Research & Planning- Saw

Saw.

Release Date:  1 October 2004
Genre:  Horror, Mystery, Thriller
Director: James Wan
Awards: 4 wins & 8 Nominations.

Plot Summary.

Two men wake up at opposite sides of a dirty, disused bathroom, chained by their ankles to pipes. Between them lies a dead man loosely clutching a hand-held tape player and a handgun. Each finds a tape the perfect fit for the player in their back pocket. They play the tapes. One is threatened, the other isn't. But they have a task: One must kill the other by 6:00, or his wife and daughter will die. They find hacksaws in a toilet, and try to cut the chains, but it doesn't work. They are the two newest victims of the Jigsaw Killer. In a flashback, we learn of Amanda, a girl who falls victim to the Jigsaw Killer. On her head is a mask, which is hooked into her lower jaw. There is a timer on it. Only one key will unlock it, and that key is in the digestive tract of her cell mate who lies paralyzed on the opposite side of the room. If she doesn't unlock the mask in time, her lower jaw will be ripped wide open. She survives, but her cell mate doesn't. Through a series of flashbacks, we learn of more victims, and of the nearly-successful capture of the Jigsaw Killer, who doesn't actually kill his victims. Instead, he finds ways to make them kill either themselves, or each other, and he thinks the entire 'game' out perfectly, with no other ways out. Or so it would seem.

Opening Sequence.During the opening sequence of Saw, we witness a man laying in a bath filled with water, he struggles to get out. There is very dim lighting; to create the feel like the lights are off, and then a character (Surgeon Dr. Lawrence Gordon) turns the brighter lights on. There is quite an eerie feel. The audience know that something bad has happened and is going to happen; the tension is unbearable as we see shots of puddles of blood and chains attaching the two characters to pipes at different ends of the room. The Mise-en-scene is made to make the bathroom look dirty, and grimy. It is made to look almost empty and dead which is what the characters are about to be seeing as they’ve gotten involved into “jigsaw’s game”.