SAW

While SAW isn't totally original in fact, it in some ways resembles SEVEN retold from the point of view of two potential victims it has energy, enthusiasm and some real scares to recommend it, not to mention (a plus for gorehounds and a minus for the fainthearted) a level of bloodiness that suggests there were a few cuts to avoid a "Z" rating (no one of any age admitted).

The film, written by Leigh Whannell, from a story he and director James Wan crafted together, begins in a state of deep panic and deeper grunge. A young man, Adam (played by Whannell) awakens to find himself underwater in a filthy bathtub. Adam pulls himself out, only to find he is chained to a pipe in a decaying industrial bathroom. Chained at the other end of the room is Dr. Lawrence Gordon (Cary Elwes). Both find that they've been given mini-audiotapes, playable on the recorder in the hand of the gruesomely slain corpse in the middle of the floor. The tapes when played instruct Lawrence to kill Adam by six o'clock otherwise, Lawrence's wife and daughter will be murdered and he'll be left to rot. Two hacksaws have been provided, but they won't work on the thick chains and Lawrence soon deduces that their captor means for Lawrence and/or Adam to saw through flesh and bone to free themselves. Lawrence says he surmises who may be behind this a psychopath called the Jigsaw Killer. Lawrence himself was a suspect for a time in the serial murder case, in which a variety of victims were trapped and forced to try to free themselves by methods that usually have proved suicidal.

There's literally a ticking clock in the room, and the filmmakers have fun playing around with the timeframe (some events turn out to be happening in a different order than what we initially assume). They create some good fake-outs and honest scares. They're not terribly deep psychologically they don't spend a lot of time on Lawrence's moral dilemma, even though it's the fulcrum of much of the plot but they have still constructed a respectable puzzle with all sorts of creepy little riffs. Elwes is reasonably sympathetic as a stuffy fellow who finds himself in extremis and Whannell is a credible slacker, though he seems perhaps a shade more angry than terrified for longer than seems likely. Others in the cast include Danny Glover, Monica Potter, Ken Leung, Dina Meyer and a persuasive young actress, Makenzie Vega, as Lawrence's daughter.

For people who like their horror dark, gritty and narratively layered, SAW will make the cut.