I bought a ticket to see the movie Spiral: From the Book of Saw on opening night this Thursday. I’m a longtime fan of the Saw series, which is one of the highest grossing horror movie franchises of all time, bringing in more than a half-a-billion dollars across eight films, starting with the original 2004 classic. The new movie, Spiral, is not a direct sequel to the previous eight movies. Rather, it’s a spinoff — a standalone movie that lives in the Saw universe that blazes a new trail all its own. Of course, if it’s successful, Spiral could launch its own series of films, extending the Saw legend even further. On Twitter, the official Saw account is doing a movie marathon and live tweeting about it over the next few days. I’m doing a marathon of my own, re-watching all of the Saw movies. Today, I watched the original Saw. Let’s dive in and take a look at what made this movie so special.