Halloween – specifically October – has become synonymous with horror, and every October saw the release of a new entry into the ever profitable killing machine, Saw. That was until the final chapter, an open-ended entry that left fans (blades, spinners, puzzlers, whatever your title may be) buzzing without a single limb to severe. Wracking in a worldwide total of almost $879 million, it went on to become the second most profitable horror franchise in history, resting directly behind the Alien films; one that has been telling audiences for almost forty years that in space, nobody can hear you scream. For a horror franchise to produce seven films and nearly a billion dollars in revenue in only six years is monumental; a telling sign of its continuing hand in the universally adored October horror. And if you’re a horror fan, then you know very well that if it looks dead, and it feels dead, then it really isn’t dead!
Returning to theatres this Halloween weekend is Jigsaw, marking a return to the twisted legacy created over a decade ago by the game master Jigsaw/John (Tobin Bell), a formally ill man who plans on showing players the true meaning of life though his infamous do-or-die method. Through a series of tasks, one or a group of players must survive a rigged stage of macabre, playing off their own moral wrong-doings in the hope that they’ll see tomorrow. Despite its success – an indicator of a population’s lust for mindless gore – there’s a large portion of audiences that are completely divided on what the blood soaked franchise has to offer, and that’s where I step in.
Over the course of two days, I participated in seven games across seven films, witnessing the birth and subsequent death of both Jigsaw and the franchise he carried on. While no actual blood was shed, there were countless bathroom breaks and lost appetites, as bodies were burned, flayed, sliced, maimed, crushed, hung and generally mutilated for our viewing pleasure. In the end, you could say I had a renewed look on life.
Here are the Saw films ranked.
7. Saw VII: The Final Chapter (2010, Kevin Greutert)
After 6 years of morally reprimanding folks for being addicts, prostitutes, thieves, money launderer’s, liars, cheaters, rapists, murderers, or anyone within their vicinity, the franchise’s supposed swan song manages to exhaust itself on a premise that promised blood (“oh yes, there will be blood!”). And blood is what we get, though it’s all inexplicable, centred on a despicable and worthless character – a man who has made millions off the lie that he’s a survivor of Jigsaw’s game – wrapped around a redundant police procedural that feels more like a bottom tier episode of Law & Order: Saw Victims Unit. There are a couple game-worthy traps, most specifically the opener – which plays off the social trend of spectating – but for the most part, the final chapter feels sidelined in a game that’s been stuck in overtime.
6. Saw VI (2009, Kevin Greutert)
By the inevitable sixth entry into a franchise that has dumped more buckets of blood than Dead Alive and Ichi the Killer combined, it’s apparent that the ability to craft genuinely honest and sympathetic characters with real flaws is out of range. Instead, Saw VI tosses us into the cutthroat reality of life insurance, and the conniving players that cast clients out into a sickly, unapologetic world. Half the films divided between the lone insurance agent Will (Peter Outerbridge), now trapped between his own moral code and that of his job, and the backtracking of Detective Hoffman (Costas Mandylor), who struggles keeping his tracks clean and us entertained. There’s a biting satire at the core of Saw VI’s games, offering a slight spin on a formula that lost its boot in the proverbial horse its beating. However, it never actually manages to tear skin, gnawing on its own foot in a doomed effort to balance itself between cutting edge and simply cutting. By the time the game is over, it’s realised that Saw VI’s show and tell style is all show with no tell, as some of the franchises greatest display of practical effects eclipse what it’s trying to say.
5. Saw III (2006, Darren Lynn Bousman)
Leigh Whannell, back behind the pen for his third and final time in the series, wanted “….something that would almost make someone who was really invested in the story cry.” Whannell never accounted for crafting a script that everyone could be invested in, picking off established, sympathetic characters without mercy, while introducing fresh players that simply feel like old wounds. There’s the estranged wife, the aggressive and vengeful father, the key players in his own trial against the man who struck and killed his son. Despite these new faces, there isn’t a breath of fresh air in this entire entry. Instead, a mean streak thuds at the heart of Saw III, one that refuses to remain downbeat, denying us anyone to root for; though this isn’t the films fallacy. Amanda Young (Shawnee Young), Saw II’s final girl turned Jigsaw disciple, struggles throughout the film with her self-affliction and apparent mental illness, one that’s treated without any gravity towards its suffering. Some of the franchises most palpable traps are showcased here, as well as a cringe-worthy scene of Operation, though it’s unfortunately not enough to keep itself afloat. Its refusal to take its torment – be it mental or physical – with any tact, magnitude or consideration is Saw III’s most hideous and egregious act, causing its methods of mayhem to be its least offensive punishment in the franchise.
4. Saw IV (2007, Darren Lynn Bousman)
Saw IV marked the franchises steady decline in popularity, as box office totals began showing that perhaps audiences weren’t all that inclined to live out Jigsaw’s legacy, and torment. This time around, Lieutenant Riggs (Lyriq Bent, really giving it his all) is taken off-duty and placed in the meat grinder; made to unite him with Saw II’s missing Detective Matthews (Donnie Whalberg, looking very Cast Away). Patrick Melton and Marcus Dunstan, working on both the story and script, inject Saw IV with enough anaesthetic exposition that by the time our Lieutenant enters the game, we’re just about numb to what it all really means. This is where we meet Jigsaw’s ex-girlfriend Jill (Cheerleader Camp’s Betsy Russell), a clinical doctor who might feel more comfortable doing rotations at a general hospital in another world. She works to flesh John out, giving rhyme and reason for his madness, though she seems as lost as we are to the who and what’s, that we can’t help but feel exhausted in compartmentalising. What manages to keep Saw IV spinning is the presence of Riggs, newcomer Agent Strahm (Gilmore Girl’s own Scott Patterson) and his partner Agent Perez (Athena Karkanis), all who wind up grabbing control of a film that feels the need to excessively rely on expository flashbacks, a dependency that rusts any angle it might attempt.
3. Saw V (2008, David Hackl)
The third director in the franchise to come aboard must have had a do-or-die note left pinned to his director’s chair that instructed he leave the hyper-kinetic MTV-style editing that’s prominent in each film, because it’s as copious as the blood. Every victim is treated with the same visual flair, as chaos and confusion surround not only them, but our senses. However, by the fifth entry, the franchise begins to understand that the films work best when presenting a desperate group making desperate decisions in a tension timed box of mechanised terrors. They might not all be moralistically inclined players, but when tossed in with others, there will always be someone who outshines the others staggeringly indecent life. Meanwhile, Jigsaw continues his reign of terror despite never making it off the hospital gurney from the third entry, offering up more insight and flashbacks into his pre-gaming. In between unnecessary trips down exposition lane, we’re tagged along with Agent Strahm, who continues to bring a certain level of brute charm to an otherwise garish scene of characters, most notably Detective Hoffman, who continues to litter crime scenes with pursed lips and a stiff demeanour. Still, the level of cat and mouse that is ratcheted up and played to exhaustion is at times gripping, effectively utilising the overly linear police procedural established in the first Saw. We root for Strahm to uncover the true identity of Jigsaw, and in a series that rarely gives us anything to root for outside of carnage, it’s a welcoming breath of fresh air.
2. Saw (2004, James Wan)
Introducing us to the dilapidated, rusted bathroom that exudes the disgust, grime and filth perpetrated by our now iconic horror figure Jigsaw, is the entry that started the game. Our key players, Doctor Gordon (Cary Elwes) and Adam (Leigh Whannell), are characters that intersect outside the confines of their tiled prison as two moralistically imbalanced pawns in Jigsaw’s game of chess. Operating in the same vein as Hitchcock’s Rope, or Schumacher’s Phone Booth, Saw centres around a very specific location using limited key characters, though don’t let it fool you into thinking it can hold a conversation nearly as well; Saw dabbles in gore-play over word-play, which is precisely why it finds itself grappling for our attention in between moments of genuine fear. Layers of the story are peeled back in idiosyncratic ways, relying heavily on flashbacks that feel as forced as the acting. Both Elwes and Whannell deliver lines in an oddly captivating albeit rusty manner, and unfortunately for us, we spend a large chunk of time with these two, getting to know the ins and outs of how they got there. Even Danny Glover’s ex-detective archetype comes off as a mumbling shell of the policeman we once knew in Lethal Weapon, staggering through darkened set pieces like a junkie actor looking for another hit. Though it isn’t quite the sharpest Saw in the series, it maintains an effective use of practical effects, and still packs a wallop with its climatic reveal, wrapping itself in a story it gloriously commits to.
1. Saw II (2005, Darren Lynn Bousman)
Stepping out of the first films claustrophobic bathroom – Saw II opens the door into a larger, messier labyrinthine home of horrors, offering up rooms of technical wizardry. Instead of 2 players in Jigsaw’s seemingly never-ending game, we are offered up 7, each one reeling from a shady past and only a few cutthroat enough to survive. There’s a police procedural on the outside of this, though I’d be lying if I told you any of that actually mattered. Sure, Detective Matthews (Donnie Whalberg) offers up some tepidly heartfelt scenes, and doesn’t completely leave the game even after we think he’s hung his badge, but the real film lies in the Cube inspired maze. While the dialogue is the bottom of the barrel primetime television fodder, there’s tension to be had around every corner. A mechanised gun, a Suspiria inspired pit of dirty syringes and a coffin-esque boiler are just a few of the pieces to the puzzle, and though brutal to the point of masochism, they are welcoming additions to what began as a one-dimensional crackerjack scenario. Each player isn’t worthy of Jigsaw’s game, and Saw II knows that, offering up key character’s that have some of the more redeemable qualities in the franchise, specifically Amanda Young, the lone survivor from the first film. There’s a desperation and certainty to her; low-key qualities that represent a final girl in the making. We want her to succeed, to come out scathed, screaming and stronger, and for the most part she does. That is, right up until the climax that ruins everything by creating an accomplice to Jigsaw’s macabre. Still, Saw II manages to create a toy box of surprises – and despite its hollow characters – offer enough depth to satiate just about any horror fan.