opening to Saw

This film is rated an 18 because of the content, this shows that some of the deaths will be gory and their will be swearing. Also the film is based on torture so it maybe disturbing to teenagers/ children under 18.


In the opening minutes of Saw you immediatly know that it is a horror genre by the colours of the opening title screens and when the first scene appears it is dark and eeary. When the titles appear on screen their is the sound of a storm in the background and then they flash on screen. In the opening scene a little blue light goes across the screen and the audience can just about see a person with their eyes clothes laying down, it then quickly dissappears to show that he is underwater and just woken up. He wakes up gasping for air and choking on the water, the audience figure out that he is in a bathroom, but not in his own home. The blue light vanished down the drain and the screen goes pitch black. You start to hear him asking for help and you get the sense that he is walking around even though you can't see hi. This is very effective as it adds more impact to the fact that he is trapped and has no clue where he is, the audience will sympathise for him as they can imagine from hearing him what emotions must be running through his mind.

As it continues to remain dark you get an eeary feeling of danger and that he is not alone, this leaves the audience in anticipation as they want their to be light so they can see who is with him, however when you start to hear the other person's voive it is still dark so the audience have to imagine who is their and why. The man says i think i found something and suddenly all the lights flash on and the man is stunned by the immediate display of light, as he was in the dark for ages. The audiecne can now see the room and therefore they get the setting and the emotion goes with what the man is feeling. The bathroom looks cold, damp and gloomy these portray the man's feelings as he is feeling cold from being in water for a while, damp because he is wet and scared because of where he is.

You then get a P.O.V ( POINT OF VIEW ) shot of his vision being blurred from the lights and him feeling dizzy, this gives the impression that the man is more vunderable as he doesn't have good vision for a small moment. This makes the audience think that soemthing is going to happen next, it then pans around to show another man also trapped holding onto a pipe. The other characters vision is also blurred and he tries to make out the image of the man walking towards him. The next clip shows them trying to connect with one another wanting to feel safe by being near one another, however the screen goes fuzzy and things spin around. This shows that they are not fully recovered from what happened to them, the camera then zooms in on a body that is covered in blood laying on the floor. The audience now get the impression that their maybe more than just those people and that either the killer is in the room or nearby watching.

After looking at the body they turn to each other and scream, panic across their face wondering what will happen to them. The man turns to run and realises that he is chained to a pipe by his foot, this is a good effect because the audience never realised that he was chained and neither did he, this means that they can't escape without torturing themselves. This adds more drama and questions for the audience as they now think of how they could escape and who is behind this. The end of the opening minutes is the other man saying 'calm down', this shows the audience that because he isn't chained to anything and isn't showing any sign of fear that he maybe the killer or he is trying to block out what is happening, this makes the audience wonder what will happen next.