Saw A Scary Movie

Roger Ebert has a movie rule called the Law of Economy of Characters, which states that movie budgets make it impossible for any film to contain unnecessary characters. Therefore, "any apparently unnecessary or extraneous major character is undoubtedly the villain". They are generally introduced early, at least in the 1st half of the film. This is definitely the case for the horror film Saw. This is mostly another gross-out flick like Hostel, but this one had a little more intelligence applied to it. I especially like how one of the main characters was also one of the main writers for the movie. This movie featured a bad guy that captured his victims and then put them in horrendous situations that usually end up with them killing themselves or another victim in the room. In many ways this reminded me of Seven, but I liked that movie better. Seven had better character development and plot lines. The bad guy in that movie (who was not revealed until the very end, violating Ebert's rule) tried to punish people for their commision of on of the Seven Deadly Sins. This movie's villain was attempting something similar, but actually seemed to try to teach them a lesson about their past behavior. If they could overcome their character flaws quickly or push their will to live to the very forefront of their consciousness, the might make it. If you can stand the horror aspects of this, watch and see if you can follow Ebert's rule and figure out who the villain is before they reveal him.