Saw (2004) | 31 Days of Horror: Oct 29

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Shall we play a game?

Saw changed the trajectory of horror in the early 2000s, launching new careers and reinvigorating horror audiences. It’s as intense and graphic as it is groundbreaking, so much so that it even spawned a new subgenre.

Before Viewing

If the trailer for Saw is only half as spooky as the film, this will be an intense ride. It looks like police are tracking a killer who has kidnapped two people and locked them in a room. The killer wants them to use a hacksaw to cut through their legs, not the chains. It has a vibe like Seven, all gritty and desaturated. What’s this killer playing at? Looks like it’s time to see Saw.

Presented below is the trailer for the film.

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After Viewing

Two men, Adam (Leigh Whannell) and Dr. Lawrence Gordon (Cary Elwes), awaken chained to pipes in a dirty and run down bathroom. They have no memory of getting here. They discover cassette tapes that provide each with necessary clues to escaping, while also pointing out the dead body in the room, who apparently died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head after having been poisoned. Dr. Gordon must kill Adam by 6 o’clock or his wife and daughter will be killed. Adam finds two hacksaws in a toilet and they both try to cut their way out. Dr. Gordon realizes the saws are meant for their feet, not the chains.

Dr. Gordon believes he knows who is behind this life or death game, and tells the story of the Jigsaw killer. Two men had been killed in elaborate traps which police detectives Tapp (Danny Glover) and Sing (Ken Leung) investigated. They find a pen light belonging to Dr. Gordon at one of the crime scenes and suspect him as the killer. They bring him in for questioning, but his alibi–a woman he was having an affair with, checks out. They ask him to stay and hear the first-hand account of torture from Amanda (Shawnee Smith).

Amanda was forced into a complex metal head collar that would rip her jaw apart (like a reverse bear trap) when the timer went off. She must find the key to unlock it from another body in the room with her. Jigsaw, via a videotape, tells her the key is the stomach of the man. Unfortunately the man is not dead. Amanda makes the choice to cut open the man’s stomach and get the key, just as the trap is sprung. She tells the detectives that she feels grateful to be alive, and that the killer helped her overcome drug addiction.

Dr Gordon continues to relay the backstory of how Detective Sing was killed and Tapp was injured by the killer. When Dr. Gordon shares his wallet with Adam, in order to see photos of his daughter Diana (Makenzie Vega), the other finds a hostage photo of them with an additional clue. That clue leads Dr. Gordon to find a cell phone, cigarettes, and note. The note indicates that the doctor doesn’t need the gun (on the dead body) to kill Adam–suggesting that the cigarette dipped in the poison-filled blood of the victim is enough.

Gordon whispers a plan to Adam with the lights out so the video camera observing them cannot see or hear. Adam smokes the cigarette and appears to die, but an electrical charge through his chain causes him to jump, spoiling the plan. Adam remembers being abducted in his photography studio. The phone rings and Dr Gordon hears from his wife, Alison (Monica Potter) who is tied up by an attacker. She relays the message that Adam knows him, and not to believe his lies. Adam reveals that ex-detective Tapp, still believing that Gordon was the jigsaw killer, hired him to surveil the doctor.

A hospital orderly named Zep (Michael Emerson), known to Dr. Gordon, is revealed to be the kidnapper. Gordon receives a final call from Alison and hears a struggle ensue. Thinking his wife and daughter were shot, he cuts his foot off with the hacksaw, and then grabs the gun to shoot Adam. He only wounds the other, and when Zep arrives to kill Gordon (having already killed Tapp), Adam smashes the kidnappers head with a toilet tank lid. Gordon crawls away for help, promising to send someone back. Adam finds evidence that Zep was a victim of the jigsaw killer as well, as the dead body on the floor stands up. This is John (Tobin Bell) the real jigsaw killer. He reveals the key for Adam’s lock is in the tub (which went down the drain when Adam awoke) before leaving and locking the door.

“Live or die. Make your choice.” – Jigsaw

Once a decade, at a minimum, it seems like a horror film comes along to change the trajectory of the genre. For the 70s that was Halloween. The 80s were certainly different after A Nightmare on Elm Street. And the 90s had Scream. Saw was this film for the 2000s. It was the first film by a pair of young Australian filmmakers that would launch both of their careers, plus create a franchise that continues to this day. James Wan and Leigh Whannell began their careers by coming up with an idea for a film but without the necessary funds. They were able to create a short version of Saw highlighting one of the more gruesome moments in order to secure investors. From there, the rest is history. Whannell, credited with the screenplay and starring as Adam, has continued to write horror films including the next two Saw sequels, plus a number of films in the Insidious franchise. James Wan has mainly been known for directing horror films, including Insidious as well as its immediate sequel, as well as the first two The Conjuring films, and Malignant. He has stepped outside the genre with Furious 7 for the Fast and Furious franchise as well as both Aquaman and its upcoming sequel for DC/Warner Brothers. To say that these two have made changes to the genre in their two decades of work is an understatement.

Saw was a unique film at its release and still holds up as an intense thriller. It creates a strong locked room mystery involving two characters chained up for unknown reasons, as they attempt to recall how they arrived and eventually escape. It also, for good or ill, gave rise to the horror genre often referred to as torture porn. The term torture porn has been attributed to critic David Edelstein, and concerns extreme depictions of torture, mutilation, violence, sadism, and nudity. While the 2005 film Hostel was the first film to have the term applied to it, its usage was retroactively attached to this film, as well as others. This extreme depiction of violence and gore on screen evolved from what had previously been known as the splatter genre; an overly bloody film that took joy in its depiction of gross and disturbing acts, itself derived from the giallo cinema of Italy. Blood Feast (1963) is considered the first film to be labeled as a splatter film, but other lower budget films, like I Spit on Your Grave (1978) and Cannibal Holocaust (1980), plus the early horror films of Peter Jackson, including Braindead (1992), all fit into this subgenre of horror. Saw may undeservingly be lumped into this bucket, given that the film mainly focuses on the mystery of the Jigsaw killer and the puzzles Adam and Dr. Gordon must figure out. Still, the element that viewers may recall is the elaborate scene with Amanda strapped into the reverse bear trap helmet. Later films in the franchise would delve into more of the tortuous aspects of the villain in ways much worse than depicted in this original film.

The villain of Jigsaw, also known as John Kramer, is unique to the horror genre, as he is an antagonist that never kills anyone (at least in this film). He’s a man that has been diagnosed with an “inoperable frontal-lobe tumor.” His knowledge that his life has an expiration date pushes him to put others into life and death situations in order to help them appreciate their blessings. It’s a twisted form of compassion that comes from a place of self-induced enlightenment. He is also not a dumb killer. That is, he is not mentally deficient or in some other way stricken with a feeble brain that prevents him from knowing right from wrong. He is fully aware, or at least seems to be, of his transgressions. He is extremely intelligent, crafting puzzles and devices with deep complexity and aligned specifically to the characters’ he tortures. In that way he is very much like two antagonists (both coincidentally played by Kevin Spacey) in films that act as strong influences to Saw: Seven and The Usual Suspects.

While the gritty look of Saw is no doubt inspired by its low-budget, its look and editing style is very reminiscent of David Fincher’s Seven, a mystery thriller about two detectives (one black, one not) hunting down a serial killer who places characters in tortuous positions to re-enact the seven deadly sins. That film focuses on the investigation from the point of view of the detectives, rather than the viewpoint of the victims, which yields a past-tense view into the pathology of the killer. Saw also pulls off an incredible twist at the end of the film, worthy of Kaiser Soze in The Usual Suspects. The fact that the “dead” body on the floor was John Kramer all along is a mind blowing revelation that no one could see coming. The film guides audiences to believe the odd orderly, Zep, is the one behind the captures and killings, only to show his unwilling participation at the end. This makes Jigsaw seem so much more deranged. He needs a front-row seat to see how his traps play out bringing voyeurism in horror films to a new level.

The film creates horror out of the unknown, which is a place that has always existed in the genre. Not only is it about the fear of being captured, tortured, and held against your will, it’s also about the fear that there is someone looking into your personal life and making judgment on your morality. The three initial victims that are investigated by Detectives Tapp and Sing are all people that Jigsaw feels have egregious character flaws. So he puts them into traps that, if they survive, will help them overcome these issues. Paul had previously attempted suicide, but Jigsaw thinks it was a cry for help and attention. He puts the character in a situation where, to survive, he must crawl through razor wire, cutting himself in order to survive. Mark is a man that claims to be too sick to work, yet Jigsaw sees him up and about. He punished this person by loading him up with poison, making him very sick, and forcing him to open a safe for the antidote, before he burns to death. Amanda is a drug addict that must kill a person who is overdosed on opiates by cutting open their stomach to retrieve a key to her puzzle. To date, she was the only person to survive his games, and feels grateful to Jigsaw for helping her overcome her pain. Dr. Gordon is trapped due to his infidelity, while his wife and daughter are held hostage with a time limit. He must prove that he still loves them in order to feel that same appreciation. However, Adam’s incarceration doesn’t seem to follow the same logic. Maybe, since he was the photographer hired by Tapp to spy on Gordon, his punishment is to be the observer of Gordon’s pain. Of course, he becomes the victim in this final puzzle, having lost the ability to win at the start of the game.

Saw is intense. It activates the fight or flight response in audiences due to the film’s gritty realism and unknowns. It creates a search for meaning in a world that is devoid of any real answers. People get tumors for no reason. Others live and die for reasons that make no sense. The apparent random and arbitrary means of death, even if directed by Jigsaw, make no sense. And that can terrify audiences. The film spawned a massive franchise which has lasted for the past 19 years, with the tenth film in the series, Saw X, having been released exactly one month ago. The popularity of Jigsaw may have less to do with these grisly crimes and more to do with the puzzles he creates. Audiences continue to flock to the films to see how they would fare in similar situations, knowing that this is only a film and they can survive yet another Jigsaw puzzle.

Assorted Musings

• When Adam awakens, his first concern was that he was captured in order to have his kidneys stolen and sold on eBay. This stems from a 1994 urban legend about tourists/travelers/people awakening in a tub of ice water with stitches on their backs from having their kidneys stolen.
• Saw contains two alumni from the television series Lost, appearing here prior to their appearances in that show: Michael Emerson, who first appeared as Ben Linus in Season 3, and Ken Leung as Miles Straume in Season 4.
• Besides the filmic similarities listed above, Saw is also similar to the 1997 sci-fi film Cube, which features characters trapped in a futuristic puzzle world, as well as the 1998 sci-fi thriller Dark City, which contains strange killings of characters.
• No actual city is mentioned for the location of these killings. It could really be anytown USA. The film was shot in Los Angeles, but when Detective Tapp pulls out a map, it’s a doctored version of Washington DC, which labels the Potomac River as the Burgess, and includes labels like Mid City, Norris Heights, and Brea.