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2004 American film by James Wan

Saw is a 2004 American horror film directed by James Wan, in his feature directorial debut, and written by Leigh Whannell from a story by Wan and Whannell. It is the first installment in the Saw film series, and stars Whannell alongside Cary Elwes, Danny Glover, Monica Potter, Michael Emerson, and Ken Leung. The film tells a nonlinear narrative revolving around the mystery of the Jigsaw Killer, who tests his victims' will to live by putting them through deadly "games" where they must inflict great physical pain upon themselves to survive. The frame story follows Jigsaw's latest victims (Whannell and Elwes), who awaken in a large, dilapidated bathroom, with one being ordered to kill the other to save his own family. The screenplay was written by Whannell, who co created the story with Wan in their respective screenwriting debuts. The film was originally written in 2001, but after failed attempts to get the script produced in Wan and Whannell's home country of Australia, they were urged to travel to Los Angeles. In order to help attract producers, they shot a low budget short film of the same name from a scene out of the script. This proved successful in 2003 as producers from Evolution Entertainment were immediately attached and also formed a horror genre production label, Twisted Pictures. The film was given a small production budget and was shot in 18 days. Saw was first screened on January 19, 2004, at the 2004 Sundance Film Festival. Due to positive audience reception, Lionsgate picked up the distribution rights for the film. Originally planned for a straight to video release, they decided to instead release the film in theaters in North America on October 29, 2004. The film received generally mixed reviews from critics. After topping the opening weekend box office, the film would go on to gross $103.9 million worldwide to become one of the most profitable horror films since Scream (1996). A sequel, titled Saw II, was released the following year, and a direct sequel, titled Saw X, was released in 2023. It was theatrically re released to select theaters, on October 31, 2014, for its tenth anniversary. The success of Saw launched a media franchise, including several films, video games, theme park rides, and merchandising.

Adam, a photographer, awakens in a dilapidated bathtub with his ankle chained to a pipe. Across the room is oncologist Dr. Lawrence Gordon, and between them is the corpse of an apparent suicide victim holding a revolver and a microcassette recorder. Both men find a tape in their pockets, and Adam retrieves the recorder. Adam's tape urges him to survive, while Gordon's tape orders him to kill Adam by 6 o'clock, or his wife Alison and daughter Diana will be killed. After listening to a tape the duo uncover a clue leading Adam to find a bag containing two hacksaws inside the toilet. Both men try to saw through their chains, but Adam's saw breaks. Gordon realizes the saws are intended for their feet, and identifies their captor as the Jigsaw Killer, a serial killer who tests his victims' will to survive through murderous contraptions known as "games", whom Gordon knows about because he was once a suspect. Five months prior, Gordon, after discussing the terminal brain cancer of patient John Kramer with his medical interns, was interrogated by detectives David Tapp and Steven Sing, who found his penlight at the scene of one of Jigsaw's games. Gordon's alibi cleared him, but he agreed to view the testimony of heroin addict Amanda Young, the only known survivor of one of Jigsaw's traps. Tapp and Sing later found Jigsaw's warehouse using the videotape from Amanda's game. There, they detained Jigsaw and saved a man from a trap, but Jigsaw managed to escape after he critically injured Tapp; Sing was killed by a shotgun trap while pursuing him. In the present, Alison and Diana are held captive at their apartment as their captor watches Adam and Gordon through a hidden camera. The house is simultaneously watched by Tapp who, after being discharged from the police following Sing's death, has become obsessed with the Jigsaw case, and remains convinced that Gordon is the killer. Meanwhile, Gordon finds a box containing two cigarettes, a lighter, and a one way cellphone. Adam asks Gordon for the cigarette but Gordon discourages this. He recounts his abduction in a parking garage by a pig masked figure. Adam recalls his own abduction when he returned home to find a puppet in his darkroom, where he stored photos of Gordon. Held at gunpoint, Alison calls her husband and warns him not to trust Adam, who admits to Gordon that he was paid by Tapp to spy on him, and reveals his knowledge of Gordon's affair with one of his medical students whom he had visited the night he was abducted; Gordon deduces that the affair is the reason why he is being tested. Adam finds a photo of Alison and Diana's captor whom Gordon identifies as Zep Hindle, an orderly at his hospital. Zep, seeing that Gordon has still not killed Adam, moves to murder Alison and Diana, but Alison frees herself and fights him. The struggle attracts Tapp's attention, and he saves Alison and Diana before chasing Zep to the sewers, where he is shot in the chest after a brief fight. Gordon, only aware of the gunshots and screaming, is shocked and loses reach of the cell phone. In desperation, he saws off his foot and shoots Adam with the corpse's revolver. Zep enters the bathroom to kill Gordon, but Adam, having survived the gunshot, bludgeons him to death with a toilet tank lid. Gordon crawls out of the bathroom to find help while Adam searches Zep's body for a key. He finds another tape, which reveals that Zep was just another victim of Jigsaw, following rules to obtain the antidote for a slow acting poison in his body. The "corpse" lying in the room suddenly rises to its feet; it turns out to be John Kramer, who is the real Jigsaw Killer. John tells Adam that the key to his chain was in the bathtub; it went down the drain when Adam had first awoken and drained the water. Adam attempts to shoot John with Zep's gun, but John electrically shocks him through his chain. John exits the bathroom before sealing the door, leaving Adam alone to die.

After finishing film school, Australian director James Wan and Australian writer Leigh Whannell wanted to write and fund a film. The inspiration that they needed came after watching the low budget independent film The Blair Witch Project. Another film that inspired them to finance the film themselves was Darren Aronofsky's Pi. The two thought the cheapest script to shoot would involve two actors in one room. One idea was to have the entire film set with two actors stuck in an elevator and being shot in the point of view of security cameras. Wan and Whannell initially refused, due to lack of traveling funds but the pair's agent, Stacey Testro, convinced them to go. The short film is sometimes referred to as Saw 0.5. Quote box|quote=I guess the term 'torture porn' doesn't affect me one way or the other. I don't love the term, nor do I really hate it. For me, it's kind of hard to have any bad feelings about the term, because I guess torture porn has given me a lot of good things, like being able to work in the film industry and work as a screenwriter. I guess I'm just thankful to be part of a film that made it, and anything after that is just a champagne problem.|source=—Leigh Whannell (screenwriter) on his feelings of the film being labeled "torture porn". over two days and transferred the footage to DVDs to ship along with the script. Whannell wanted to play the lead character in the feature film. The short helped show that Wan and Whannell were a "director actor team" rather than just wanting to sell the script. Wan said, "Leigh and I just loved the project so much and we wanted a career in filmmaking so we stuck to our guns and said, 'Look, guys, if you want this project, we're coming on board — Leigh has to act in it and I have to direct it." while in Los Angeles and before they met with producer Gregg Hoffman, Hoffman's friend pulled him into his office and showed him the short. Hoffman said, "About two or three minutes into it, my jaw hit the floor." He quickly showed the short and script to his partners Mark Burg and Oren Koules of Evolution Entertainment. The producers read the screenplay that night and two days later offered Wan and Whannell creative control and 25% of the net profits. Even though Wan and Whannell received "better offers" from studios like DreamWorks and Gold Circle Films, they were not willing to chance Wan's directing and Whannell acting in the lead role. Saw was given a production budget of between $1 million and $1.2 million. efn|Sources for the budget figure vary. Some put the budget at $1 million, and $1.2 million.]] Cary Elwes was sent the short film on DVD and immediately became interested in playing Dr. Lawrence Gordon in the film. He read the script in one sitting and was drawn in by the "uniqueness and originality" of the story. Koules was Elwes' manager at the time. To prepare for his role as an oncologist, he met with a doctor at UCLA's Department of Neurosurgery. In August 2005, Elwes filed a lawsuit against his management firm and producers of Saw, Evolution Entertainment, alleging "breach of contract and unjust enrichment". Elwes said that he was promised that he would receive a minimum of one percent of the producers' net profits from the film and did not. Elwes claims he only received $53,275 and a salary of $2,587.20. The case was later settled out of court and Elwes reprised his role five years later in Saw 3D. Shawnee Smith, who is not a horror fan, initially refused the role of Amanda Young, describing the script as "horrific". However, after watching the short, she agreed to the role, which was the part that Whannell portrayed in the short. Wan offhandly suggested Smith when his casting director asked who he wanted to play Amanda, as he had had a crush on Smith since his teenage years, and was surprised when his casting director secured her on the role. Danny Glover was cast as Detective David Tapp, who is in pursuit of the Jigsaw Killer. Glover stated in an interview, "Something about that detective character at that particular point attracted me to it". On taking the role of Jigsaw, Tobin Bell said, "I did Saw because I thought it was a fascinating location for a film to be made. These guys locked in a room, to me, was fresh. I did not anticipate the ending when I read the script, so I was quite caught by surprise and it was clear to me that if the filmmakers shot the scene well, the audience would be caught by surprise as well. The film was worth doing for that moment alone". Bell also stated that he wanted to take the opportunity to work with Glover, whom he had never worked with. Wan primarily cast Bell because of his voice. Butters, a friend of one of the producers whom he used to play hockey with, ended up cast as Paul Leahy, the Jigsaw victim who perishes in a razor wire maze trap. Saw began principal photography on September 22, 2003 There were no chairs on the set. Other sets like the police station were shot in locations where other productions had built similar sets. The bathtub scene was filmed the first day of filming, and it was then that Whannell realized that they didn't have money left in the budget to hire a stuntman to shoot the scene, forcing him to perform the scene himself. It took six days to shoot all the scenes in the bathroom, and these were filmed chronologically to avoid continuity jumps and help the actors stay in character. To film the scenes of the two protagonists, Wan made sure most of Dr. Gordon's shots were very steady and controlled while Adam's shots were shaky and handheld to match the characters' personalities. According to Elwes, his dialogue averaged 12 to 16 pages a day, which he considered a great challenge. "It was a really tough struggle for me. Every day, it was me fighting to get the shots I did not get. I had high aspirations, but there's only so much you can do. I wanted to make it in a very Hitchcockian style of filmmaking, but that style of filmmaking takes time to set up and so on", Wan said about the very short shooting schedule. There it played to a packed theater for three midnight showings to a positive reaction. Lionsgate initially planned to release the film direct to video, but due to the positive reaction at Sundance, they chose to release it theatrically by Halloween. Lionsgate held a blood drive for the Red Cross called "Give Til It Hurts" and collected 4,249 pints of blood.

Saw soundtrack was mainly composed by Charlie Clouser, and took six weeks to complete. Other songs were performed by Front Line Assembly, Fear Factory, Enemy, Pitbull Daycare and Psychopomps. Megadeth's song "Die Dead Enough" was originally set to be featured in the film but was not used for undisclosed reasons. The soundtrack was released on October 5, 2004 by Koch Records. Johnny Loftus of AllMusic gave it three out of five stars. He said that Clouser "really nails it with his creaky, clammy score" and that he "understands that Saw horror only works with a heady amount of camp, and he draws from industrial music in the same way". He particularly liked, "Cigarette"; "Hello, Adam"; and "F**k This S*!t", commenting that they "blend chilling sounds with harsh percussion and deep wound keyboard stabs".

The theatrical version of the film was released on VHS and DVD on February 15, 2005 in the United States and Canada. After its first week, it made $9.4 million in DVD rentals and $1.7 million in VHS rentals, making it the top rental of the week. For the second week it remained as the number one DVD rental with $6.8 million, for a $16.27 million two week total. It dropped to third place in VHS rentals with $1.09 million, for a $2.83 million two week total. The film went on to sell more than $70 million worth of video and DVDs. The film was later released on Blu ray on June 27, 2006. On May 11, 2021, Saw was released on Ultra HD Blu ray with a new 2160p transfer and a new 58 minute making of documentary.

Saw opened at number three on Halloween weekend 2004 in 2,315 theaters and grossed $18.2 million, behind Ray ($20 million) and The Grudge ($21.8 million). According to Lionsgate's exit poll, 60% of the mostly male audience was under 25 years of age. Saw had also become Lionsgate's second best opening, after Fahrenheit 9/11 $23.9 million (2004). On its second weekend, an additional 152 theaters were added, bringing the theater count to 2,467. It dropped to number four, making $11 million, a 39% drop from the opening weekend. Saw opened in the United Kingdom to $2.2 million in 301 theaters, grossing a $12.3 million total in seven weeks. In Australia, it opened in 161 theaters with $1.2 million and totaled out to $3.1 million in six weeks. In Italy, the film opened on January 14, 2005 in 267 theaters to $1.7 million and grossed $6.4 million in six weeks. Saw opened to $1.5 million from 187 theaters in France on March 16, 2005 and made $3.1 million by the end of its four week run. Saw came to gross $55.1 million in the United States and Canada and $47.9 million in other markets for a worldwide total of $103 million. At the time, it became the most profitable horror film after Scream (1996).

On October 31, 2014, for the film's tenth anniversary, Saw was re released to select theaters for one week. The release earned $650,051 in its opening weekend, and is the third lowest grossing wide opening, fourth after the Toy Story re release in 2020. At the end of its run, the release had grossed $815,324, bringing the film's overall domestic gross to $56,000,369.

Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "C+" on an A+ to F scale. Dennis Harvey of Variety gave the film a negative review after its Sundance premiere. He called it a "crude concoction sewn together from the severed parts of prior horror/serial killer pics". He called the screenplay "convoluted", criticizing the use of "flashbacks within flashbacks" and red herrings. He described the film as being "too hyperbolic to be genuinely disturbing". Carla Meyer of the San Francisco Chronicle gave the film a positive review, saying the film "combined B movie acting with a twisted mind set and visual tricks designed to camouflage cheap effects" and that it was "terrifying at some moments and insinuatingly creepy at many others." She called the killing scenes "amazingly evocative for such a low budget movie". Empire Kim Newman gave the film four out of five stars. He said Saw is styled like early David Fincher films and "boasts an intricate structure — complex flashbacks within flashbacks explain how the characters have come to this crisis — and a satisfying mystery to go with its ghastly claustrophobia." He ended his review saying, "As good an all out, non camp horror movie as we've had lately." Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly gave the film a B minus, calling it "derivative and messy and too nonsensical for its own good." He described Jigsaw's intent as "to show you the serial killer lurking inside yourself". Gleiberman criticized Elwes' performance by saying, "[Elwes] ought to be featured in a seminar on the perils of overacting. He compared the plot to Seven saying, "In a blatant imitation of Seven, Saw features a lunatic sadist whose ghoulish crimes are meant, in each case, to mirror the sins of his victims. The twist here is that the psycho doesn't do the killing."" Daniel M. Kimmel of the Telegram & Gazette called it "one of the most loathsome films this critic has seen in more than 20 years on the job". The New York Times Stephen Holden gave a mixed review, saying the film "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. What sets its demon apart from run of the mill movie serial killers is his impulse to humiliate and torture his victims and justify it with some twisted morality." He said the film is "seriously undermined by the half baked, formulaic detective story in which the horror is framed." Carina Chocano of the Los Angeles Times also gave the film a mixed review, saying, "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." She said the film "carelessly underscores its own shaky narrative at every turn with its mid budget hokiness". She also noted that Elwes and Whannell had trouble keeping an American accent. Another mixed review came from Roger Ebert, who gave the film 2 out of 4 stars and lamented the gimmicks and plot contrivances but nonetheless described Saw as "well made and acted, and does what it does about as well as it could be expected to". Richard J. Leskosky of Champaign Urbana's The News Gazette said "Saw wants to be taken as another Seven. Though it features perverse gross out scenes and a villain with a superficially pedantic motive behind his crimes (his victims, if they survive, have learned to appreciate life more), it lacks the finesse and polish of the David Fincher film." When asked if the 1995 thriller film Seven was an inspiration to Saw, Whannell said "For me as the writer, definitely. I mean, Seven is just a very well constructed film, and if you're writing a thriller, it can't hurt to study it. In terms of the story though, James and I never really felt Seven was that close to our film. I guess if you stand back, you have two detectives chasing a psychopath, who uses vile methods to teach people lessons, and those points echo Seven. What we always liked about Saw, though, was that the story is told from the point of view of two of the psychopath's victims, instead of the police chasing after him, as you so often see." The Daily Telegraph listed the film number 14 on their Top 100 list that defined the 2000s. The film was nominated for best horror film at the 31st Saturn Awards.