Jigsaw

Too many low budget horror films are mistakenly expected to be intellectual masterpieces of modern cinema. Sadly, many viewers are confused by this, but the truth is they are (low budget) and in many cases close to (no budgets). The directing team of Adams & Picardi are well known to work with next to nothing, and I think "Jigsaw" is what it's supposed to be: a low budget, fun horror flick. The story is goofy to begin with, a group of students embark on an art project of piecing together a mannequin. Being the troubled souls that they are, they use power tools and weapons as limbs, and would you believe it... It comes to life and terrorizes them. Nothing too thought-provoking or out of the ordinary here, it's a cheesy, fun film with some decent and dumb moments. The acting is solid, and I found it to be a fun little evening of mindless horror. If you take these films for what they are, you'll find them much more enjoyable...

I saw this movie during Flashback Weekend 2002 in Chicago. I had never heard of it, but I stayed for it anyway. At first, I regretted it because it seemed like the movie would be horrible. But as it went on, it turned out to be not that bad.

This movie starts out with this professor telling his students about a project they'll be involved in. The project is each of the students will get one part of a skeleton (not a real one, one used for something like a science class). The students will do something to that part of the skeleton to make it their own. (Like decorate it with things that mean something to them, etc). They will all get together the next Saturday night at a bar and put the pieces back together, hence the title "Jigsaw"

I won't tell anymore except for the killer is so ridiculous, you just have to laugh at its stupidity. If you wanna rent a cheesy movie, this one's great if you don't take it too seriously. Don't expect to scared by this, because if you did, that'd be even funnier than the movie.

Whether you want to spend nearly 2 hours of your life watching this depends how you like your horror movies. If you like them so god damn awful they're hysterical, watch away. Jigsaw is without a doubt the worst movie i've seen in my life (and i've seen 'Long Time Dead'), and i say this as a fan of the low-budget horror/gore genre and having seen a good few to compare it to. I'm not even going to go into the specifics of what makes this movie was bad as it is, the only good thing about it is it's so so terrible it's one of the funniest things i've seen in years. If you can find this to rent cheap it's definitely worth watching, if you were involved in making it - shame on you. :o) IMDb need to introduce a 0/10 ranking especially for this movie, it thoroughly deserves it.

I thought about not even flunking this film, because for a recent Full Moon quickie it's not all that bad. But you do have to wait like 50 minutes to finally see some Jigsaw action. Still, the film certainly wasn't boring to me (though I can imagine to many it will be, since it's not really a gore feast). The Jigsaw-killer being built out of the traumatizing fears of the students was a nice touch, by the way. Hmmm... but then again: "The Fear" (1995), anyone?. Okay acting & cinematography, even, for a low budget fair like this. Cool ending that was both disappointing and satisfying at the same time. You figure it out.

Jigsaw isn't a great movie (or even a good movie) but if you look back on the early 2000s fondly, it's still pretty entertaining. This is more of a straight forward horror film than 3 AM's other stuff (specifically Vengeance of the Dead) and while there's nothing groundbreaking here, they do some cool stuff with a very low budget and don't take any of it too seriously. If you do end up watching this, it's worth the effort to find a copy of the DVD. The making of featurette is a hoot and definitely makes the film itself much more enjoyable.