Saw (2004)

All Critics (168) | Top Critics (35) | Fresh (85) | Rotten (89) | DVD (36)

[Its] sadism is topped only by its absurdity.

November 15, 2011 Full Review

J. R. Jones

Chicago Reader

Top Critic

Saw has art-house ambitions, but it's nothing but a glorified snuff film. I despised this movie.

November 1, 2004 Full Review | Comments (24)

Richard Roeper

Ebert & Roeper

Top Critic

So over the top that even the recruited audience of non-critics at my screening began to howl.

October 29, 2004 Full Review

Mike Clark

USA Today

Top Critic

A strenuously morbid assembly of deranged-genius- serial-killer movie conventions cribbed from just about every popular post-Hannibal Lecter movie imaginable.

October 29, 2004 Full Review

Geoff Pevere

Toronto Star

Top Critic

The Internet film geeks are salivating over this one. But humans who live above ground, including horror fans, will find themselves only fitfully entertained and more consistently appalled.

October 29, 2004 Full Review | Comment (1)

Desson Thomson

Washington Post

Top Critic

An ingenious machine for inducing terror, rage, and paralyzing unease.

October 29, 2004 Full Review

David Edelstein

Slate

Top Critic

Inventive and diverting entertainment for fans of moody horror mysteries. And the end is cool. Say no more.

November 15, 2011 Full Review

Film4

More grisly than scary; not for kids.

December 28, 2010 Full Review | Comments (17)

Nell Minow

Common Sense Media

The horror genre takes a new direction using extreme violence to support a surprisingly evocative story of redemptive torture.

October 31, 2009 Full Review

Wesley Lovell

Cinema Sight

Gore, violence, an excellent script, and top notch tension all put together with a whopper of an ending.

April 29, 2009 Full Review

Felix Vasquez Jr.

Cinema Crazed

Having lifted itself up so high in some ways, it's a shame that, in the end, the film sinks down to the level of just being another dumb horror movie.

January 20, 2009 Full Review | Comments (5)

Steve Biodrowski

ESplatter

It's a brutal, vicious, well done psychological thriller that will leave you disturbed for days.

November 20, 2008 Full Review

Stacie Hougland

Hollywood.com

The inconsistencies and incongruities mar the overall result, but it's a fierce enough premise to excite some investors to believe this team can do better and perhaps even bloodier.

October 18, 2008 Full Review

Urban Cinefile Critics

Urban Cinefile

The setup is gripping, and the suspense intense, but the third act -- the payoff for sitting through such harrowing material -- is a major misfire.

August 7, 2008 Full Review

Mark Halverson

Sacramento News & Review

we all need more Glover in our lives

July 5, 2008 | Comments (2)

Stefan Birgir Stefansson

sbs.is

Effectively ugly.

December 27, 2007 Full Review | Comment (1)

Joe Lozito

Big Picture Big Sound

There is such a storm of terrible dialogue in Saw as to legitimately draw comparisons to none less than Ed Wood.

September 27, 2007 Full Review | Comments (4)

Tim Brayton

Antagony & Ecstasy

Saw gets by on its mood of industrial dread.

August 18, 2007 Full Review

Rob Gonsalves

eFilmCritic.com

While the great idea gets squandered, it remains a fun flick, certainly above the par of many other genre films.

June 21, 2007 Full Review

Jason Gorber

Film Scouts

Able to hold interest most of the way through, unraveling back stories that feel as if they might lead to something. But then the ending arrives.

April 20, 2006 Full Review

Jeffrey Chen

Window to the Movies

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

April 1, 2006 Full Review | Comment (1)

Kim Newman

Empire Magazine

Without question this is (pardon the bad pun) the long awaited missing piece of the puzzle for Saw fans everywhere.

February 1, 2006 Full Review

Steve "Uncle Creepy" Barton

Dread Central

• 1. John/Jigsaw: Yes officer, I'm sick. Sick from the disease eating away at me from the inside, sick of people who don't appreciate their blessing, sick of those who scoff at the suffering of others. I'm sick of it all!
  – Submitted by Micah K (4 months ago)
• 1. Dr. Lawrence Gordon: I did not cheat on her!
  2. Adam: What do you care what I think anyway? I don't give a crap if you covered yourself in peanut butter and had a 15-hooker gang bang!
  – Submitted by Dae'lon S (6 months ago)
• 1. Adam: I just a-shit ma pants!
  – Submitted by Brandon S (6 months ago)
• 1. Adam: I went back to my shit hole apartment, and woke up in an actual shit hole.
  – Submitted by Brendan C (7 months ago)
• 1. Adam: My last girlfriend was a feminist, vegan punk who broke up with me because she thought I was too angry.
  – Submitted by Paula W (7 months ago)
• 1. John/Jigsaw: Rise and shine, Adam. You're probably wondering where you are. I'll tell you where you might be. You might be in the room that you die in. Up until now, you've simply sat in the shadows watching others live out their lives. But what do voyeurs see when they look into the mirror? Now I see you as a strange mix of someone angry, yet apathetic. But mostly just pathetic. So are you going to watch yourself die here today, Adam, or do something about it?
  2. Adam: I don't get it.
  – Submitted by Paula W (7 months ago)

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