While the Saw series may be marketed or referenced as 'Torture Porn', the original manages to escape that label from me at least. While it is definitely a horror film, with some extreme gore and scenes, the plot is actually quite intriguing and won't be spoilt here.Overall, while Saw does indeed include gore and violence, look past that and see a genuinely interesting mystery and thriller.

Believe it or not, this one is actually a psychological thriller and not just torture porn.

James Wan has proved himself to be one of the best horror directors out there with The Conjuring and The Conjuring 2. But his first feature film, Saw, is almost always overlooked. I think the reason for this is that people hear the title and automatically assume that it is a grotesquely violent movie like its sequels. But this one avoids using too much violence and leaves quite a bit up to the imagination. It's a really well-thought-out, exciting, and intelligent movie. In fact, I'd even go as far as to say that this is one of the greatest low-budget horror films of all time. Look, there's no denying that the Saw sequels are bad movies. I'd actually be shocked if the new sequel Jigsaw, which is the eighth movie in the franchise, was legitimately good. The sequels may be incredibly entertaining as fun, gross-out Halloween guilty pleasure films, but the writing and acting are generally both terrible in each sequel. But this one is so far beyond a mindless guilty pleasure movie.Saw's story is absolutely awesome. The movie unravels the Jigsaw killer's motivations without beating the audience over the head with them or making them too obvious. The idea of a serial killer doing horrible things based on what they believe is right has been a terrifying story element in many previous movies. Saw, despite clearly homaging classic thriller movies like Seven, still feels like an extremely unique and clever vision that stands on its own. The fact that Jigsaw makes victims hurt themselves or others may be an even more terrifying prospect than him just doing it himself. The traps that Jigsaw sets for his victims are truly terrifying, but it's not because of an excessive amount of gore. There is some violence, of course, but it is often shown off-screen or isn't shown up close. That is something that the Saw sequels did that made them feel like they were just trying to gross out the audience rather than having them be engaged in the story. The scene involving Amanda is truly one of the best scenes in the history of horror because of how psychologically disturbing it is. Would you be willing to kill an innocent person to save your own life? Saw makes you ask questions like this that will make your stomach churn. I also have to mention Billy the Puppet, who is, in my opinion, the greatest horror movie puppet ever put to screen. The way he seemingly operates by himself makes him feel alive despite the fact that the viewer knows that it's just a puppet. The design of Billy has become incredibly iconic and, whenever he is in a scene in this movie, he adds a lot to the atmosphere. Seeing the main characters, Adam and Dr. Gordon, trying to figure out how to escape their trap is incredibly thrilling as well. But it's not just because it's well directed and involves creepy and disturbing tasks; the characters have a ton of personality and are actually quite deep. Upon rewatch, I realized how little I appreciated the character writing in this film during previous viewings. Also, the twist at the end of this movie is still one of the great movie twists of all time. If you've never seen the movie before, you will be caught completely off-guard.The movie's not perfect, though. Some of the line delivery is bad on occasion and I feel like overall the acting left a bit to be desired. Don't get me wrong; there's a lot of good acting in this movie. But I feel like having truly excellent performances could have elevated this movie to yet another level. Also, I would have liked the storyline involving Detective Tapp, played by Donald Glover, to have been stronger. It was entertaining, but it felt like the most cliché element of this movie and they could have gone a little deeper with that. Overall, Saw is a must-watch around Halloween time. It is one of the best horror films ever made and I highly suggest that you check it out if you've never seen it before. It's an extremely riveting ride from start to finish. 8/10 Grade: A-

Man, this movie. Now I see a-lot of Horror Movies in my time but never that brutally sick and twisted like this one. Basically a new serial killer is in town, but is unique than any others as he set traps for his victims, in which ain't like any other as they usually uses a weapon like a knife or a gun. The killer was dubbed as "Jigsaw" as according to the video tapes he left behind with a dummy he voiced in order to hide his identity, may have a connection to these people he kills because he seemly knows a-lot about them as they goes from Drug Addicts to Pathological Liars to Those who attempted Suicide, and his games that he have them plays are kinda like puzzles, and if they figured it out, not only their allowed to make it out alive (Which unfortunately is a rare chance), but also learns about their mistakes in life and shelled changed their ways of living. Meanwhile, a Ruthless Doctor is suspected to this "Jigsaw" individual because his applys was found at one of the crime scenes. But it turned out he Innocent like he proved to be, as he was soon kidnapped by the killer himself to become another of his victims and plays another of his deadly games, and if he fails, his family shall be killed, alongside with him is another individual who is also kidnapped and his purpose is somehow connected to the doctor's case, and the Doctor have to killed him to shows his realization of his Cruelty especially what he learns about him.The movie got ton of great acting in it, I absolutely loves the interaction between both the doctor and the other person in the room which is primarily of the film takes placed in, it started kinda funny at the beginning, and gets really twisted to watch as it drags. The doctor was good as the actor did good playing such a jerk of a doctor who deserves to play the game by Jigsaw especially what Jigsaw turned-out to be in the end, with his Identity is revealed at the end. As it makes total sense for his abduction to exist not because he was accused of his killings but because he's quite cruel at his job. The other individual was at times amusing to watch, such loves his sarcastic talk at the beginning of the film as he answering the Doctor's question of his identity, just wow. Danny Glover plays in this film as a detective who is working on the Jigsaw's case, he was alright here not much to say about him, except for two scenes in which are good-old Cop actions my favorite is close by the end of the movie in which he was fighting against who thought is the actual killer. The trap scenes are brutal to watch especially the infamous Amanda Young's scene in which quite shocking to see with her digging though that one dude's body, just glory as it's gorgeous. One last thing to say about this movie is the ending which is like awesome, now I figured there would be a Twist after-all but still it nice to viewed, and the theme song is something I'll not forget, it awesome to hear, and I'm glad I have it on my Cellphone.Over-all, I still don't think I could give this movie a score like 10, because I think this is not the best horror movie yet, but I give this movie a good score still like 8. Check this out if you want to see a movie that have good Brutalities and such interesting characters, or not if you're too sensitive to this type of movie, make your choice.