Movie Monday #2 - SAW

“Hello William. I want to play a game.” – Jigsaw, SAW VI

Sorry, I know I’m getting way ahead of myself, but that quote from the sixth movie is just too good to not use! Now, onto business…

It’s hard to believe it’s been ten years since the first SAW movie hit cinemas in October 2004, but time sure does fly I suppose. I actually didn’t hear much about the original movie, despite it grossing $100 million on a shoe-string budget. My first introduction to the series was a pirated copy of the second movie, SAW 2, from my Dad. The rubbish quality of the video meant I didn’t make it past the first ten minutes or so, but researching about the original movie had me hunting it down shortly thereafter.

The movie was to me how a lot of people must have felt after watching Se7en or Usual Suspects for the first time – an entertaining and dark movie with a shocking twist that comes out of left field and changes how you view the rest of the movie entirely on re-watches. Even to this day, the ending gives me goosebumps, when the now familiar tune of “Hello Zepp” begins to play (a theme that would play at the end of each movie in franchise, and as soon as you heard it, you knew business was about to pick up!) and the movie hits you square in the gut.

I used the hail the movie as a modern-day classic, a movie so excellent that EVERYBODY had to see it. I became a die-hard fan of the franchise going forward, and watched SAW VI and SAW VII (also known as SAW 3D) in the cinema as I was then old enough to, and I found each entry of the series highly enjoyable. But now the question is, does the original movie that started it all still stand the test of time?

Regrettably, no - and this is something I only really realised whilst sitting through a re-watch of this film, taking all of the above into consideration.

SAW is in itself a very different and intriguing concept. A killer named Jigsaw kidnaps his victims and puts them in traps (or as he prefers to call them, tests) to see if they have what it takes to survive. His victims are chosen for various reason but always back to the premise that they are ungrateful to be alive, and do not cherish what they have. A novel idea and on paper, it sounds very interesting. And as a kid of 13 when the first movie came out, it especially sounded interesting to yours truly.

Where does the movie fall down then? Very simply, everything else. The concept is a fantastic one, but it's almost as if the producers built a movie built around this concept, but didn't spend time on making sure there was any real emotional investment anywhere else. The characters are mostly throwaway besides Dr Gordon, and even then I think that events later on in the series grew the legend of that character instead of it actually being engaging on this movie alone. The pacing is good, the editing is slick and the soundtrack is superb. It's the script that lets this movie down - I think as the SAW franchise as a whole began to grow and its storyline continued to evolve and expand, this movie was looked upon more favourably than it really should have been. It's good, don't get me wrong, but by no means is it great.

I thought I may have been unnecessarily harsh on the movie, so I decided to watch SAW 2 to balance it out. After all, I'd often regarded SAW 2 as the worst of first three films, so figured it'd be nice to compare with my new outlook... and low and behold, guess what happened? I found myself enjoying SAW 2 so, so much more!

The most important thing was character development. In the first movie, the concept was the key focus point - people give it props for the twist ending (and rightfully so) but there wasn't really much to care for besides the sadistic traps and the different motives from Jigsaw. However, Jigsaw was almost like the Boogeyman - in the shadows, the idea being frightening but not really expanded on. SAW 2 knew it had to change things up, otherwise it was going to wind up a carbon copy of the first. The layers upon layers added on to the Jigsaw character (played by the fantastic Tobin Bell), as well as continuing to craft this world that we saw a glimpse of in the first movie makes this the superior film. It doesn't have the same wow factor as the first, but it doesn't need to - it takes the positives of the first movie and improves on them.

Check out this scene for example involving Jigsaw and Detective Eric Mathews:

We learn so much from this scene. The "game"/"test" is secondary in a sense in this film, whilst it was the focal point in the first. These scenes became a staple going forward, and were often the most praised and well-liked among the SAW fan community.

All-in-all, SAW 1 is still a very well-made movie, but not as great as I remember it. If you are into blood and gore, it'll be right up your street, but don't expect much character development. In a way, it feels like a stand-alone piece, and if judging it on that merit, it's perfectly acceptable. But it isn't - it's the launching point for a seven-movie series, that IMO looking back, was really put into motion with the excellent story-telling of the second movie, and reached its peak with the 3rd. It was then unfortunately downhill from there, with a few bright spots along the way. I'd still recommend the movie for sure, but would urge anyone to check out SAW 2 afterwards and judge for yourself as to which is the better film.

Hope you've enjoyed reading, and join me back here on Wednesday for my Wrestling Wednesday #2 review of WCW Starrcade 1997!

Until next time, take it easy.

Will