Right at the end of the infamous "reverse bear trap" scene in Saw, a shaken Amanda (Shawnee Smith), soaked to the elbows in the blood of a man she was forced to kill in order to keep her head from being torn apart by a mechanical helmet starts wailing as, impossibly, an alabaster puppet on a tricycle slowly pedals out of the shadows towards her. Throughout the theater, a tittering of laughter started swelling around me: not the laughter of a well-executed gag, or a poorly executed scare, but a nervous laughter of severe discomfort. After a emotionally draining scene of desperation, enhanced by the pounding industrial score of Charlie Clouser (which I raved about here), machine-gun editing, spinning dolly shots, and the gruesomeness of things unseen, poor Amanda is told she has "won the game" by a sinister puppet. It’s a sickening blow to our already twisting guts that make Saw one of my favorite movies of the year.

Told in a nonlinear, stream-of-consciousness style that reminded me of Tarantino at times, Saw opens with Adam (screenwriter Leigh Wannell) awakening in a tub in a grimy bathroom. His two "cellmates" are Dr. Lawrence Gordon (Cary Elwes), and a dead man, half of his head blown off by a self-inflicted gunshot wound. They are all, Gordon theorizes, prisoners of the "Jigsaw Killer," a man who murders his victims indirectly with grisly scavenger hunts and traps designed by a homicidal Rube Goldberg. The M.O. of Jigsaw is that all of his victims don’t appreciate their lives, so he forces them to do so or die trying. Hot on the trail of the killer is Detective Tapp (Danny Glover), who believes Dr. Gordon is involved after Gordon’s penlight is discovered at one of the crime scenes. Of course, Jigsaw has set up his most elaborate scheme for Dr. Gordon and Adam: they are given a gun, one bullet, two hacksaws, two cigarettes, a lighter, photographs, and a cellular phone incapable of dialing out. Recorded on cassettes stuffed into their pockets, the rules of the game are laid out: Gordon has until 6:00 to kill Adam, or his wife and child will be murdered. Unfortunately, neither Gordon nor Adam are willing to help the other, putting both of their lives in even more danger.

A sort of blend of the underrated Cube (review here), Seven, The Game, and an American giallo film, Saw made me giddy with how refreshing it seems in today’s cinematic wasteland. The claustrophobic scenes of Gordon and Adam slowly breaking down in the bathroom were very well done, and the whole thing, despite its moderately derivative nature, seemed much more original than the rash of tribute films and supernatural hokum that seem to be all the rage these days. Jigsaw, with his modulated voice, pig faced mask, and billowing cloak, is a creepy, coldly logical killer whose motivation, despite how twisted it was, simply made sense, and the semi-empathy one feels for him simply makes the movie all the more disturbing.

Also of note is first-time director James Wan’s impressive pacing and ability to mix fast- and slow motion with some effective results. At times he became overzealous, going completely apeshit with the camera, which made for some unnecessarily kinetic scenes, but his gritty, slime-drenched treatment of Wannell’s script was pleasing, to say the least. Add to that Charlie Clouser’s underlying, almost transparent score, and the feel of the film is first-rate.

Unfortunately, Wannell decided to pepper his script with some unnecessary "comic relief" moments, which had the annoying habit of tugging this reviewer out of the otherwise carefully planned horror show. From childish jabs about peanut butter and gangbangs to Adam’s completely awful "death throes," they detracted from the film overall. The same, at times, went for Cary Elwes, whose thinly veiled English accent had me anticipating him wooing Robin Wright or battling Andre The Giant. Where’s the Sheriff of Rottingham when you need him? Oh Rotty!

However, these gripes are small when compared against the film as a whole: a taut thriller, well acted, well shot, simply well executed. If you can deal with shrieking girls in your theater (which I can...barely), and some genuinely gruesome moments (you’ll never look at a toilet the same way again), it definitely deserves a look.

Thumbs up.