Check in. Relax. Take a shower.: 2005 horror movie

It's a long weekend here in Canada and since I've been so busy for the past two months I decided this would be the perfect weekend to do absolutely nothing at all EXCEPT watch the entire Saw franchise. Last night I watched #1 and #2 and I am already head over heels in love. I want to go back in the past and apologize for all the bad shit I said about these movies and for being too chicken shit to watch them. These movies are INCREDIBLE.

Let's jump into the first film!

SAW 2004

"There's a slow-acting poison coursing through your system, which only I have the antidote for. Will you murder a mother and her child to save yourself? Listen carefully, if you will. There are rules."

Released in 2004, Saw is the directorial debut of the incredible James Wan. The screenplay was written by Leigh Whannell and James Wan helped to create the original ideas based on nightmares the two of them had as kids. The team tried to get this film made in Australia but instead had to travel to LA to get anyone to help make it. They made a short film (specifically using the bear trap scene) to sell the film and it worked, enticing Evolution Entertainment to form a horror genre production label (Twisted Pictures) and help the film get made.

It took 18 days to film and all of the bathroom scenes were shot in 6 days without barely any rehearsal time due to budget. In fact, a lot of the scenes you see are the actual rehearsals. During post production they realized they didn't have enough shots and so Wan and his editor had to get tricky and film some of themselves.

When it premiered it grossed more than $100 million worldwide and became (at the time) the most profitable horror movie since Scream. After the opening weekend, Saw 2 was green lit.

So what is Saw?

It opens on two men waking up in a decrepit bathroom with their ankles chained to the wall. Adam, played by Leigh Whannell is a photographer and Lawrence, played by Cary Elwes, is a doctor. The two at first have seemingly nothing in common and when they find cassette tapes on themselves they listen to a terrifying voice telling them that if Lawrence doesn't kill Adam by six o'clock, his wife and daughter will be killed.

Between flashbacks and the two characters digging through the room we learn about the notorious Jigsaw killer who kidnaps people and makes them play sick games. If they escape, they live - Amanda, a previous victim of Jigsaw, is the only person who has survived one of his games - a reverse bear trap. At first the cops, played by Danny Glover and Ken Leung believe Lawrence to be the Jigsaw killer but soon realize it's not that simple.

Overall

This was an incredible movie and story - I was kept guessing until the very end and lost my absolute shit when it was all revealed. It's like a super gory Catch Me if You Can. I loved all the performances, most notably Whannell's and Michael Emerson as Zep. Danny Glover was also incredible, and if I ever get kidnapped, please call him to find me. I got completely invested in this movie and was screaming and yelling and covering my face and I had a really good time watching it. Mitch joined me near the end as he came home (he's actually seen a lot of the Saw movies) and at one point I was screaming the house down when Lawrence began cutting off his foot. I mean...HE JUST WENT FOR IT!!!!!!!!!!!! Ughhhhh!!!!!!

So yeah, Saw is incredible - I loved every moment of it and it's a solid one-off film as well as an incredible opening for a franchise.

Games/Traps

For each movie I want to rate each game/trap from #1 being the most fucked up and so on. At the end of the franchise I'll try and rank them all.

#7 - The Quadruple Shotgun Hallway

This one, while clever, is avoidable if you pay attention to where you step and don't pull the damn trip wire!

#6 - The Drill Chair

This poor guy - what was he? Just a janitor or a warehouse guy or something? And now he's trapped between two drills that at any moment are going to drill into either side of his head. This would be so painful.

#5 - Adam and Lawrence's Test

This is clever because it's so complex - there's clues everywhere and there's so many opportunities for them to kill themselves or kill each other or even escape. But because of the high pressure environment and time limit, it's so easy to panic and miss the smallest details.

#4 - Zep's Test

I feel like this one is worse than Adam and Lawrence's because if it all goes wrong, Zep is ultimately responsible for killing four people, one of which is a child.

#3 - The Flammable Jelly

This one is number three purely because it has SO many fucked up elements. There's a safe with a key inside, the code to the safe is all over the wall but the wall is covered in 100's of numbers. The room is dark and all there is to see is a candle. The guy is covered in flammable material so if he slips the flames will instantly set him on fire. And to top everything off? The floor is covered in broken glass. I mean....COME ON.

#2 - Reverse Bear Trap

I mean....jesus christ. I'd rather have a trap that released bears on me than have this contraption wired to my head. Just imagining what would happen if you didn't make it..UGHHH

#1 - The Razor Wire Maze

This is the most fucked up to me - I just couldn't even imagine that scenario and it made me sick to my stomach. A guy wakes up trapped inside of a maze of barbed wire and is forced to make it to the end to escape but instead gets tangled up and bleeds out.

10/10

SAW 2 2005

"Those who don't appreciate life do not deserve life"

Onto the sequel! Directed and co-written by Darren Lynn Bousman with the help of Whannell, Saw 2 was given a larger budget and more time to shoot. It continued to be a financial success. The sequel opens up with an informant wearing a spike filled death mask locked to his neck. Jigsaw appears and tells him the rules of the game. He fails.

At the scene of this murder we see Detective Kerry (played by Dina Meyer) again from the first film and she's working with her former partner, Eric Matthews (Donnie Wahlberg). At the crime scene is a message specifically for Matthews. Matthews is currently having a rough go of it - his wife has left him, his son seemingly hates him but he joins the SWAT team as they figure out where Jigsaw is working out of. It's a factory and inside they find John Kramer, Jigsaw himself, who is dying from cancer but they also find TV's showing a current game going on - and one of the participants is Matthews son.

Overall

I really loved the sequel - the traps were grosser and more shocking, there were more characters to get invested in, and the story was just as twisty and turny as the first. Tobin Bell gets to have more screen time and show off his incredible acting chops as Jigsaw. Erik Knudsen plays Matthews son and he does a really good job. All of the characters inside of the game are so unique from each other and it's easy to get invested in them. Shawnee Smith returns as Amanda and the twist with her caught me completely off guard. The sequel didn't lose that sort of gritty thriller cop chase type which I really enjoyed. It was really fun and I had a really great time watching this one too! My only complaint was reading about this movie and finding out all the backstories of the characters - most of it was removed for pacing which is a shame.

Games/Traps

#9 - The Electrified Staircase

Pretty cool how it works but ultimately again, pay attention to where you're walking in Jigsaw's territory cause this dude loves trip wires.

#8 - The Magnum Eyehole

This one was just frustrating, "don't use the key for the door"....they instantly use the key in the door and get shot through the eye. I mean...you kind of deserved that?

#7 - The Furnace

This one is frustrating because Obi could've just leaned in and grabbed the antidotes but instead he throws himself fully into the furnace cementing his own death.

#6 - The Antidote Safe Room

Putting the safe numbers on the back of everyone's necks is so simple yet so effective. None of them worked as a team, and even at the end when it was figured out by Xavier, he chose to murder instead of just look at the back of people's necks.

#5 - The Nerve Gas House

I love how big this game is - they have an entire house to run around and try and find clues. And again, if they had just stayed calm in the first room they would've found a way out. Instead everyone panicked and ran and ultimately dug their own graves.

#4 - The Death Mask

First off - hiding the key in the guy's own eye is some fucked up shit. And then putting him in a death mask on a time limit. CRUEL. But amazing.

#3 - Eric's Test

This is just clever - Jigsaw knew Eric so well and even though he told him all he needs to do is sit and talk for the time limit and he would see his son, he panicked and let his anger get the best of him. But ultimately, if he had just sat there and talked, he would be alive and his son would've been returned to him at the end.

#2 - The Razor Box

Ughhhhhhhh....this one is great simply because it's so obvious. You can actually see there's a lock on the outside of the box so if anyone took the time to look at the contraption you would realize you wouldn't even need to stick your hand in there. But that's the beauty of these traps - you're dying, you're on a time limit, so you just stick your hand in there in a panic. Although when she sticks her second hand in...I mean...come on....

#1 - The Needle Pit
This is some fucked up shit right here. Could you even fucking imagine?! And even filming it I bet was quite traumatic, even though the needles are fake I feel like the brain would still be like OMG NEEDDDLLLEESSSS NOOOO. So clever, so fucked up. So good.

Another solid 10/10

Alright, I will be watching Saw 3 today and hopefully Saw 4 but there's also a massive fireworks show tonight that I'm going to go watch so we'll see how much I get through! But that's okay - there's still two full days left of this long weekend.

Stay spooky!

HAPPY GALENTINE'S DAY EVERYONE!!!!!!!!!! And happy Women in Horror month! February is the month to celebrate the women in the horror genre from the actors to the writers to the special effects to the producers etc. And it's also the month to donate blood and save some lives! And today is Galentine's Day where you celebrate the loves of your life who are your female friends. Last night I watched The Descent with one of my Galentine's and it was super fun.

Full disclosure - I've seen The Descent about 8 times. It's one of my favorite horror films. But I've never actually talked about it on this blog and it's a great one to showcase for Galentine's Day because of its all female cast, (seriously...there's like one guy in this film). Ceara, my Galentine, had never seen it so it was fun to watch with her and watch her freak out.

THE DESCENT (2005)

I'm an English teacher, not fucking Tomb Raider.

The movie begins with a horrific accident that kills Sarah's husband and child. A year after the accident a group of her girlfriends and herself head off to the Appalachian Mountains to do a little cave diving and to help Sarah start to move on. Juno, who was there the day of the accident, Beth, Sam, Rebecca and Holly join Sarah and the group head off to the cave to explore. Juno is taking the lead. As the group gets further into the cave, a passage collapses leaving them stuck. Juno admits that the cave system she told them they were in isn't the truth. She's led them into an un-mapped cave system so that they could discover it as a group. Obviously the group loses their shit over this info but are determined to find another exit. As they travel through they begin to find some strange things like left over mining gear and some wall paintings. And Sarah believes she is seeing people in the distance.

But what they uncover is something so terrifying and evil that the group quickly find themselves running for their lives inside of a cave system that may not have an exit.

Overall?

The first time I saw this movie I was terrified out of my mind. It was the perfect setting - a group of friends, drinking, and watching the movie late at night. The "crawlers" scared me so badly I had to sleep in a bed with my friend because I didn't want to be alone. But since then I've grown a thicker skin when watching horror movies and now just appreciate it for an amazing, claustrophobic, jarring horror film.

The Descent is a British horror film written and directed by Neil Marshall. It was filmed at Pinewood studios and all the caves were made on set. The crawlers were based on Nosferatu and were kept separate from the actors until their first scene together to create real fear shown on screen.

This film is claustrophobic. You watch as the girls crawl through tiny cave systems and occasionally get stuck. The film plays on the darkness and will keep the screen black while focusing on a small tunnel or a giant empty space, leaving you to fear what will fill those spaces. The compositions make the atmosphere pure dread.

The Crawlers are kept mostly in the background for most of the film, leaving you freaking out until they're finally shown in full force. The makeup and practical effects are spot on and you're never taken out of the story. The gore is intense but necessary. Speaking of the Crawlers, I really appreciate that we're not spoon fed the origin story of these creatures. We're given enough little clues to really use our imagination and come to our own conclusions. Were there men and women trapped under this mountain back in the old days during a mining exploration? Perhaps over the hundreds of years they've evolved into these blind, violent creatures. Or have these Crawlers always lived beneath the mountain, feeding from above?

The relationships between all the women are really well handled. Sarah and Juno have some tension between them and as the story moves on you gain more and more understanding of what kind of person Juno really is. Spoiler alert; she's the fucking worst. Sarah's development is fascinating as she starts out being this timid, depressed woman and turns into the strongest of the group, facing violence head on and doing anything to survive. All of the women feel realistic and the decisions that are made and the conversations all feel incredibly real.

This is a well handled movie that is honestly straight up terrifying. Even after seeing it so many times, it still freaks me out in some spots. The first time you see a full Crawler through the video camera is something that sticks with me. And when Sarah emerges from the pool of blood ala Carrie....just amazing.

Go watch this movie if you never have because it is really a gift. The sequel I've only seen once but kind of want to re-watch tonight. I remember it making the ending of the first one that much better?