| 90 |
Film Threat
Heidi Martinuzzi
May be the best independent horror film to have come out since "The Blair Witch Project." It's certainly better than "Blair Witch", and more fun, more gruesome, and more macabre. In a very delightful way.
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| 83 |
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
The filmmakers piece it together with almost clockwork perfection and deliver it with masterful misdirection, creating the most ingenious, eccentric and brazenly jaundiced psycho-thriller to come along in years.
|
| 80 |
Empire
As good an all-out, non-camp horror movie as we’ve had lately.
|
| 75 |
Chicago Tribune
Wan's tense, grisly cinematic morsel won't go down easy. But once it hits bottom, Saw is oddly satisfying, though the gag reflex never entirely goes away.
|
| 75 |
ReelViews
Saw is for hard-gore horror aficionados only.
|
| 75 |
San Francisco Chronicle
The slasher scenes, though relatively few, are amazingly evocative for such a low-budget movie.
|
| 75 |
Christian Science Monitor
Horror fans will find plenty to shriek about. Everyone else should keep their distance.
|
| 70 |
Slate
Less a classical narrative than an ingenious machine for inducing terror, rage, and paralyzing unease.
|
| 70 |
The Hollywood Reporter
Boasts an undeniably original premise and clever plot machinations that lift it several notches above the usual slasher film level.
|
| 67 |
Entertainment Weekly
Saw is a gristle-cut B psycho thriller that would like to tap the sickest corners of your imagination. It has a few moments of nightmare creepiness, but it's also derivative and messy and too nonsensical for its own good.
|
| 60 |
Dallas Observer
It's brutal horror, where anyone can die at any time, and gorehounds will love it. Average folks may find it too intense.
|
| 60 |
The New York Times
Does a better-than-average job of conveying the panic and helplessness of men terrorized by a sadist in a degrading environment, but it is still not especially scary.
|
| 60 |
Los Angeles Times
Carina Chocano
Saw is so full of twists it ends up getting snarled. For all of his flashy engineering and inventive torture scenarios, the Jigsaw Killer comes across as an amateur. Hannibal Lecter would have him for lunch.
|
| 50 |
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
Leah McLaren
Let's just say this: It's a lucky thing I wasn't shackled to my seat in the theatre during this movie. I'd be limping home.
|
| 50 |
Boston Globe
As long as Saw stays in that big, nasty bathroom, all we need to believe is the knot in our stomachs.
|
| 50 |
Premiere
Spoiled by its own insatiable desire for envelope-pushing flair; it’s wider-scoped when it should be intimate, splashy instead of subtle, icky but not scary.
|
| 50 |
TV Guide
Wan's debut feature is a twisted, squirm-inducingly nasty bit of work, which isn't a criticism because that's exactly what he and cowriter Leigh Whannell had in mind.
|
| 50 |
Chicago Sun-Times
An efficiently made thriller, cheerfully gruesome, and finally not quite worth the ordeal it puts us through.
|
| 50 |
Rolling Stone
It's gross as hell.
|
| 50 |
Philadelphia Inquirer
David Hiltbrand
The film is a squeamish exercise, like watching a cruel child pull the wings off flies - especially the climactic scene, which is so gory it would turn a coyote's stomach.
|
| 50 |
Village Voice
With its toilet-bobbing and blood spurting and Elwes's fey, Vincent Price–like mugging, Saw succeeds in capturing something like Takashi Miike by way of William Castle. Happy Halloween, indeed.
|
| 40 |
LA Weekly
Kim Morgan
A story that's so ridiculous you'll at least be entertained by the outrageous plot contortions to come.
|
| 38 |
USA Today
Becomes exceedingly disgusting when it wallows in the psychological torture of a child, a no-no under any circumstances.
|
| 33 |
Portland Oregonian
M. E. Russell
What makes Saw so awful is that it starts with a clever premise and then completely blows it.
|
| 30 |
Austin Chronicle
Saw has its moments, and most of them are brutal in the extreme, but ultimately it's one tremendous misfire that will either leave you laughing or, possibly, gagging. Not what I'd call a winning combination.
|
| 30 |
Washington Post
But humans who live above ground, including horror fans, will find themselves only fitfully entertained and more consistently appalled.
|
| 30 |
Variety
A crude concoction sewn together from the severed parts of prior horror/serial killer pics.
|
| 30 |
The Onion (A.V. Club)
Though dumber than a box of rocks, Saw forges ahead with the kind of conviction and energy that will keep bad-cinema junkies sitting bolt upright.
|
| 25 |
Miami Herald
Where "Seven" seemed to radiate diabolical evil, Saw just radiates idiocy.
|
| 25 |
New York Daily News
A gore movie with no teeth.
|
| 25 |
New York Post
Promoted as "the year's scariest movie," it's anything but.
|
| 20 |
Chicago Reader
Sicko horror film from Australia, whose sadism is topped only by its absurdity.
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