The Shocking Complexity of the

Saw Movies
Matthew Belinkie Featured, movies October 26th, 2010 9:05am
[NOTE: I added a new section to the end of this article, after the release of Saw 3D.]
To understand the Saw series, all you have to do is look at the production companys logo. Before
each film, the words Twisted Pictures are ensnared by coils of nasty-looking barbed wire. Then
they are impaled by a metal spike. Then the metal spike is rotated, tightening the wire and gouging
deep scars in the poor letters. In less than ten seconds, this animation encapsulates the seriess
infamous modus operandi: horrible pain is inflicted with low-tech tools, and were forced to watch.
Twisted.
But think about the other meaning of the word twisted: as in, full of twists. This is far and away
the most plot-heavy, convoluted horror film series ever. Its not an exaggeration to say you stand no
chance of understanding the later films without having seen the earlier ones, preferably only days
before. (I recently watched all six in less than two months, and I still found myself heading to the
IMDB message boards to figure out what was going on.) Seemingly minor characters return in later
films, suddenly thrust into the spotlight. We flash backwards and forwards, revisiting the events of
past films from multiple angles. And through it all, theres the killers teasing insistence that hes
building to SOMETHING; that each death is another piece in a master plan.
The people who know the Saw movies only from the advertisements assume their appeal is the
twisted traps. But for the fans, its the twisted PLOTLINES that has us counting the days until
Halloween.
[Note: Saw spoilers follow in great quantities. Since Ive found the series enormously entertaining, I
advise anyone whos not fully up to speed to bookmark this page and come back when
youre Sawed up.)
If youre a Saw virgin who ignored my warning and kept reading, first of all, dont try that stuff with
Jigsaw. It tends to end poorly. Secondly, youre probably thinking, Cmon Matt, theyve pumped out
a Saw sequel every Halloween for the past seven years. The only way you make movies that quickly is
if youre letting the interns write them for college credit. How tightly-plotted could these films
possibly be? Well, here are some examples:

In Saw III, we see a character read a letter and burst into tears, shortly before flying into a

homicidal rage. We dont learn who wrote this letter until Saw IV. We dont learn what it said
until Saw VI.
Saw III shows us the five minutes immediately after the end of Saw II.Saw IV shows us what

happens immediately after THAT.

Saw IV actually takes place during the events of Saw III, which is only revealed when a
character from Saw IV literally walks into the final scene of Saw III, about two seconds after the
previous film cut to black.

Saw V picks up about thirty seconds after Saw III.

You see the traps from Saw I being set up in flashback sequences duringSaws III and V. You

see the traps from Saw II being set up in flashback sequences during Saws III and V. You see the
traps from Saw III being set up in flashback sequences during Saws V and VI. And Im not
talking about merely reusing footage Im saying that the latter movies recreated earlier sets
and brought back actors who were chronologically deceased, to show us new information about
things wed already seen.
After the credits of Saw VI, you see something that took place between the events of Saws

II and III. It may be a critical clue to the denouement ofSaw 3D, or a red herring.
Did I mention that the main villain, Jigsaw, dies at the end of Saw III, and yet the events of

all the subsequent movies are planned by him? And no, theres nothing supernatural about it.
Not impressed yet? The following is a chart Ive compiled from this Wikipedia page, showing all the
characters that appear in more than one Saw film:

Its the freaking Ring Cycle, but with more rusty industrial machinery.
There is no other horror film series that comes anywhere close to this kind of unified narrative.
The Friday the 13th and Nightmare on Elm Street movies werent building off previous installments.
The Final Destination movies, released concurrently with the Saws, were basically a series of
remakes. The Scream movies had some continuity, but they certainly werent that complex, and
there were only three (soon to be four, but thatll be a reboot). Generally when it comes to slasher
flicks, you keep the villain the same, but rotate in a new cast of pretty young lambs to the slaughter.
The guys behind Saw didnt get that memo.

Hello Jack. I want to play a game.

I think to understand the Saw movies, you have to consider another cultural phenomenon that came
on the scene in 2004: a little show called Lost. The lesson everyone in Hollywood took from JJ
Abramss runaway success was that audiences could be enthralled, not repelled, by huge mysteries
that unfolded over years. The fans gathered online to obsess over theories and details, the more
obscure the better. The Saw producers took this lesson to heart, and built the Saw sequels to be full
of twists, complete with Lost-esque flashbacks and lots of loose ends. Want to know whats in that
mysterious wooden box that Jigsaw leaves for his ex-wife? Tune in next year.
At the end of Saw I, Dr. Gordon (Cary Elwes character) staggers away, dragging his bloody stump
behind him, to bring police to the Bathroom of Doom in time to save Adam, whom hes just shot (if
you havent seen the movie, that sentence will seem strange). We know from the discovery of Adams
rotted body in Saw II that help never arrived. However, we dont learn what actually happened to Dr.
Gordon after he left that room until Saw VII (akaSaw 3D), when Cary Elwes makes his triumphant
return. The series moves forward by looping backwards.
This is the kind of thing that drives Saw fans crazy, and sends them scrambling to their computers to
exchange theories. On the House of Jigsaw message board, there are 67,000 posts about Saw V,
81,000 posts about Saw VI, and 66,000 posts aboutSaw 3D, which hasnt even been released yet.
And, taking another page from theLost playback, the actors, writers, and directors of the series drop
by the message boards frequently to answer questions and offer teasing nuggets of information.
Just FYI: there are no similar message boards about I Still Know What You Did Last Summer.

The Princess Bride was a long time ago.

Now, I dont mean to give anyone the impression that the Saw series is a masterpiece of
screenwriting craftsmanship. Clearly, when they made Saw I, the creators didnt know that Jigsaw
was working with the assistance of two, maybe even three accomplices. Saw II started out as a
completely non-Saw-related story before being adapted into a quickie sequel. This kind of after-thefact plotting leads to some inconsistencies that cant be explained away. For instance, Jigsaw
explains in Saw III that he despises murderers. But Amanda Youngs trap in Saw I requires her to
murder. As part of Dr. Gordons trap, his wife and daughter are supposed to be killed if he fails.
These make for dark What would YOU do? thrills, but theres no way to square them with the
Jigsaw we see in later movies. For instance, in Saw II, even though it seems like Detective Matthews
son is in mortal danger, he turns out to be perfectly safe all along. Jigsaw might use the innocent as
pawns, but he never makes them victims.
But even if every detail doesnt add up, its worth celebrating how this series swings for the fences,
when it doesnt really have to. The studio would have totally accepted, and perhaps preferred, a
series in which each installment stood on its own. Certainly, if you watch the trailers for these
movies, theyre always marketed as, Its Halloween come see some sadistic traps! But the
producers either believed that a complicated plot would hold an audiences attention after the
novelty of the traps had faded, or they just wanted to do it even though they didnt think it was a
smart business decision. Either way, I tip my creepy clown mask to them.
But the narrative complexity is only half the story. Theres also the surprising depth to the villain,
John Kramer, aka Jigsaw. Horror movie bad guys usually fall into two categories: psycho killers
(Michael Myers, Leatherface, the miner from My Bloody Valentine who kept throwing his pickax at
me in 3D) and vengeful ghosts (Freddy, Jason, the creepy girl from The Ring who continues to haunt
my dreams). Jigsaw was designed to be something new.
First of all, hes not some impossibly strong, hard-to-kill monster. Hes a dying cancer patient.
In Saw II, he needs oxygen to carry out a conversation at his kitchen table. In Saw III, hes
completely bedridden, minutes from death. (The filmmakers do a great job making him unsettling
precisely because hes so weak and frail. He looks half-dead already.)

A tetanus shot is the least of her problems.

What makes Jigsaw something to be feared are the traps he puts his victims in (with the aid of
apprentices, hired thugs, and people who are forced to set up other traps in order to escape their
own). The original, titular trap is fiendishly simple. You are chained to the wall and given a saw. The
saw is not sharp enough to cut the chains. It is, however, sharp enough to chop off a foot. How much
blood will you shed to stay alive? Jigsaw likes to ask his victims. In later movies, the traps range
from sadistically simple (a cop is told to reach into a beaker of acid to retrieve the key that can save
her life) to goofy symbolic (a drug dealer is told to dive into a pit of hypodermic needles to retrieve
the key can save his life) to needlessly complex (a carousel executes its six riders one at a time, but an
observer is permitted to save exactly two by drilling holes in his hands). The series doesnt have
much humor, but at one point theres a throwaway shot of Jigsaw on the cover of Civil
Engineering magazine.
So Jigsaw is a guy who likes to inflict pain, right? Nope. He doesnt take any pleasure in his traps. In
fact, he genuinely doesnt want to anyone to die. Technically speaking, Cary Elwes explains in the
first film, hes not really a murderer. He never killed anyone. But he knows from his own terminal
cancer and failed suicide attempt that confronting pain and death is the only true way to make
someone appreciate life. The people who perish in his traps just didnt value their life enough to fight
for it, and were therefore unworthy of it. Most people are so ungrateful to be alive, he tells a
survivor. But not you. Not anymore.

And in this corner, weighing 107 pounds...

I would bet serious money that one of the inspirations for Saw was Fight Club(1999). At one point,
Tyler Durden points a gun at the night clerk of a convenience store, drags him out back, and declares,
Raymond! Youre going to die. He interrogates poor Raymond and learns that his dream was to
become a veterinarian, but it was too hard. I know where you live, Tyler says. If youre not
working to be a veterinarian in six weeks, you will be dead. He lets Raymond go, and then muses,
Tomorrow will be the most beautiful day of Raymond K Hessels life. His breakfast will taste better
than any meal you and I have ever tasted.
Jigsaw is Tyler Durden, without the abs or the sense of humor. He sees his traps as acts of mercy. He
doesnt want to hurt these people. He wants them to stop being crooked cops, loan sharks,
philandering husbands, drug dealers, etc. He may put you in a death trap, but he is rooting for you to
escape. Jigsaw believes that those who survive will be cured of their vices and redeemed through
their suffering. (Theres something very medieval about these purification rituals, and I dont think
its a coincidence that hes often seen in a hooded robe, like a monk.)

Jigsaw sometimes refers to the traps as games, but

he also calls them tests, and the people inside them subjects. In other words, hes
performing experiments. Hes an engineer by training, and he sees the people he selects as defective
machines in need of repair. Once upon a time, he worked with his ex-wife at a health clinic to heal

people the old fashioned way. But fighting addiction and changing patterns of negative behavior is a
grueling, uphill battle. John Kramer was determined to find a quick fix for a broken soul.
In other words, Jigsaws games are Star Trek solutions to Babylon 5 problems. You and your wife
dont talk anymore? I bet I can design a machine for that.
What fascinates me is, even after six films, there is little or no evidence that Jigsaws traps actually
fix anyone. First of all, the number of people who survive is vanishingly small. Here are the movies
in which the main person being tested loses their game: Saw I, Saw II, Saw III, Saw IV, and Saw
VI. Saw V is the only film in which the some of the characters actually win the movies central test.
And even then, these guys only survive the hard way, through massive bloodshed, as opposed to the
easy way, simple teamwork.

When this is all over, you'll thank me. Unless, of course, you are injected with gallons of hydrochloric acid.

The only person we ever see Jigsaw successfully rehabilitate is Amanda Young and it turns out
in Saw III that she never really changed at all. Nobody changes, she screams in her final moments.
Nobody is reborn. Its all a lie. InSaw VI, Detective Hoffman talks to a woman who survived by
hacking off her own arm. We were ruining peoples lives, she admits, And he wanted us to learn.
Hoffman, who had secretly set up the trap, cant resist asking her, And did you? She blows up in his
face: Look at my arm! What am I supposed to learn from this? She may decide to change careers,
but she doesnt seem particularly grateful to have been tested.
So the jurys still out. Are the movies suggesting that Jigsaw is wrong, and that these traps bring
nothing but death and misery? Or do the movies pretty much buy into Jigsaws theory of
rehibilitation, but the filmmakers find it too much fun to kill off everybody instead of allowing them
to go back to night school and become veterinarians? Im actually inclined to believe the later. Jigsaw
is always presented as possessing a nearly superhuman intellect. He somehow knows every detail
about his victims lives, even secrets he has no way of knowing. He designs intricate, escape-proof
traps that always operate flawlessly. He anticipates every possible outcome, leaving an endless

supply of little tape recorders one step ahead of the police officers chasing him. This character isnt
supposed to be some deluded fool who doesnt realize how pointless his actions are. Hes supposed to
be the ubermensch.
You would think that by the seventh film, the series would have nowhere to go. But in whats being
billed as the final chapter, the filmmakers are actually just getting around to the burning question:
is Jigsaw a deluded murderer, or a bold visionary? Check out the IMDB summary of Saw 3D:
As a deadly battle rages over Jigsaws brutal legacy, a group of Jigsaw survivors gathers to seek the
support of self-help guru and fellow survivor Bobby Dagen, a man whose own dark secrets unleash a
new wave of terror.
Finally, were going to focus on the people Jigsaw thinks he saved. They are the ultimate
referendum on his actions: if they have been granted a new appreciation for life, than Jigsaw was
right (by his own reckoning, at least). But if these survivors are shattered husks of their former
selves, he was wrong.

A prediction: stuff will come flying at us in 3D. Sharp stuff.

But thats not really what Saw 3D will be about.

Jigsaws master plan has never been a secret. What is the cure for cancer? he asks Detective
Matthews in Saw II. At the end of the film, Amanda Young answers for him, By creating a legacy, by
living a life worth remembering, you become immortal. In Saw IV, he leaves a tape from beyond the
grave: By hearing this tape, some will assume that this is over but I am still among you. You think
its over just because I am dead. Its not over. The games have just begun. What does it add up to?
Jigsaw isnt merely out to test as many people as he can before he dies. Hes out to make sure the
tests continue after he dies. The survivors arent his legacy; the traps are. As long as they continue,
hes achieved his immortality.
This is what the final chapter needs to be about: how does Jigsaw ensure that his work continues?
I have a couple theories. As Jigsaw was dying, his two apprentices fought for his approval like jealous
children. Hoffman blackmailed Young, resulting in her death. But Jigsaw, somehow anticipating this,
left posthumous instructions for his ex-wife Jill Tuck to kill Hoffman. She tries this at the end of Saw

VI, but he escapes seemingly certain death. So now the two of them are presumably after each other,
and Hoffman presumably has some gnarly facial scars. That rivalry will certainly be a subplot, but
Im betting they wipe each other out in the last act. Jigsaws legacy is bigger than either of them.
To find the starting point for Saw 3D, just consider the big loose end from Saw VI. When Jill Tuck
opens the box Jigsaw left for her, she finds five envelopes for setting up a game involving the evil
insurance company. She finds a sixth envelope, which tells her to kill Hoffman. Then theres the
seventh envelope. Its bulky videotape bulky. She is seen bringing it to a hospital and slipping it
through a mail slot. A lot of speculation on Saw message boards says this is a tape for Dr. Gordon,
but I dont buy it. Im pretty sure that Dr. Gordon never made it back to civilization. If he had, how
come Adam was left to rot in the Bathroom of Doom? Dont forget, Dr. Gordon actually failed his
test, so Jigsaw isnt going to let him walk away. The man is a stickler for the rules.
So who is the seventh envelope for? Im going to guess Bobby Dagen, this mysterious Jigsaw survivor
who has not been seen before. If hes a self-help guru like the summary says, he might be a
psychiatrist and have an office in a hospital. Perhaps Bobby Dagen was part of some trap towards the
beginning of Jigsaws career, early enough so that Bobby could have already published a book about
the experience by the time Jigsaw dies. Bobby is telling people that although he doesnt condone
Jigsaws brutal methods, having to face death and endure pain is a gift, because you never again take
your life for granted. Jigsaw approves of this message, and realizes Bobby is the perfect vehicle to
spread his legacy. Alternate theory: Bobbys book is actually written by Jigsaw himself. Bobby was
poisoned by Jigsaw, and he gets the antidote mailed to him every four weeks in exchange for being a
secret mouthpiece.
Jigsaws final posthumous game, put into motion by that seventh envelope Jill Tuck delivers, is a
game for Billy Dagen. The game involves broadcasting his message to a mass audience. See the
official trailer for a hint of this. Every single trap in Saws I-VI took place in an abandoned building
someplace isolated. But look whats happened here. The game is taking place in the middle of the
city, in front of a huge crowd.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nVQZIJr6z2g

Jigsaw wants everyone to hear his message. And Im

guessing the message boils down to: Shape up people, because if youre not living a good life my
disciples, who are out there living among you, watching, might bring you to an old abandoned
warehouse and make you gouge out your own eyeball with a knitting needle.
(Additional Saw 3D prediction based on the trailer: When he says, The final piece of the puzzle is
you, hes speaking literally. Remember all those puzzle pieces he carved out of his victims? Well see
them again.)
Take a look at the official poster for Saw 3D. Its a giant statue of Jigsaw (shirtless for some reason)
going up in an industrial wasteland. Either a) this image is completely meaningless and incredibly
stupid, or b) Jigsaw is going to become the subject of a cult, elevated to legendary status in the
publics imagination. Whats the cure for cancer? Scaring everyone into living a better life, out of fear
that theyll wake up locked in one of your traps. Thats how the Saw series is going to end with
John Kramers legacy assured, and the door left open for endless sequels down the road. If they can
stick the dismount this weekend, the boys at Twisted Pictures will have accomplished something
unheard of: telling one big story over seven films in seven years. That, my friends, is twisted.
Update, 10/31/10:
Ive seen Saw 3D, and grinned my way through the whole thing. I am now going to create a Google
Alert for Saw 8. The thought of a Halloween without one of these is already depressing me.
That being said, I was largely wrong about my Saw 3D predictions, and Im not sure I love how the
meta-plot was wrapped up.

First of all, the tape in Saw VI was, in fact, delivered to Dr.

Gordon. I discounted this, because:
1.
If Dr. Gordon was still alive, than Adam would have been found.
2.
Dr. Gordon technically lost his game, cutting off his foot AFTER the deadline, and failing to
kill Adam as he was instructed. Based on everything we know about Jigsaw, hes not going to get
a pass for that.
The movie sidesteps #1 by explaining that Gordon was actually saved by Jigsaw and turned into an
apprentice. But #2 is still a problem. In order for me to accept this revelation, I have to believe that
Dr. Gordon was tested AGAIN, after he recovered from all the blood loss. If there is another sequel
(please please) it will have to feature lots of flashbacks to Dr. Gordons relationship with Jigsaw,
showing exactly how he was turned.
By the way, I love how the revelation about Dr. Gordon suddenly makes a lot of the old traps more
plausible, since they would have required medical expertise. For instance, in Saw II, there was the
guy with the key behind his eyeball. Nobody questioned the plausibility of this at the time, since
youve just got to assume Jigsaw is impossibly clever at choreographing this stuff. But in retrospect,
yeah, okay. Its like how after Detective Hoffman was revealed to be an apprentice, Saw IIsuddenly
makes more sense, since it requires knowing the secrets about how Eric Matthews was framing
people for crimes. Jigsaw could never have know this, but Hoffman would have, obviously. Hell, in
retrospect, the detectives should have been asking themselves, Wait, how DOES Jigsaw know what
he knows?

Then theres Bobby. My girlfriend actually suggested last

week that he was a big faker, and that he had never been in a trap. But I discounted this for a simple
reason: no sane person would claim to have been tested by a still-active serial killer with a reputation
for torturing people who piss him off. You are just BEGGING for him to come after you. It turns out
that yes, Bobby is just that stupid.
My big theory above, about the Cult of Jigsaw, didnt QUITE happen, although there were nods to it.
(At the end, Dr. Gordon goes after Hoffman with two accomplices. This is now officially Project
Mayhem.) But then I wonder, whats the deal with the opening trap, which takes place in public? My
guess is an earlier draft made more use of this. No other trap, ever, has taken place in public theres
got to be a reason. And nevermind that how the hell did Dr. Gordon set that up? Who rested that
space? Who rigged it? Why arent the police looking into it? And that brings me to
Meet the new boss, same as the old boss? What kind of a Jigsaw is Dr. Gordon going to be? First of
all, Carey Elwes absolutely pulls off the creepy that final scene was just great. But let me point out a
couple things hes doing that Jigsaw wouldnt:
1.

Not all his traps are fair. Bobby has no way to save his wife, which means that Gordon is
straight-up murdering her. Jigsaw wouldnt have done this.
2.
Dr. Gordon wipes out a whole SWAT team. Once again, Jigsaw was very clear about not
directly killing people, and certainly people he wasnt testing. I think Dr. Gordon is going to be a
lot more comfortable with collateral damage than his mentor.
3.
Like I said, the trap unfolding in the public square must mean something. Either its Dr.
Gordons idea, or Jigsaw left instructions to start raising the profile of these games. Either way,
its something new.

Finally, this movie kind of punts on the Big Question of, Do Jigsaws traps really help people? In
Bobbys survivor group, one survivor feels empowered, while another seems disgusted with the very
idea that anyone could be transformed by this experience. More disturbingly, its becoming clear that
a large number of people who Jigsaw tests subsequently assist with the testing of others. In other
words, being tested by Jigsaw may make you a better person, but it also makes you a psychopath.

Im now of the camp that Jigsaws traps dont improve anyones

life. We never see any Jigsaw survivor quitting their job to help the homeless, spend more time with
their kids, or finish a novel. All that survivors seem to do is inflict pain on others. Its a contagious
disease. Jigsaw once described his work as being about rehabilitation, but I aint buying it. This is
about punishment. Hes not helping these people; hes just making them pay a horrible price for their
sins.
By the way, I need to point something out. Eric Matthews was in the exact same situation Hoffman is
in now, and he escaped. Moreover, we can be pretty sure that Hoffman KNOWS how he escaped. So
Hoffman isnt necessarily dead (but if I were a Saw writer, Id wait a couple more movies before
revealing that).