Saw (2004 - 2021) Review

I want to play a game. The rules are simple. What we have here is a franchise that's probably the first thing people think of when they imagine an overlong, drawn-out horror series that exists solely for gore hounds, without any artistic value whatsoever.

Today, we put Saw to the test and dissect every entry to uncover the truth. Eight films, eight chances to prove to me that this series has more than meets the eye. Can it surprise me with good characterisation and story or is it really just more and more excuses to indulge in torture porn?

The original Saw is a cheap indie film, a passion project. Like all of them, it wasn't trying to kickstart a series and it definitely wasn't made to show the maximum amount of blood and flesh, simply because the budget wouldn't cover that sort of thing. Saw is an actual story, an almost theatrical, Agatha Christie style murder mystery, with the murder still in process. The premise grabbed me immediately: two men with sordid pasts are locked into a room with a clock and have to find a way to escape before the time runs out. It's a goldmine of creativity for everyone involved with the production. This brilliant setup and the complicated nature of the mystery, with plenty of twists and turns throughout the runtime, is by far the film's greatest strength and should be what it's remembered for. The very final revelation got the horror fandom buzzing at the time and that skilful storytelling is what gave Saw its sequels, not the negligible amount of blood involved. There's blood in loads of films, but they don't get eight sequels. Saw earned its following by reinventing horror for a whole decade with a smart approach and a good understanding of human nature.

That's not to say the film is entirely great. Whilst consistently watchable, I do think it gets a little carried away with all of the red herrings, bloating up the cast and the runtime and taking away from the stripped down central dilemma in the room with our actual protagonists. There's more than enough dramatic weight between the two of them having to decide what to do and how to go about it, and I don't think all the gazillion flashbacks(sometimes to people they barely know) were warranted. The direction(by James Wan, who went on to do Aquaman and other popular blockbusters) is competent, but not exactly timeless. There's a lot of dramatic flourishes, which make it very obvious that the film was made in the 2000s.

You know what else puts it firmly in the 2000s? That theme. It's a great score, I love it, but I can't help not recognising that every Youtuber ever around 2007-2010 used that music. I didn't know where it was from for years! But that just goes to show how influential Saw was and still is to an extent. It made an impact and that's all that matters in the end. Love it or hate it, Saw is a milestone film. Personally, I think it's still an interesting flick worth at least one watch, made by people who were clearly invested. And I was already spoiled on the twists.

Saw II theroetically ticks all the boxes of a good sequel. It's bigger in scope, expands on the lore, but most of all, it changes the design of the mystery. Instead of wondering who the killer is, we're wondering what he wants exactly, as he shows up to the police right at the beginning of the movie(keeping with Jigsaw's MO of observing the test firsthand), promising that no harm will occur so long as a specific officer keeps talking to him.

This lets us actually appreciate the casting of Tobin Bell as the villain. With his apathetic gaze, skull-like face and raspy voice, Bell commands every scene he's in and I loved that Jigsaw took the oppurtunity to elaborate on why he does what he does, to the point where I was almost desperate to discuss ethics with him! However, it does have the inadvertent effect of making all the scenes without Bell seem less important in comparison, particularly when we learn the final twist that, in essence, renders the entire traproom scenario(which, let's remember, is the focus of a Saw film) irrelevant, just one piece of the puzzle. We're not supposed to care about the people Jigsaw has trapped, which I think is a huge mistake given the emotional resonance the first film's victims built up. I was also irritated by the fact that the main character never got to find out the twist to give us that perfect realization of how fucked he is that made the original ending such a classic scene.

Outside of Bell, the casting isn't that great - Timothy Burd as the stony Obi is probably my favourite victim, but he's dispensed with quickly and the rest are a bunch of forgettables, save for Shawnee Smith's quirky Amanda, whom we're already familiar with. I do commend the massive character development she gets here, another example of the franchise's reliance on continuity. The direction by Darren Lynn Bousman is nothing special - he emulates James Wan to the letter, meaning that Saw II is visually similar to its predecessor. But overall, it's not a satisfying film and that mainly comes down to using the traproom victims as disposable pawns in a bigger game. It just makes me feel like I wasted my time watching their struggles, knowing they only existed to manipulate Jigsaw's real victim.

Saw III is a more personal story than its two predecessors, focusing on the complicated relationship between Jigsaw and his apprentice. Being on his deathbed, Kramer plays a game with his own legacy. I find this to be a fascinating and original dynamic, though it relies massively on the audience's previous investment into the storyline.

Due to death being a vital part of horror, the genre has often struggled with good characterisation, with "dumb teens" and the like being a popular trope. In most horror franchises, the viewers relate to the killers themselves and root for them to take lives in increasingly gory fashion. That's what can be called torture porn. However, I don't think that's the case with Saw. Kramer isn't a butcher, he traps people for various specific reasons, with the intention to change them as individuals, to mold them into what he perceives to be better people. There's a lot of complexity there, both from Kramer and the victims(who frequently end up joining the ever-increasing list of recurring characters). Especially in this film.

However, there is a downside to this stronger characterisation, and that's the horror itself. Just like in Saw II, the traps themselves play second fiddle to the arcs, and are no longer frightening but just morbidly interesting. We haven't really had another situation where the mystery of the game is as enticing as the people in it. And the new characters who aren't emotionally involved in Jigsaw's life(namely Jeff, Lynn and their victims) just aren't all that interesting, because they're obviously just there to support the plot.

I also felt that Amanda's shift from loyal follower to traitor was somewhat clumsily handled - we never really saw what pushed her to make inescapable traps so as much as I liked that reveal, it didn't entirely line up with what we'd seen of her up to this point. Still a really good movie, though.

With John Kramer dead, it's quite fitting that Saw IV explores the fate of those few who survived his last games. Unfortunately, I feel that it overexerts itself considerably. Whilst the series has always been a continuity hound's playground, Saw IV's insistence on weaving every-fucking-one person ever related to the franchise that could conceivably still be around into its narrative bogs it down so much that it's nearly impossible to follow, especially since there's also obvious setup for even more sequels ahead.

Let me try and explain how hard this all is: Saw IV follows Officer Rigg, a minor character from the previous two films who is trying to come to terms with the fact that nearly all of his colleagues have been killed off by Jigsaw. It also follows the FBI, who are investigating John Kramer's wife. It also follows Kramer's wife herself in flashbacks to her relationship with John. It also follows Detective Matthews, the protagonist of Saw II who is literally taking three movies to finally die. It also takes place at the same time as Saw III, meaning that events and characters from that film are relevant to this one.

Point is, Saw IV tries to do way too many things at once in a misguided effort to pull the carpet out from under the audience in regards to the entire series, when it only needed to be impressive in its own right. And as a result, it's not. For the first time, it doesn't feel like everything is wrapped up perfectly. There's loose threads all over the place.
Which isn't to say that the film is bad, per se, because it's not. There's plenty of concepts, traps and callbacks that I do love, and I was thoroughly engaged all the way through. But there's no denying that it's all becoming a bit soap opera now.

Saw IV is also the first film where the gore is ramped up to what I'd call needless levels - Kramer's autopsy revels in it for no other purpose but to freak people out. At least it's memorable.

Saw V feels repetitive. Another leftover detective from the previous films set up to be framed, another tangentially related group of people being tested, more retroactive flashbacks to excuse Tobin Bell's continued presence(because Jigsaw died in Saw III). We've seen it all before, and it was done better.

This time, the director's seat is taken by David Hackl(emphasis on "hack"), the production designer. You can tell, because almost all of the visual flair of the series has been thrown out of the window apart from some obligatory stylistic choices. The cinematography is murky and unremarkable, the traps are lame, everything is cheap and derivative.

My main positive goes towards the characters. The victims aren't fleshed out much, but they're all distinctive, intelligent and up to date on Jigsaw, meaning that we can relate to them a lot better than some of the dunderheads in other films. Costas Mandylor as Detective Hoffman aka the second Jigsaw is an imposing and fascinting performer. He has this effortlessly cool demeanour mixed in with a naturally shady-looking face and I can't take my eyes off of him whenever he's on the scene. He looks like Grima Wormtongue if he had good hygiene and worked out. On the other side, Scott Patterson as Agent Strahm is one of the better heroes of the series, and we naturally feel for him after the losses he endured in the last film.
I do love how this series has become a drama about the police force. The Jigsaw trio has literally taken down an entire department of detectives over the course of these five films.

Still, Saw V has no reason to exist. It's an unnecessary epilogue and not much else.

Saw VI is more of the same, but watching this film is when I noticed that necessity to keep Tobin Bell around is seriously hurting the franchise. Costas Mandylor is a great actor and brings a lot of cool, unflappable presence to his incarnation of Jigsaw. However, he's never really allowed to take the reins because the films have to contrive some vague reason to keep John Kramer relevant to the plot. Cause apparently it's just not Saw unless old Bell shows up every now and again to drawl about humanity's will to live.

So in this film, Hoffman is stuck testing Jigsaw's health insurance company(lol wut) whilst being himself tested by Jigsaw's wife, a blatant contradiction to the previous films where Kramer had done everything in his power to keep her out of the games.

It's not all bad - surprisingly, the insurance company storyline turns out to be the best part of the film. Peter Outerbridge gives a terrific performance as slick and callous CEO Will Easton, whose sense of morality is forced to resurface during his tests. The scene where he denies Kramer coverage to cure his cancer was hard to watch, but I didn't want him to die either, because he'd pushed himself so far to survive and save as many of his colleagues and loved ones as possible. I got the impression that he may have indeed had good intentions at the start, but simply got buried under greed and might've become a better person if he'd made it out of the games(which is one of the very few times Jigsaw's games actually seem to work out that way).

The traps themselves were well-thought out and heartwrenching, and what's better, they were directed by someone who knows how to light a scene. The cinematography is a huge leap up from Saw V. All in all, the movie is like the inverse of Saw II. In that film, I couldn't care less about the victims and was purely interested in the main Jigsaw storyline. But here, all of the victims are actually quite intriguing and I rooted for them, but the overall series arc is extremely thin at this point, dragging the film down.

Saw: The Final Chapter(I refuse to refer to it as Saw 3D, what a dreadful title) exceeded my expectations. It has quite a terrible reputation, but I felt that it was suitably grandiose and entertaining for the final installment. Well, potential final installment anyway. It's never over.

Seeing Hoffman go fully renegade and abandon any notion of righteous traps in favor of brutal revenge was awesome. The guy is such a trooper that he can single-handedly take down a police department! But he's a mad dog, and mad dogs have to be put down, which is where the film's trump card comes in... Cary Elwes, reprising his role as the first film's protagonist Dr Gordon. I liked Elwes fine in the original, but he's a whole different deal here. Gravelly-voiced, limping, sitting in the shadows... Dr Gordon has become a total badass and seeing him stand victorious at last in the grubby bathroom where it all began was the perfect end note.

There are some flaws - many of the traps clearly exist just for the sake of some more trademark gore and have nothing to do with the story. The 3D gimmick is lame and desperate, just like it was in the 80s. And I kinda wish we saw a few victims survive, cause I did end up caring about them and considering that Jigsaw's MO is teaching people a lesson, it would've been nice to get more of that.

And so we arrive to the last film, Jigsaw. Let us examine what we have here... a dull police procedural. Unlikable victims. A token Tobin Bell appearance to satiate the nerds. A glossy modern look and feel that doesn't match up with the time period, showing the lack of care. Overcomplicated flashback-heavy storytelling to retcon a justification for the film's existence.

These symptoms can be explained away with two words, the two words that started this whole review series: torture porn. Jigsaw is everything that the layman thinks this franchise is. As a reboot, it had the oppurtunity to prove them wrong and restore the reputation that increasingly gorier sequels gave it. Instead, it abandoned any atmosphere or class that the series had in favor of catering to those very people, thinking that they actually wanted to see this kind of film. And worst of all, they did. Despite poor critical reviews, Jigsaw was a commercial hit and another film is set to be released in 2021. I don't have high hopes.

So, the verdict. Is Saw a good franchise? Well, I give the first seven films credit for its unusual television series format. But it's obvious that they flailed around with the plot after the death of John Kramer, which began to collapse in on itself as they looked for ways to keep the character around. And at the end of the day, Saw's biggest trademarks are clearly its brutal and hypocritical traps, not the characters. Saw is torture porn.

GAME OVER!

Updated in 2021:

Spiral: From The Book Of Saw, whilst technically a superior movie to its direct predecessor, only continues the franchise's descent into banality and torture porn. It's a film that was made because Chris Rock wanted to make a Saw movie, and because the producers saw it as a chance to reinvigorate their brand. And it feels like it. It's a Chris Rock movie, there are traps that kill people in poetic ways. Its actual association with Saw only comes from a few visual and auditory callbacks, and a photograph of Tobin Bell that they had lying around. 

I could perhaps appreciate the attempt to move away from John Kramer's convoluted storyline if more effort had been put in to actually making something compelling, or if I wasn't aware that more Kramer-based films are under planning anyway, making Spiral a random deviation at best and a blatant cash-in at worst. Perhaps the most ironic thing is that its most notable aspect - the anti-police corruption theme - has actually already been explored by Jigsaw with about as much depth(same writers, you see). So there's genuinely no reason to watch this film unless you want to see a Saw with none of the things one would actually want to see in a Saw - i.e. Tobin rasping nonsense about people appreciating their lives, people trying to survive their tests and a magnificent attention to the series' continuity. Hell, even the traps are pretty forgettable in this one. And they have no reason to exist and less reason to be tied to Kramer thematically once you understand the villain's motivations(since when have the spirals on Billy's cheeks represented anything other than random doodles?)

Samuel L. Jackson was fun to have around. Shame on the writers for killing him off, and for not making him the next Jigsaw. Then we could've had Spiral 2 with Hoffman and him kicking ass. Oh well. 

Updated in 2023:

Saw X is a welcome return to form, and it's lovely to see Tobin Bell, Shawnee Smith and Costas Mandylor. But is it really necessary? Is there a story here worth telling? I don't think so. I feel like the film relies heavily on people's empathy for John Kramer and his struggle (not to mention their fondness for Bell as a performer). Yes, it's sad that he has cancer. It's horrible to see people take advantage of him. But none of this is new material. It's all a retread of the themes of Saw VI. Do I think it's much better done? Sure. And I do appreciate that Bell gets more screentime. But that doesn't change the fact that it's a fan service movie. It doesn't bring the character to a new headspace. His beliefs aren't challenged in any meaningful sense. Synnove Macody Lund is a great actress, but her Cecilia is a cartoon bad guy. How is she supposed to stand up to Kramer on an ideological level? We're obviously not gonna care about anything she says. 

I feel bad because the film is a passion project. Everyone are trying, and the final product isn't bad. It's just that the franchise still feels hamstrung by its decision to kill Kramer off so soon. The writers seem scared of taking the character somewhere he hasn't been before. Maybe that's the result of Saw 3D, Jigsaw and Spiral being unpopular. They want to specifically recapture the vibes of the early films. I get that. But I feel like there's a way of doing that whilst also not treating Kramer as porcelain.