With the tenth installment in the series just released, I figured it would be time to take a look at where it all started. It’s a horror series I have avoided for years. Is there anything in this first installment worth watching? Meh, kind of.

I think most people are familiar with the Saw franchise. If they aren’t familiar with the specifics, they at least know that it is a nasty series about people getting tortured in the most elaborate ways possible.

Well, this series actually started as a short film directed by film student James Wan and written by his friend Leigh Whannell. They eventually secured funding for a feature adaptation. They expanded their small story into feature length and made it about two men who wake up chained by their feet to pipes in the dirtiest bathroom ever put on film. The two men are Lawrence, played by Cary Elwes, and Adam, played by screenwriter Leigh Whannell. They try to piece together the events that lead to them waking up in this room. They have been placed here by a serial killer known as Jigsaw who wants to teach them a lesson.

What works here? Cary Elwes works. He’s really good here. In flashbacks to his regular life, he’s a smarmy ass who is obsessed with his work and ignores his family. He can’t even be bothered to check his daughters closet when she gets scared at night. When he’s trapped and panicking, he’s great. He brings tension and authenticity and vulnerability to these scenes.

Some of the camera work, and I emphasize some, is really smart and covers well for the films tiny budget. Some innovative movements and editing create intensity when the film desperately needs it. The lighting too really build atmosphere.

The best part of the film is the way it leaves most of the gruesomeness to the imagination. We don’t see the man killed by razor wire just the aftermath. We don’t see the man get cut open, we see the aftermath and the woman’s reaction. We don’t see the man saw his own foot off. It cuts away and keeps the tension high. That’s the best decision the filmmakers made.

What doesn’t work? Everything else. The rest of the movie is dumb mess. The subtle camera work is good, but for the most part the camera work is really stupid. The camera whips around, and swings and slides chaotically and stupidly. There are so many moments where you can tell a kid was given free-range to do whatever he wanted with the camera and just shot willy nilly. The camera spins around a character with such frantic reckless abandon it just distracting and dumb.

There are moments in the editing where the cutting gets disorientingly fast and absurd. It feels almost like a parody of itself by the end.It’s clear that this is a first feature. Everybody is trying to show off as much as possible. “Look what we can do!” Is the energy this movie has.

This movie is flawed. I don’t think it fully executes on its serial killers premise. Elaborate traps designed to push people to the very edge. We see two of these traps play out and the aftermath of one. I can see why a sequel was made, but I can’t see why almost twenty years later we’re still getting more of this sort of thing.

The movie isn’t scary. It’s horrific. It’s ugly and nasty, but it’s not scary. It’s a movie that pushes the audience to a heightened state of anxiety, but I wouldn’t say that’s the same thing as being scared. The TV show Succession gives me anxiety. Reality TV induces revulsion in me, but I wouldn’t count either of those in the horror genre.

This is James Wan’s first film. That’s what I enjoyed most. I had a ton of fun seeing the origins of one of my favorite horror directors. In the messy chaotic camera work, I saw the refined controled camera work of his later films. In the sloppy framing I saw glimpses of the kind of elegantly composed shots he would execute later in his career. I enjoyed that more than anything else in the film.

It’s not my cup of tea. B-