It is easy to underestimate the Saw franchise. As the series has progressed, each instalment has received less and less critical attention as it is presumed to have degraded to Jason Takes Manhattan levels of craptitude.
The truth is, however, that the six (going on seven) films in the Saw series have achieved something no other horror franchise could have dreamed of: 8,465,450 worldwide.
While I am the first to admit that the more recent instalments have wavered in quality, they are buckling under a dense, convoluted plot rather than nuking the fridge with a space-set adventure (Jason X, Leprechaun: In Space) or post-modern metafilm (Wes Craven’s New Nightmare, Scream 3, Halloween: Resurrection). Instead, the producers continue to craft intricate and comparatively competent installments on a yearly basis.
With Freddy and Jason rebooted and defanged for a teenage audience, it is nice to see Jigsaw stave off the law of diminishing returns so valiantly while maintaining his bite and relevance.
Hallmarked by its use of complex and ingenuous traps, the Saw series continues to dream up intricate ways to kill people. A franchise that never once resorted to having some scantily clad young woman run up the stairs away from her would-be killer, Saw instead pits all too human characters in life or death situations where they must make a potentially life altering (or ending) choice: sacrifice and change or die.
After catching the original installment on home video (I know, right!) I have returned to my local mutliplex religiously to witness each new episode before my Halloween festivities. Each year I am entertained, impressed and completely mortified by another tale of dubious morality. Unlike the torture porn copy-cats that scare-mongers such as The Daily Mail (please, it’s time to let Childs Play 3 rest in peace) have labelled its legacy, Saw is a relatively reserved horror which, at its best, scrutinises how human beings act under pressure and at its worst, forces you to look away in mock disgust.
Anyway, I digress. What of that convoluted plot? The disgruntled claims that the franchise has not only disappeared into narrative loops but up its own ass. With Saw 3D mere days away, I thought it wise to scare newcomers into acquiring the complete saga and refresh fans on the twists and turns which have peppered the series to date. With each installment ending on a Hello Zepp leitmotif that would put the Eastenders theme to shame, audiences are consistently left dangling as the jigsaw is pulled out from under your feet. That the principal protagonist has been dead since Saw III just acts to demonstrate the dramatic demands the filmmakers have been bending over backwards to maintain.
Saw, the first installment in this lucrative Lionsgate franchise, got off to a humble beginning with two men (Cary Elwes and Leigh Whannell) trapped in a disused toilet with what appears to be a blood-soaked corpse, a revolver and a pair of rusted hacksaws. With each man’s leg chained to a pipe, a shared history is slowly revealed through a complex structure of flashbacks within flashbacks. Notified through a recorded microcassette message that the infamous Jigsaw Killer (a misnomer – Jigsaw’s victims always choose, whether directly or indirectly, to kill themselves) would like them to play a game, the protagonists come to the horrifying realisation that they must use the saws on themselves if they wish to escape. Ending in a cacophony of tension as Elwes’ Dr. Lawrence Gordon saws off his leg and which crescendos with the revelation that the corpse is not a corpse at all, but Jigsaw himself, Saw climaxes with the brutal death of Whannel’s character and the fate of Lawrence sickeningly inevitable.
Manipulated to the scene of Jigsaw’s latest game, Detective Eric Matthews (Donnie Wahlberg) is led to an abandoned steel factory where they find Jigsaw aka John Kramer aka Tobin Bell severely weakened by cancer. Computer monitors within the factory alert Matthews to the impending disaster facing his son Daniel, namely that he and seven others are trapped in an abandoned house which is set to fill with nerve gas in precisely two hours. As Daniel is selflessly led to a safe-room by fellow hostage Amanda Young (Shawnee Smith), Detective Matthews fights his way into the house only to realise that the events broadcast via the computer monitors transpired hours earlier. He is attacked and left to die by Amanda, who is revealed to be Jigsaw’s protégé having survived the trap formulated for her. The events of Saw II are shown to have taken place after the first movie after the decomposing remains of Dr. Lawrence’s foot are glimpsed in the toilet come safe-room.
Saw III opens with Detective Matthews’ escape, having broken his foot out of the shackles with a derelict toilet lid. The film, however, does not continue in this vein, instead focussing on a bed-ridden John Kramer and the murderous exploits of his increasingly uncontrolable protegé, Amanda Young. A new game is conceived, one which requires depressed doctor Lynn Denlon to keep Jigsaw alive while new victim Jeff undergoes three tests to free his daughter. Securing a gun from one of his tests, Jeff arrives just in time to witness Amanda shooting Lynn out of jealousy (Jigsaw, hallucinating, had previously confessed his love for Lynn having mistaken her for his estranged wife). Jeff shoots Amanda and Jigsaw, which in turn delivers the final blow to a wounded Lynn. Saw III ends with a dying Jigsaw setting Jeff one final task in order to free his daughter. Finding a balance between character and set pieces, coupled with the franchise’s most explosive finale, makes the third installment a personal favourite.
With the first trilogy complete and the two antagonists dead, Saw IV opens with the graphic autopsy of John “Jigsaw” Kramer during which a wax-coated microcassette is recovered. Directed at Detective Hoffman, the series’ latest protagonist is soon embroiled in his own game, Jigsaw not about to let a minor case of death stop him from teaching people the value of their own lives. When the recovery of one of Jigsaw’s previous victims suggests that a second accomplice might have been involved, Hoffman is left to cover up his own involvement in Jigsaw’s affairs as another detective (Scott Patterson’s Strahm) closes in on our new villain, interrogating John Kramer’s ex-wife for information. The autopsy scene is replayed during the film’s dénouement, revealing the events of Saw III and IV to have been taking place simultaneously.
Awakening with his head sealed within a glass box which is slowly filling with water, Agent Peter Strahm is forced to perform a tracheotomy upon himself with a pen. With that, Saw V begins. Using a key which hangs around her neck, Jull Tuck opens a box that she has received in the mail, its contents apparently of grave importance. Meanwhile, as a new group of victims awaken to almost certain death, Strahm’s pursuit of the truth lead him to piece together Hoffman’s involvement in a series of traps from previous movies. During their final confrontation, Strahm’s mistrust of Jigsaw inadvertently leads him to saving Hoffman and dooming himself to not only death, but taking the blame for everything Hoffman has done.
Saw VI, which placed second at the box-office following the release of new-horror-on-the-block Paranormal Activity, sees Jill Tuck reveal the box she had received in the previous movie to contain six envelopes, a package, and a reverse bear-trap device. While Hoffman uses envelopes 1 through 5 to test insurance executive William Easton, she withholds the final envelope from him. Once Easton has been tested, Jill electrocutes Hoffman and mounts the reverse bear-trap to fulfil her ex-husband’s final request. Despite throwing away the key, however, Jill’s attempts at killing Hoffman are unsuccessful, though he is scarred from his ordeal.
While it would of course be impossible to distil each film into a single paragraph, many of the franchise’s complexities have been paid off throughout the existing three films and are therefore less relevant to this article than others. Many of the victims and traps are tied, through numerous plot devices, to other characters and events, however what is important to know is where we are now – going into Saw 3D.
Saw 3D will conclude Detective Hoffman and Jill Tuck’s battle for John Kramer’s legacy, it will also reunite a number of Jigsaw survivors – including Doctor Gordon, returning for the first time since the original Saw – under self-help guru Bobby Dagen. Eleven new traps – the most for any film in the franchise – will feature, including the ‘Garage Trap’ which has been described as “too violent” to have been used in any of the previous installments. From the trailer alone we can glimpse Ryan and Brad, who are put in control of the fate of mutual lover Dina; as well as Sydney, who must battle her abusive boyfriend for survival.
Saw 3D will end an era. Although it sparked the torture porn wave it has outlasted its imitators, tying itself into nots to deliver compelling and dramatic narratives on an annual basis. Having defined a decade, and providing this really is the final chapter, I look forward to dismissing the inevitable remake as ‘not nearly as good as the original.’ Saw has become synonymous with Halloween, an event movie which has transcended any one director, protagonist or villain. More than just another horror film or another 3D cash in, Saw 3D promises to end a franchise on a high and I, for one, cannot wait a second longer.
