History YMMV / Se7en

* FridgeLogic: Doe has an obsessive hatred against "sinners", a grandiose sense of self-worth, and is a perverted sexual sadist. This makes him more guilty of Wrath, Pride and Lust than the victims of those sins. But since he's clearly a nutjob, this is probably a literal case of InsaneTrollLogic.

* GambitRoulette: John Doe's plan hinges upon: the police finding the Gluttony message behind the fridge, the Sloth victim not being discovered ahead of time, the police finding the message hidden the painting in Gould's office, the police being able to connect the fingerprints behind the painting to the Sloth victim, the police finding the Sloth victim on the appropriate day, the package containing [[spoiler: Tracy's head]] arriving at the scene at the right time, somebody actually opening said package and seeing its contents (one of the cops in the helicopter, upon seeing the package, radios for the bomb squad to be brought in - why would this not be Somerset's first assumption?), and convincing [[spoiler: Mills to kill John Doe]], without anyone intervening. Additionally, practically every murder takes place in a location where someone could have easily interrupted John Doe before completing the murder in question (Somerset notes that John Doe left the scene of the Gluttony murder twice in order to buy more spaghetti sauce, and hand waves no one interrupting the Greed murder with SomebodyElsesProblem) - he was extraordinarily lucky that no one did so. Finally, when Somerset and Mills arrive at John Doe's apartment he fires upon them from a distance, and again when they give chase - Somerset and Mills form an integral part of his plan, so he must have been missing on purpose, but he was still lucky that he didn't accidentally hit one of them.

* HighOctaneNightmareFuel: All of the murders, particularly "Sloth" and "Lust".

* NarrowedItDownToTheGuyIRecognize: Ingeniously averted. [[spoiler: The name of the guy you recognize doesn't appear on the poster or in the opening credits, and he doesn't show up till the third act.]]

* CrowningMomentOfAwesome: The opening title sequence, which put Kyle Cooper (a dedicated title sequence director) on the map.

*** Just say that area is in [[Handwave A Major Rainshaow]]

* WTHCastingAgency: Or in this case, [=WTH=] Promotions. David Fincher mentions in a commentary track that for reasons he cannot fathom, the people who went out looking for test audiences for the movie used ''DrivingMissDaisy'' and ''LegendsOfTheFall'' as examples of movies that Morgan Freeman and Brad Pitt, respectively, have been in. So naturally, most of the people in the audience were the kind of people who would watch films like ''DrivingMissDaisy'' and ''LegendsOfTheFall'', and not films like, well, ''{{Se7en}}''. Fincher said that after the movie got out, he was standing outside the theater, and three middle-aged women walked past him. As they did so, one said "Whoever made this movie should be shot."

* DarknessInducedAudienceApathy: YourMileageMayVary, but let's face it, the film is ''absurdly'' dark.

* AlternateCharacterInterpretation: William Somerset and John Doe are the [[OnlySaneMan only really sane men]], knowing damn well how bad the world is, but differ on how they deal with it (making Doe essentially Somerset's EvilCounterpart).

* AlternateCharacterInterpretation: William Somerset and John Doe are the [[OnlySaneMan only really sane men]].

* AlternateCharacterInterpretation: William Somerset and John Doe are the only really sane men.

* DarthWiki/{{Narm}}: A lot of people have trouble taking [[spoiler:the moments leading up to Doe getting shot seriously, between his {{Anvilicious}} speech to make Mills shoot him and the latter's whining and how he switches between "crying" and "straight" faces a number of times.]]
** "What's in the fucking box!?"

* {{Anvilicious}}: HumansAreBastards and we live in a CrapsackWorld. The film is not in any way subtle about reinforcing these points.

** More generally, though: it's been [[GrayRainOfDepression raining in the city]] for nearly a week and it's implied the city gets a lot of rain. At the climax of the movie, our heroes head out of the city into the immediate environs... which are a flat desert that behaves as though it hasn't seen rain in months[[hottip:*:which, conveniently, is the geography [[CaliforniaDoubling closest and cheapest to Los Angeles]]]]. [[YouFailGeographyForever Right, then.]]

** More generally, though: it's been [[GrayRainOfDepression raining in the city]] for nearly a week and it's implied the city gets a lot of rain. At the climax of the movie, our heroes head out of the city into the immediate environs... which are a flat desert that behaves as though it hasn't seen rain in months[[hottip:*:which, conveniently, is the geography [[CaliforniaDoubling closest and cheapest to Los Angeles]]]]. [[YouFailGeographyForever Ooookay?]]

* DarknessInducedAudienceApathy: YourMileageMayVary, but let's face it, the film is ''absurdly'' dark.

* CrowningMomentOfAwesome: The opening title sequence, which put Kyle Cooper (a dedicated title sequence director) on the map.