Saw Seen

While the family is away, I am catching up on some non-family-friendly movie viewing.

Saw was the Netflix delivery for Friday night.

This is the review I submitted to Netflix:

Unlike a lot of the crop of horror movies released of late, Saw harkens back to the old days of Horror movies that were not slasher films.

Don't get me wrong, this movie contains plenty of disturbing imagery. It fits squarely in the "horror" genre, not "suspense".

Having said that, the reason I liked the film is that it is more a study of people than of ways that people die, like a lot of new horror. Instead of the focus being on how many gallons of blood the director can use per scene, we're instead forced to consider the ugly questions of what a person would be willing to do to save themselves or their families.

Would you kill a stranger to save your own life?

Ultimately, Saw is a movie not about dying, but instead about what we would do to live. And unfortunately, the glimpse that it provides into the choices that some people make is the truly terrifying aspect of this movie.

To expand a little: lately, when I watch a horror movie (The Descent being the other recent entry) what I find myself being horrified by is probably not what a majority of moviegoers find scary (since the majority of the audience of these films is that prized 18-24 demographic, from what I hear): to wit, the loss of one's family.

The final scene of the opening sequence of The Descent in which the protagonist loses her family in a flash, scared me more than the claustrophobic cave-ins did later on in the film. And the same for Saw. The idea of someone sneaking into your home and terrorizing your children while you're not their is much more frightening to me than being chained to a pole in a subterranean bathroom.

Not easy watching. But if you're looking for something scary to watch, I can recommend these two movies.