I saw, well, Saw last night. Now, there's a wickedly fucked-up movie. A taut, sort of smart thriller, almost ruined by Cary Elwes' (Dr. Lawrence Gordon) terrible acting, but largely offset by Leigh Whannell's (Adam) fairly good acting. Some parts were pretty disturbing, no doubt, but in all a very good Halloween movie ... and kinda cheesy, but that's okay. New York Times film critic Stephen Holden called it in his review a "sadistic, Halloween-ready gore fest". A gore 'fest'? Not really. Well, yeah, I guess so. And, according to Holden, the setting of the film - described as "a filthy subterranean bathroom"* - "bear[s] an uncomfortable resemblance to the infamous Iraqi prison photos." Personally, the thought never crossed my mind, but whatever.** Holden writes that the film "does a better-than-average job of conveying the panic and helplessness of men terrorized by a sadist in a degrading environment, but it is still not especially scary. [True; I didn't think it was all that scary at all ...] What sets its demon apart from run-of-the-mill movie serial killers is his impulse to humiliate and torture his victims and justify it with some twisted morality." And that's where it's most fucked-up, just so you know. In short, the perfect Halloween movie: wigged-out, sort of cheesy and stupid, and surprisingly funny (at times the entire audience burst into laughter, mostly directed at Mr. Elwes and his humorously bad acting, of course).

*True dat.

**After all, the review is titled "A Gore Fest, With Overtones of Iraq and TV" ...