The extras here are some of the most disappointing in a long time. The commentary from both writer/director James Wan and his co-writer Whannell is active and informative, easily the only worthwhile feature. "Sawed Off" is a meaningless short featurette (2:30) that shows little behind the scenes footage and nothing new if you heard the commentary.
There's a music video from Fear Factory in both a rated and unrated version (they rate music videos now?). You can follow that up with a making of the unrated version, which runs four minutes. Ridiculous as it may sound, it's more informative, interesting, and better produced than the one for the movie.
Finishing things off are some posters and trailers. How stupid is it that the deleted scenes that would've pushed the movies rating up are not included? What's that? Oh, the inevitable special edition Lions Gate will put out will have them? Yeah, now it all makes sense. (**)
"Saw" was made for a little over a million dollars and hauled that in on its first day in theaters. Certainly the studio was ok with it and Wan did a fine job making things work with such a small amount of money (by today's standards at least). There's no doubt the film would have benefited from some better talent and a little more time. For what it is, this is still one of the better thrillers from last year, not a bad mark for a movie that was about to go direct to video.
.jpg?t=20120527181101)
Article comments
1 - DrPat
For someone sitting on the fence about whether to buy or rent this DVD, your review is perfect, Matt. I look for more extras on DVDs I will buy, so it sounds like this is a rental for me.
Thank you from the bottom of my budget... er, heart!