Saw II, now, that bit big time!! Haven’t seen the other 28 Saws. hh [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-saw-is-dumb-open-spoilers/514138.md?page=2)