Saw

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.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer Sean Axmaker

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.

Empire Kim Newman

As good an all-out, non-camp horror movie as we’ve had lately.

Chicago Tribune Robert K. Elder

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.

ReelViews James Berardinelli

Saw is for hard-gore horror aficionados only.

San Francisco Chronicle Carla Meyer

The slasher scenes, though relatively few, are amazingly evocative for such a low-budget movie.

Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt

Horror fans will find plenty to shriek about. Everyone else should keep their distance.

Slate David Edelstein

Less a classical narrative than an ingenious machine for inducing terror, rage, and paralyzing unease.

The Hollywood Reporter Frank Scheck

Boasts an undeniably original premise and clever plot machinations that lift it several notches above the usual slasher film level.

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

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.

Dallas Observer Luke Y. Thompson

It's brutal horror, where anyone can die at any time, and gorehounds will love it. Average folks may find it too intense.

The New York Times Stephen Holden

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.

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.

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.

Boston Globe Wesley Morris

As long as Saw stays in that big, nasty bathroom, all we need to believe is the knot in our stomachs.

Premiere Aaron Hillis

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.

TV Guide Maitland McDonagh

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.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

An efficiently made thriller, cheerfully gruesome, and finally not quite worth the ordeal it puts us through.

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

It's gross as hell.

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.

Village Voice Mark Holcomb

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.

LA Weekly Kim Morgan

A story that's so ridiculous you'll at least be entertained by the outrageous plot contortions to come.

USA Today Mike Clark

Becomes exceedingly disgusting when it wallows in the psychological torture of a child, a no-no under any circumstances.

Portland Oregonian M. E. Russell

What makes Saw so awful is that it starts with a clever premise and then completely blows it.

Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov

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.

Washington Post Desson Thomson

But humans who live above ground, including horror fans, will find themselves only fitfully entertained and more consistently appalled.

Variety Dennis Harvey

A crude concoction sewn together from the severed parts of prior horror/serial killer pics.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Scott Tobias

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.

Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez

Where "Seven" seemed to radiate diabolical evil, Saw just radiates idiocy.

New York Daily News Jami Bernard

A gore movie with no teeth.

New York Post V.A. Musetto

Promoted as "the year's scariest movie," it's anything but.

Chicago Reader J.R. Jones

Sicko horror film from Australia, whose sadism is topped only by its absurdity.