The horror franchise is a special case, able to perpetuate far out of proportion to other genres, by a special combination of inexpensiveness and repeatability. One merely needs look at the half dozen (at least) villain-centric horror franchises of the 80s. That era’s many horror franchises, your Friday the 13ths and Nightmarea on Elm Street belong to a more specific subgenre of the period – the slasher. But let it be known that as the ‘80s passed on, theatrical horror franchises somewhat tapered off, with the only real ‘90s effort being Scream. One could blame direct-to-DVD sequelizing (see the Leprechaun series – rather, don’t), or a populace-wide negative reaction to ultra-violence (except for in Mel Gibson movies).
If there would be any chance of a millennial horror franchise following the self-perpetuating model of its forebears, it would have join a new subgenre…and have an iconic villain to boot (here’s where the efforts of Final Destination sort of falter). That subgenre: torture pornography. That villain: the Jigsaw Killer.
There has been much moral hang-wringing in regards to the (mostly finished) torture pornography cycle, much I imagine as the furor must have been over slasher violence in its predecessors’ heyday. You know, critiques of Hostel, Wolf Creek, Captivity, Turistas, The Human Centipede… I don’t want to get involved with that echo chamber. If I am offended, later on, I want it to be on the films’ terms. Rather, let us calmly and collectedly examine the series’ evolution, with few as preconceptions as possible.
Saw saw its genesis in a like-titled 2003 short film, with Aussie James Wan as director, and Leigh Whannell as writer. This little exercise in grime, decay and morbidity was to be their calling card, a proposition to develop a feature. Success came swiftly. Lions Gate Entertainment took the pair on with just this intent – this was the start of Lions Gate’s rise to the U.S.’s most successful independent distributor, and the founding of its reputation as a house for the most extreme modern horror (most successfully exemplified by The Descent).
Thus made on a miniscule $1.2 million budget, Saw was intended as a direct-to-DVD product (how’s that for being part of the problem?), when it premiered to a surprisingly good reception at the 2004 Sundance Film Festival. This was on January 19. On October 29, Saw got is pre-Halloween public release, and earned similar acceptance from mainstream audiences (though a great big “meh” from critics), making just over $100 million worldwide. That’s…about 100 times profit! You can see why horror cinema perpetuates.
The basic premise is so well known, it’s somewhat revelatory to see it again some seven years later. Ridding all expectations of a franchise, just what would you make of a film which posits simply that two men awake in a restroom far filthier than those at my undergrad, each chained by the foot to the wall, as a third dead, dead man lies in the center? It’s a striking image, and clearly the step-stone this whole exercise was built upon.
One of the trapped men is screenwriter Whannell – actually, it’s his character, Adam Faulkner, even though many would propose Whannell has no character. Opposite him is Dr. Lawrence Gordon (Carey Elwes, humorous swashbuckler of The Princess Bride, Robin Hood: Men in Tights…What’s he doing here?! Mangling an American accent, that’s what). Each has a tape on his person; the dead man has the player. Adam retrieves it, and plays both tapes. A low and gravelly voice, not unlike Batman’s, informs Adam that he is here, possibly to die, because essentially Adam’s an asshole. (Again, Adam, not Whannell.) Lawrence’s tape is more instructive and less openly accusatory, with hints as to the game they’ve been plunged into.
Basically, it’s 10 o’clock now. They have until 6, and Lawrence has been charged with killing the unreachable Adam. The corpse in the center has a gun, and his blood is poisoned (hence the suicide, ‘tis inferred). Adam has a pair of titular saws, which are not strong enough to cut through their chains, but are strong enough to cut through bone apparently (and I’d assume also the pipes the chains are connected to, but let’s not go there). And apparently “X marks the spot.”
“Let the game begin.”
This first 15 minutes is a doozy, with a good steam of momentum and an elegant, cheap vibe. Saw has peaked. For as Lawrence reveals they are the playthings of the Jigsaw Killer, we descend into a Pandora’s box of flashback upon flashback to over-explain the situation. And while Saw may have been embraced at a horror story, its real inspiration lies in a totally different cinematic development: twist-ridden thrillers. It’s the easiest thing ever to tie Saw back to Se7en, which more or less pioneered the grunge-chic visual aesthetic, all green filters, shit-smeared walls and hyper-realistic (read: not realistic at all) mise en scène.
But there’s more. The eventual flashback structure, with shots and dialogue gaining newer and greater meaning with each repetition (up to like 5 times for some scenes!), well, all this recalls the structure of things like The Usual Suspects and Memento. It’s not as effective, I’d say, since Saw simply mines their aesthetic, minus a true understanding. But still, here we have an ostensible horror film building on the grammar of mostly non-horror efforts…which is interesting. (There’s also a bit of The Silence of the Lambs tossed in, since that’s sort of the ur-example of this sort of thriller.)
Some 5 months prior, the investigation into the Jigsaw Killer is being led by Detectives David Tapp (Predator-killer Danny Glover) and Steven Sing (Ken Leung). And the Jigsaw Killer isn’t exactly a killer, in this film’s (and trailer’s) incorrect estimation. His kidnap victims, subjected to complex and baroque trap scenarios much like the restroom gambit, are given the free will to kill themselves, essentially, in trying to escape. The “killer who ain’t a killer” angle is a novel hook to hang your iconic villain on, but it is false – if someone sets off a deadly tripwire I set, it’s not their fault.
No matter, Jigsaw needs a body count to really earn his horror credentials, no matter how separate from the main action it might be. So we get a Se7en lite recounting of former deaths. The common theme in all of these: The victims are wastrels, layabouts, social misfits in dire need of greater life appreciation, in Jigsaw’s estimation. Survive, and they’ll love life – it’s murder as 12 Steps – even if they’re suddenly legless, grotesquely scarred, or whatever. Perish, and – well, one cannot fault a horror movie villain for being a Social Darwinist.
Let’s start off the one-off offings, shall we?
Fat fellow Paul is a would-be suicide. But it he truly wants to live, he’ll crawl through yonder maze of rusted razor wires. Who cares that he does try to escape, but bleeds to death anyway. He just didn’t want it hard enough. He didn’t give 110%.
Meet Mark. He is naked and covered in napalm. To add insult to injury, he’s also been poisoned. The antidote is in a safe, and the combo is one of thousands of number combinations scrawled all over the Se7en lite walls. (Okay, I’ll avoid further obvious connections to the Fincher film.) And Mark’s only light source is a lone candle. Ka-fwoosh! (A “trap” so complex one needs several sentences to describe it is a trap that’s too complex.)
Amanda Young (Shawnee Smith) is granted a last name and an actor parenthetical. Thus, she’ll be Jigsaw’s lone survivor, as she successfully removes the “reverse bear trap” from her noggin by fishing the key out from a supposedly dead fellow’s intestines. Of course, he was just zonked out on opiates, because somehow now Jigsaw forces you to murder others as part of his little “Get more out of life” campaign. That his motive and M.O. seems to switch up with each assault does the guy no favors – herein lies the difficulty in defining your killer in more altruistic terms than the sheer psychopaths we’re usually gifted.
“Most people are so ungrateful to be alive. But not you. Not anymore.”
Detectives Tapp and Sing (there’s a lame joke in there someplace) suspect Lawrence of Jigsawery, because our unseen baddie planted Lawrence’s penlight at one crime scene. Hence Lawrence’s questioning, and subsequent trailing by Tapp, intercut rather artlessly with the death stuff above. (The editing as a whole degrades over the running time, going for complexity through confusion and juggling three or four different timelines. It is an unenviable task.)
So that is how Lawrence knows about the Jigsaw Killer. (That such a reign of terror could escape the media seems unlikely.) Time and again, we shall return to his restroom incarceration, as Lawrence and Adam discover more clues – a hidden camera, cigarettes, and…that’s pretty much it. By trying to force pure forward momentum at all times (meaning less time spent dwelling upon the restroom scenario), screenwriter Whannell rather kills the momentum, as most of the flashback stuff (especially the police investigation) is something of a non-starter. But we at least know one more thing about Lawrence’s dilemma. His family is being held hostage at home (the family situation is the subject of another distressingly lengthy flashback), by someone watching Lawrence. If he fails his rather unclear task, they die.
So…things have sort of stalled on the Lawrence front for now. “Why don’t we go see what Tapp’s up to?” no one in particular suddenly asks. Well, fine. In, well, one of our timelines (it’s “clever” that we won’t know which until it’s deemed narratively convenient), Tapp mulls about in his own apartment – which is itself stained, rotten and lined with countless newspaper clipping. Yup, I never saw that one before! And he too starts having a flashback, because this is the sloppiest one-room drama ever made.
Back in the day, Tapp nearly caught Jigsaw. Tracking him down, because he leaves many a pretentious tape, Tapp makes it to Stygian Street, because it too is pretentious (and a James Wan in-joke). Inside the spooooky abandoned mannequin warehouse, the faceless Jigsaw preps to test a dual drill machine out on some poor schmoe. Now…that’s just flat out murder! (Because otherwise, who’s to know what two drills might to do another human’s skull.) Of course, this is before Tapp and Sing make their move.
The jig is seemingly up, as goes the old adage (or saw, if you will), except Jigsaw uses a Travis Bickle-esque sleeve blade to slash Tapp’s throat wide open. Now…that’s just flat out murder!...or it would be, if Tapp had died. Somehow, he’s just slightly wounded. (True story: A friend of mine actually got his throat slit. Miraculously, he survived, which he attributes to his extreme intoxication at the time. To this day, he remains an extraordinary alcoholic.)
Sing pursues Jigsaw, but Jigsaw makes his unlikely escape as Sing is killed by several booby-trapped shotguns. Now…that’s just flat out murder!
Well, that killed some time (and Sing). It also gives Tapp motivation for wanting to catch the killer he was already trying to catch. Suuuuure.
Hold up, I have to go to the restroom. It seems at last there’s something worth the filmmakers’ time going on in here, as Lawrence and Adam are starting to turn on each other. See, Adam had previously been trailing Lawrence, taking photographs. Naturally, all this is conveyed in lengthy, lengthy flashback. The gist of it, which isn’t revealed until the tail end of these flashes, is that Lawrence has been having an affair, with Adam tailing him to his mistress’ hotel. Only, that’s not why Adam’s doing this. He’s acting as Tapp’s eyes, Lawrence still under suspicion for the Jigsaw case.
Also, Adam has a photo revealing just who has broken into Lawrence’s home, and is currently tormenting his wife and little girl with a gun. It turns out to be an orderly from Lawrence’s hospital, Red Herring – excuse me, Zep Hingle (Michael Emerson). Of course, this revelation cannot be done without copious flashes back to the previous flashbacks, showing Zep the disorderly orderly in far darker light.
It is now 6 o’clock (AM, I think), the deadline for death. As Lawrence has failed to kill Adam, and also failed to “fake kill” Adam, Zep has no choice but to kill his family. But not even Saw will feint in the direction of child murder, so Zep does not succeed. Tapp bursts in from his nearby subplot (so that’s when his footage is set, chronologically) for an extended brawl. This conflict, shot in tight handicam style which mitigates the need for believable choreography, somehow covers the entire distance between Lawrence’s house and the vile restroom of dankness.
By the way, from here on out –
SPOILERS!
SPOILERS!
SPOILERS!
Lawrence fears the worst, having heard only the noisiest parts of Zep’s actions over the cell phone. And now unable to reach that phone again (lacking the same shirt-based cleverness Adam already displayed earlier), Lawrence rather uses his shirt as a tourniquet. Now defeated, he’ll soon be de-footed! This was Saw’s big initial selling point, as all ads and posters promised audiences would get to see the Val Kilmer stand-in from Hot Shots! slice off his own foot. Only…we don’t really see it. Oh sure, Cary Elwes groans all painful-like, sawing away, but there are some things left ever off screen. The slicing. The eventual stump. The emancipated foot. From a generous perspective, this is the Texas Chain SAW Massacre trick, as the film’s icky sheen suggests more gore than is actually onscreen. It’s a weird, nihilistic distinction from ultra-gory fare like Braindead, which remains eternally good natured in spite of its extremities.
Meanwhile, Zep has killed Tapp. I guess Glover was too old for this shit.
Still desperate to satisfy Jigsaw’s game, old One Foot Lawrence reaches the room’s central gun, and blasts Adam to kingdom come.
Now Zep’s here, eager to blast Lawrence to kingdom come, only…Adam’s alive (Lawrence, a doctor, knows from nonfatal). So Adam pounds the Zepper into a bloody off screen pulp with the nearest weapon – the toilet tank lid! Even worse, I doubt that thing was sanitary. But along comes the twist we’ve all been expecting, purely since this film mimics the aesthetic of older twist-happy movies…
A tape on Zep’s former person reveals he wasn’t Jigsaw. “Well duh!” many say. In fact, he was simply poisoned (Jigsaw sure does seem to love that one), and charged with committing multiple murder to receive the antidote. Me, I’d’ve gone to the hospital. But there you are, Jigsaw was just playing everyone against each other – and any twist with the slightest stench of Yojimbo is OK in my book.
Most hyperkinetic flashbacks reveal to us (if not the characters) just who Keyser Soze – sorry, the Jigsaw Killer – has been all this time. John Kramer (Tobin Bell, who played “Parole Officer” in Goodfellas), Lawrence’s terminal cancer patient we may vaguely recall from the earlier flashbacks (unmentioned anywhere in this recap). The inference, which is now franchise holy writ, is that Kramer wishes to make others grateful for the life he shall soon be losing – hence the mass murder. It makes perfect sense.
Lawrence crawls off to either find help or bleed to death in a downtown alleyway (I’m sure a later sequel or comic book reveals which). Adam remains chained in the disgusting restroom, just as – TWIST! – the “dead” man rises and removes a “Mission: Impossible” mask to reveal – gasp! – it’s John Kramer, Jigsaw himself! So let’s add 8-hour motionlessness (and M.O. wavering) to Jigsaw's amazing repertoire of skills – which includes metalworking, puppetry, pharmaceuticals, forensics, videography, real estate and ESP. The editing reaches its logically absurd extreme, as Jigsaw seals Adam in his toilet tomb.
“Game over!”
There are moments in Saw that are very strong, specifically in the beginning (both the restroom predicament and the Jigsaw back-story are separately effective, though not in conjunction). Sadly, its central failing is in trying to be two totally separate films. Ignoring the horror question, there is one Saw, about two men in a restroom, dedicated to minimalism and slow dread. There’s another Saw, the twist-ridden stepchild of its era – and I think it’s this version Wan and Whannell are most interested in. However, circa 2004 there was surely enough residual love for the style to benefit Saw.
It doesn’t hurt that Saw is an infinitely serious horror tale, faults or no. Remember, the death of horror franchising post-80s saw (er) the rise of ironic semi-horrors, horror comedies. There’s none of that in Saw, or its likely torture pornography predecessor, the Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake. Like the directorial career of Rob Zombie, Saw takes some of the tone of nihilistic 70s horror, the Cannibal Holocausts and Hills Have Eyes. Underwhelming gore and over-ambitious plotting aside (and how often does one criticize a horror film for over-ambitious plotting?), Saw represents a tonal, generational shift to harsher, grimier terrors. Of course it’s not scary, but that’s beside the point.
And how’s the moral temerity meter on this one? Eh, not too high. One could question Jigsaw’s motivations, re: life improvement, but that’s just the flavorful icing on a torturous cake; it’s not the point. For now, at least, I’d suspect it was only Saw’s inordinate mainstream success which put it in critics’ crosshairs. Many far more offensive little flicks see their way to video on a regular basis, but the bluebloods must never concern themselves with those. Saw, however, afforded normal folk a view of what an oft-disrespected genre was up to, and thus stood as the father of what that genre would proceed to do.
Related posts:
• No. 2 Saw II (2005)
• No. 3 Saw III (2006)
• No. 4 Saw IV (2007)
• No. 5 Saw V (2008)
• No. 6 Saw VI (2009)
• No. 7 Saw 3D (2010)
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