Saw by Steve Rudd

As if there isn't enough sick and twisted violence out there in the real world as it is, there are hordes of film-makers that feel that violence is the essential ingredient to make a winning movie. To make their movie as violent as possible often seems their aim, in order to out-do any competition. But things are getting out of hand. I, for one, have had enough of violence at the movies. Go to your local multiplex and it's almost guaranteed that 8 out of 10 movies will revolve around a bloody core of violence, whether the movie is Horror, Thriller or Action-based.

At present a great many people are raving about new movie Saw. I guess I should have sensed what to expect, but the levels of violence within Saw did shock me. Coming on like a far darker and more depraved cross between Seven and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, it stars Cary Elwes and Danny Glover. Elwes plays one of two guys who wakes up dazed and confused in a grimy room, chained up and facing a dead guy laying facedown before them both. They soon suss out that they are being detained by a madman who is on the loose, playing fear-inducing mind games to ultimately try - in this instance - to make Elwes' character somehow kill the other guy who is chained up in the exact same manner as he is, at the other side of the room.

The tension flits between that which pervades their nasty little predicament and the scenes in which Danny Glover (who plays a seriously stressed out cop who's on the trail of the killer) attempts to deduce who the killer is and the motives behind such killings.

Technically, Saw is impressive and packaged with a neat twist in the final scene that's pretty difficult to see coming. I admire the film-makers on those grounds. I just have issues with the fact that violence in movies is, these days, deemed as entertainment for the masses. I hate movies that glorify violence, and while Saw doesn't really glorify the many scenes of blood-splattered batterings, the overall sense of malice and menace that the movie creates sits uneasily and is oozing with doom and gloom. Many movie fans revel in the cheap thrills that violence brings about, which is hardly encouraging.

And the 2004 Autumn/ Winter season at the cinema doesn't look as though it's going to let-up with the violence as horror-shocker The Grudge and another Exorcist movie are both ushered our way.

I'm just waiting with baited breath for a cracking comedy or an emotion-laden drama to materialise. Before I, myself, am driven out of my mind and do something stupid like blow my brains out. Thus, the moral of this review is: if you aren't a fan of all-out stomach-puncturing violence, see Saw at your peril.

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