Saw ★★★★

THE best way to bring your idea for a film to the attention of studios is to film it yourself.

You don’t need a million dollars and 90 minutes. But will need a few thousand to hire cameras, lights and a location and maybe a couple of committed, talented friends.

The number of horror director/writer types who have got a start from producing a short version of their idea is increasing all the time.

Back in 2003 a pair of Australians, James Wan and Leigh Whannell, did exactly that with a torture scene involving a a mechanical bear trap on a person’s head and a timer.

The attention it drew resulted in a million or so bucks being thrown at them to make Saw, released in 2004.

The rest, as they say, is history.

Whether Leigh and Whannell knew at the time that the concept of trying to free yourself from a torture trap was a built-in film franchise is difficult to say.

But looking back it seems completely obvious to horror film makers and fans.

But the beauty of Saw isn’t just in the set-up; it’s also in the final pay-off that blew audiences’ minds at the time and helped the film earn back more than 100 times its budget, start a new torture porn sub-genre and eventually create a studio, Blumhouse, devoted to horror cinema.

Two men wake up to find themselves chained to pipes on opposite sides of an industrial bathroom.

The men don’t know each other and can’t initially recall how they got there.

Between them is a body with a gun in one hand and a micro recording device in the other.

The men find cassettes in their pockets, retrieve the recorder and play them.

They have been abducted by Jigsaw and are offered the chance to escape by sawing their own ankles off.

What a premise! And how well executed through a non-linear narrative that keeps you guessing until the very last shot.

Simple in concept, meticulous in execution, Saw is the epitome of how to make an entertaining piece of horror. Enjoy again and again.