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'Saw': The cutting edge of horror
« on: Nov 1st, 2004, 4:25pm » |
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'Saw': The cutting edge of horror
A Sundance hit gets wide release
Monday, November 1, 2004 Posted: 2:32 PM EST (1932 GMT)
LOS ANGELES, California (Back Stage) -- Two men, seemingly strangers, awaken in an empty room. Each is handcuffed to the opposite wall with no idea how he got there and nothing between them but a dead body. They soon learn they are the latest victims of a sadistic madman known as "Jigsaw," a clever fiend who places people in kill-or-be-killed situations in a misguided attempt to make them appreciate life.
He's not technically a serial killer -- no one has ever died by his hand. Instead he forces his prey to find out how far they will go, how much blood they will shed, how many people they will hurt, to stay alive.
This seemingly simple premise spirals into "Saw," one of the scariest movies in years: the rare horror film that delivers on its promise of blood and gore. After premiering to sold-out screenings at the Sundance Film Festival in January, the film finally made it to theaters on Friday, debuting at No. 3 with estimated Halloween weekend ticket sales of about $17.4 million.
Despite its lack of A-list stars and a big budget, "Saw" has something going for it for which most studios would commit murder: killer word-of-mouth.
The lead characters are Lawrence, who is an unhappily married doctor, and Adam, a young photographer, played respectively by Cary Elwes and Leigh Whannell.
While Elwes has been working steadily since his breakout role in "The Princess Bride," Whannell has only a few minor credits in films (most notably as Alex in "The Matrix Reloaded") and Australian television. Yet his performance as the traumatized Adam has everyone wondering where he came from and how he ended up headlining a film that also stars Danny Glover and Monica Potter.
Whannell's answer is simple: He wrote a script so good that everyone wanted to make it. And if that meant putting him in the lead role and letting his close friend direct it, so be it.
Learning that Whannell is the writer of "Saw" is only one of many real-life surprises that could rival his twisty script. It turns out that the actor, who uses a flawless American accent in the film, is a native of Melbourne, Australia.
Whannell was studying acting at the University of Melbourne when he met James Wan, a fellow student interested in directing.
"Both of us wanted to make a film desperately, but we were facing the eternal conundrum faced by student filmmakers across the world: lack of cash," he said in a recent interview. "After spitting ideas back and forth for a few years, we finally came to the earth-moving realization that if we were going to make a film, we should pay for it ourselves. That's where the script was born. We decided we would make a really low-budget, 'Pi'-style indie with our friends as crew, shot on 16 (millimeter) for $30,000."
Exactly how Whannell went from no budget to being locked in a room with Elwes for a 18-day shoot is a bit of a mystery to this day. "Basically we spent so much time on the script because we knew that, if we were going to make an indie, the script would be the star," he said. "The irony being, people liked it and didn't want to do it as an indie."
As soon as the first draft was finished, the pair began showing it to everyone they knew for feedback. Everyone said the same thing: Try to get some investors; this is too good to just shoot in your backyard.
"We actually resisted for a while," he recalled. "We didn't want to go down a two-year path searching for money, only to come full circle to the backyard option."
Sure enough, while trying to get it done in Australia, they couldn't find the money. People loved the script, producers optioned it, but it wasn't happening.
"We were at the end of our rope and disappointed, to say the least," he said. "Then our manager said, 'Why don't we take this to America, where they make great genre films? They'll get it over there.' "
Wan and Whannell decided to shoot a scene from the movie to show potential investors what they could do. In the final film, the scene features actor Shawnee Smith with a horrific steel contraption wired to her jaw that will spring open unless she can retrieve a key from a man's stomach in time. It's a tense, gruesome moment that has been featured prominently in the film's previews.
In the scene they shot, Whannell played the role Smith ended up with -- "As a guy, of course" -- and their friends helped them film it in the basement of a hospital. "It was put together quickly," he said. "But it looked good enough to convince them to do it."
'It was down-and-dirty'
"Them" would be Evolution Management's Gregg Hoffman, Oren Koules, and Mark Burg, who fell in love with the script. "They were looking for a low-budget film to do, and they said they wanted it to be this one," Whannell explained. "And then they said, 'James, you can direct, and Leigh, you can play Adam.' "
After that, the cast began to fall into place, including Elwes, who was swayed after viewing the DVD.
"It was so impressive that these two had put together something so compelling in 20 minutes, and you got a perfect idea of their style and the film they were going to make," he said. "When you meet Leigh, he's so self-deprecating and has such a wicked sense of humor, but he is very serious about his acting."
Whannell said the film cost less than $10 million, and the shoot was without any frills. "It was down-and-dirty, it was rough-and-tumble, it was indie," he says.
"Saw" is not for the faint of heart. The original cut earned an NC-17 rating before a few minor edits were made to allow it an R. The subject matter delves into dark places, and the tortures Jigsaw thinks up, while admirably creative, are sick and twisted.
"Look, James and I are big fans of the horror and thriller genre," Whannell said. "We don't revel in sadism; we're not the type of people that enjoy torturing our characters. But I think if you promise somebody steak and chips, you've got to deliver steak and chips. We made a thriller, and I'm not about to run out there and shy away from saying, 'This is a horror film.' We don't mind the label."
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