Saw

Saw is a 2000 American horror film directed by Danny Boyle, and written by Damian Shannon, Mark Swift and Alex Garland from a story by Paul W.S. Anderson and Rob Zombie. It is the first installment in the Saw film series, and stars Jared Leto alongside Aaron Eckhart, Richard Roundtree, Heather Graham, Bruce Willis, and Tobey Maguire.

The film tells a nonlinear narrative revolving around the mystery of the Jigsaw Killer, who tests his victims' will to live by putting them through deadly "games" where they must inflict great physical pain upon themselves to survive. The frame story follows Jigsaw's latest victims (Leto and Eckhart), who awaken in a large, dilapidated bathroom, with one being ordered to kill the other to save his own family.

The screenplay was written by Shannon, Swift and Garland, who created the story by Anderson and Zombie in their respective screenwriting debuts. The film was originally written in 1996, but after failed attempts to get the script produced in Scott Griffin and Darren Aronofsky's home country of United States, they were urged to travel to Los Angeles. In order to help attract producers, they shot a low-budget short film of the same name from a scene out of the script. This proved successful in 1999 as producers from Silver Pictures were immediately attached and also formed a horror genre production label, Dark Castle Entertainment. The film was given a small production budget and was shot in 18 days.

Saw was first screened on January 28, 2000, at the 2000 Sundance Film Festival. Due to an overwhelmingly positive audience reception, Fox picked up the distribution rights for the film. Originally planned for a straight-to-video release, they decided to instead release the film theatrically in North America on October 27, 2000. After a massive opening weekend box office, the film would go on to gross $103.9 million worldwide to become one of the most profitable horror films since Scream (1993). A sequel, titled Saw II, released the following year, and a direct sequel, titled Saw X, released in 2018.

The film received generally mixed reviews from critics who commended the plot, but criticized the nihilist undertone. It was theatrically re-released to select theaters, on October 22, 2010, for its tenth anniversary. The success of Saw launched a media franchise, including several films, video games, theme park rides, and merchandising.

Plot
A photographer named Andy awakens in a dilapidated bathtub, with his ankle chained to a pipe. Across the room is oncologist Dr. Lucas Gardner, also chained. Between them is the body of an apparent suicide victim holding a revolver and a microcassette recorder. Both men find a tape in their pockets, and Andy retrieves the recorder. Andy's tape urges him to survive, while Gardner's tape orders him to kill Andy by 6 o'clock, or his wife April and daughter Damian will be killed. Andy finds a bag containing two hacksaws inside the toilet. Both men try to saw through their chains, but Andy's saw breaks. Gardner realizes that the saws are not intended for the chains, but to cut off their feet, and identifies their captor as the Jigsaw Killer, a serial killer testing his victims' will to survive through lethal traps referred to as "games," whom Gardner knows about because he was once a suspect.

Five months prior, Gardner, while discussing the terminal brain cancer of patient Gabriel Agreste, was interrogated by Detectives Daniel Thomas and Samuel Smith, who found his penlight at the scene of one of Jigsaw's games. Gordon's alibi cleared him, but he agreed to view the testimony of heroin addict Emma Yearwood, the only known survivor of one of Jigsaw's traps, who had been forced to kill and disembowel a man to obtain a key to free herself from a reverse beartrap strapped to her face. Thomas and Smith later found Jigsaw's warehouse using the videotape from Emma's game. There, they apprehended Jigsaw and saved a man from a trap, but Jigsaw injured Thomas and escaped. Smith pursued Jigsaw down a hallway, but in doing so accidentally triggered a shotgun trap which killed him.

In the present, April and Damian are held captive at their apartment as their captor watches Andy and Gardner through a hidden camera. The house is simultaneously watched by Thomas who, after being discharged from the police following Smith's death, has become obsessed with the Jigsaw case, and remains convinced that Gardner is the killer. Meanwhile, Gardner finds a box containing two cigarettes, a lighter, and a one-way cellphone. He recounts his abduction in a parking garage by a rat-masked figure. Andy recalls his own abduction when he returned home to find a dark figure in his darkroom, where he stored photos of Gardner.

April, held at gunpoint, calls her husband and warns him not to believe Andy. Andy admits to Gardner that he was paid by Thomas to spy on him, and reveals his knowledge of Gardner's affair with one of his medical students whom he had visited the night he was abducted; Gardner deduces that the affair is the reason why he is being tested. Andy finds a photo of April and Damian's captor whom Gardner identifies as Zack Hancock, a hospital orderly.

At 6 o'clock, Zack, seeing that Gardner has still not killed Andy, moves to murder April and Damian, but April frees herself and fights him. The struggle attracts Thomas' attention, and he saves April and Damian before chasing Zack to the sewers, where he is shot in the chest after a brief fight. Gardner, only aware of the gunshots and screaming, is shocked and loses reach of the cell phone. In desperation, he saws off his foot and shoots Andy with the corpse's revolver. Zack enters the bathroom to kill Gardner but Andy, having survived the gunshot, bludgeons him to death with a toilet tank lid. Gardner crawls out of the bathroom to find help while Andy searches Zack's body for a key. He finds another tape, which reveals that Zack was just another victim of Jigsaw, following rules to obtain an antidote for a slow-acting poison in his body.

The corpse in the room rises; it turns out to be Gabriel Agreste, who is the real Jigsaw Killer. Gabriel tells Andy that the key to his chain was in the bathtub; it went down the drain when Andy had first awoken and drained the water. Andy attempts to shoot Gabriel with Zack's gun, but Gabriel electrically shocks him through his chain. As he exits the bathroom, Gabriel says "Game over" before sealing the door, leaving Andy to die.

Cast
Further information: List of Saw characters


 * Jared Leto as Andy
 * Aaron Eckhart as Dr. Lucas Gardner
 * Richard Roundtree as Detective Daniel Thomas
 * Tobey Maguire as Detective Samuel Smith
 * Sandra Bullock as King
 * Wayne Knight as Patrick
 * Greg Kinnear as Mike
 * Bruce Willis as Zack Hancock
 * Edward Norton as Brian
 * Emma Yearwood as Emma
 * Britt Robertson as Damian Gardner
 * Heather Graham as April Gardner
 * Tony Shalhoub as Jack
 * Mari Iijima as Caroline
 * Willem Dafoe as Jigsaw
 * Kiefer Sutherland as Mephiles the Dark

Release
Fox Searchlight Pictures picked up Saw 's worldwide distribution rights at the 2000 Sundance Film Festival days before the film premiered on January 28, 2000. There it played to a packed theater for three midnight showings to a positive reaction. It was the closing film at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 22, 2000. 20th Century Fox 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. It was released on October 28, 2000 in the United Kingdom, October 27, 2000 in the United States and December 2, 2000 in Australia. The film was originally rated NC-17 (No children under 17 permitted) by the Motion Picture Association of America for strong graphic violence, though after being re-edited, it was released with an R rating.

20th Century Fox held a blood drive for the Red Cross called "Give Til It Hurts" and collected 4,249 pints of blood.

Soundtrack
Saw 's soundtrack was mainly composed by Clint Mansell and John Murphy, and took six weeks to complete. Other songs were performed by Front Line Assembly, Fear Factory, Enemy, Pitbull Daycare and Psychopomps. Megadeth's song "Die Dead Enough" was originally set to be featured in the film but was not used for undisclosed reasons.

The soundtrack was released on October 13, 2000 by Fox Records. Johnny Loftus of AllMusic gave it three out of five stars. He said that Murphy and Mansell "really nails it with his creaky, clammy score" and that he "understands that Saw 's horror only works with a heady amount of camp, and he draws from industrial music in the same way". He particularly liked, "Cigarette"; "Hello, Andy"; and "Fuck This Shit", commenting that they "blend chilling sounds with harsh percussion and deep-wound keyboard stabs".

Home media
The theatrical version of the film was released on VHS and DVD on February 13, 2001 in the United States and Canada. After its first week, it made $49.4 million in DVD rentals and $21.7 million in VHS rentals, making it the top rental of the week. For the second week it remained as the number one DVD rental with $56.8 million, for a $36.27 million two-week total. It dropped to third place in VHS rentals with $5.09 million, for a $6.83 million two-week total. The film went on to sell more than $280 million worth of video and DVDs. A two-disc "Uncut Edition" was released on October 16, 2001 to tie in with the release of Saw II. The short film, also entitled Saw, was included on the DVD.

The film was later released on Blu-ray on June 20, 2006. On May 19, 2020, Saw was released on Ultra HD Blu-ray with a new 2160p transfer and a new 58 minute making-of documentary.