10 Awesome Movies You Won't Believe Got A Rotten Rating On RottenTomatoes

6. Saw

Tomatometer Rating: 48% After six sequels (and another on the horizon) it's hard to separate the first Saw from the massive franchise it became; by the time The Final Chapter rolled around the series was dominated by overly-elaborate traps, a shaky moral code and unbelievable twist endings. However, the disappointing revisits hide the fact that the first film got all those elements spot-on. The first Saw had a plot, with the mystery of who was making people appreciate life through utterly grotesque means motivating both a police investigation and a tense bathroom-set showdown. The low-budget and inexperience of director James Wan is clear (just look at that car chase), but that's off-set thanks to a high level of creativity - there's a wonderfully grimy feel to everything (reminiscent of Seven) and a final twist ending ties together all the loose threads in a way that makes the follow ups inessential. There was (and still is) a lot of controversy around the gorier moments - Saw, along with Hostel, essentially created the torture porn genre - but in this film it's not as prevalent as you'd imagine, nowhere near as exploitive as it would become. One thing RottenTomatoes does get right is that it's the best of the series; all later movies scored much lower.