Jigsaw: Let the Games Begin — Part 3D: Final Chapter of 8 (Part 7/8)

I’ve had seven years to solidify my opinion on the ranking of the first seven SAW films. With 2 weeks until Jigsaw’s release, I return to looking back at each film. Now, we look back at the first, and strongest, entry in the series.

This series will summarize each movie’s plot / interesting points, with some commentary about why it’s silly or cool, etc.

It’s May 2005. I’m 13, and ending my (awful) Eighth grade run with a bout of mono. One evening, while eating dinner and playing catching up on some homework (it may have been Algebra? Maybe Spanish?) my mother and father begin watching a movie.

I step away briefly and come back about 20 minutes later to eat my dinner, while they’re still watching. I have no idea what’s going on other than this movie is HORRIFYING. And… is that Dread Pirate Roberts? He killed someone’s father.

Wait, bathroom? Okay so older Dread Pirate Roberts and some dude I don’t know are in a bathroom… IS THAT A DEAD DUDE ON THE FLOOR?

My mom is terrible at watching movies in a single sitting, regardless of their length. She usually falls asleep, rewinds a bunch, watches a 90 minute movie over 3 nights while forgetting keep beats, etc.

That’s fine whatever, but it made watching this movie, SAW, an interesting experience. Much like its chronology would become, it was fragmented, sometimes out of order but weirdly alluring.

Even as a thirteen year old boy with little understanding of acting or film making I quickly noticed some of the less remarkable parts of the movie were readily apparent. The acting, for example still is super cringe worthy. This is made worse by the fact that, mostly due to Jigsaw himself being a bigger part, this actually gets better in the sequels (yet, still remains rather tepid). Adam, played by writer and co-creator Leigh Whannel, is super bad at the important moments where his character has to be serious, and his “pretend dead” moment seems kinda like it might actually be Leigh Whannel actually playing dead.

It doesn’t stop with the mostly writer Whannel though, Cary Elwes’ performance is all over the place but never really feels “good” or standout. This kinda sucks as he’s a more known entity and one of the major characters. The brief scenes with his wife are like cardboard cutouts talking to each other (from both performers). Danny Glover as Detective Tapp seems okay but again, isn’t remarkable (does play the unhinged part well though). Michael Emerson’s Zep Hindle is given minimal screen-time, and his “Its’ the rules” moment is the best part of acting in the entire fucking series, if you ask me. It’s still not up to par with the brief moments I’ve seen of him in the likes of Lost, however.

But everything else about this movie? There are things that do the parts better, I will concede that but the film is so much greater than its parts.

In an earlier entry I mentioned the contrast between this film’s conflict (Do they amputate themselves to get free? Or find another way?) and later films (5 minutes into SAW VI someone has chopped off their arm without hesitation).

This was so fascinating to me. As a 13 year old boy who was afraid of talking about his issues, and so afraid of being judged and bullied… this sort of moral quandary was an extreme, disturbed version of questions I’d ask myself — be they questions of whether I should die or not or, questions about if I should just say to my classmates, friends, bullies, what have you — “I am super depressed and you’re hurting me more than you know.” which felt like a metaphorical sort of evisceration in so many ways.

Beyond even that… it was a new sort of movie for me.

Up until this point I wasn’t big on scary movies. I liked scary books, some horror games were doable for me but most of the time horror of any kind really didn’t vibe with me on the TV or silver screen.

So, in that regard SAW changed me. I like to sometimes feel at home in a story where there is an unsettling force moving the plot along — be it tension from the tests of SAW, the horrors of humanity in the face of the dead (ala 28 Days Later, etc.), or whatever.

But, above even that.

The Reverse Bear Trap Scene, beginning with Jigsaw’s “Hello Amanda” introduction.

I want to play a game.

Jigsaw, the mysterious (at least, in this movie) mastermind behind the terror… makes his tests winnable. Sure, you can argue the realism of how fair said games are but…

The thing that stuck with me so much about this movie was it was framed as a puzzle, and frequently referred to the tests as “games”.

My young self was drawn to this idea of a scary villain who torments his victims in puzzles/games that have very dire consequences. It was an immense fascination that I can’t quite properly articulate.

It’s something none of the later movies could recapture, and perhaps tellingly it’s more for the increasingly complex world building and “untold stories” of Jigsaw and his work that kept my interest going (and, frankly, being a fanboy).

Of course, the ending sealed the deal, didn’t it?

I remember watching the movie fully for the first time, which was the same time I watched the ending.

Partially due to being young and perhaps not watching a lot of movies that had a twist as a narrative hook (at least not in the same way) the idea that in the final moments everything we thought we had figured out was off wrecked me.

It’s not surprising the twist in this film is frequently being cited as one of the “most surprising” in cinema. And the way it plays out is so good.

It’s pretty cool to learn quite quickly that, while Adam is still fucked … Zep isn’t the mastermind. But then… hearing it unfold through a tape, while this very different (in comparison to the rest of the score) song, aptly titled “Hello Zepp”, fade in as the tape begins?

Chilling.

But there’s one more key part — the camera work. In between quick flashbacks to Zep saying “It’s the rules!”, etc. we watch Adam looking in horror, and as the camera begins to refocus, we watch in sync with the poor dumb-ass, the real killer appear. Watching Jigsaw slowly get off the floor, a man we thought was dead no less, non-nonchalantly tell Adam where the keys to his chain are, walk out and tell Adam how ungrateful most people are to be alive, etc. is just a massive thing.

If no other scene in the movie captures the sheer talent behind the camera of James Wan, this final moment should.

It’s amazing, and even with his immediate follow-ups being lukewarm we catch glimpses of that camera talent in Death Sentence.

This film was a moment — personally, commercially, culturally(?). R-rated Horror was back in style after PG-13 Hollywood adaptations of Asian Horror dominated for a couple of years. Mainstream horror was now somewhat (loosely, at least) more grounded —this movie wasn’t grounded in the supernatural, etc.

And with Hostel, and later entries we’d have the buzzword of my nightmares “torture porn”.

But never forget how fantastic this original film is — a film of trickery, masterful deception in both technical disciplines and storytelling, and a real great way to start the careers of some very talented creators.

The list:

1. SAW 3D: The Final Chapter
2. SAW V
3. SAW III
4. SAW IV
5. SAW VI
6. SAW II
7. SAW

(Sorted from Worst to Best)

And, well that’s it. Jigsaw is out next week, and judgement will be passed on it. Stay tuned for that!