Day 22 SAW and SAW 2

It’s Halloween, it must be SAW.

Remember those trailers?

Kinda glad that all stopped lol

I mean really, how many SAW sequels could you handle? The were fun at first, but they wore out their welcome and soon we had to deal with even worse dreck, The Paranormal Activty films.  Which were legitimately crappy films. We can say that now. It’s okay. The only thing we ever got out of any of those films was 1 worthwhile scare out of an almost 2 hour film

It feels good admitting that aloud. Which is why you won’t see those films on this list. But you WILL find SAW. Which suffers a bit from the same fate as other franchises like INSIDIOUS and Leprechaun. We all KNOW what the series are known for, we just more clearly recall the bad sequels.

So let’s focus on the series before it lost it’s way.

SAW

You wake up in a grungy bathroom chained to the floor with a saw blade, and Cary Elwes. Naturally you’ll begin quoting The Princess Bride and he will saw his own throat to escape you and the room. Also a hard truth of life. But here we are. In a film about hard truths.

It was a fun and gruesome twist to have a killer, who made their name off twisted inventions and traps made to make you face your number one fear, your sin. If you did so, and survived. You came out hopefully the better for it. Grateful for every day of life you have after that moment. That’s the setup for The Jigsaw Killer.

A teenage girl wakes up in a chair with a reverse bear trap on her head, a timer in front of her, and a lock. A video begins playing and a creepy puppet breaks down the scene for her, along with instructions on how she may walk away with her life. The key to her survival, she is told. Is in the stomach of her cellmate. So she goes for it. Cutting and digging through his stomach to retrieve the key to the device on her head. She’s the only victim of Jigsaws to survive, and she tells police she is thankful for him. She was a junky and targeted because of this. She also could’ve had her head split in half. But she fought for life.

Everyone else who faces Jigsaw and his traps, ended up dying. Either failing to follow the rules, or just barely missing the mark. Each victim left, would have a piece of skin removed. In the shape of a puzzle piece, hence the nickname. Jigsaw.

The film mainly centers around The Dread Pirate and a photographer chained in a bathroom with a corpse holding a tape recorder in the middle of the room, and Detective Lethal Weapon Danny Glover trying to uncover who the killer is and ending these nightmare killings.

As the film progresses we learn that The Dread Pirate was captured because of his failing as a doctor. More to the point, it was because he was cold and uncaring to his patience. Telling them and their families people would die and showing no compassion. He also was the doctor who informed Jigsaw of his own terminal cancer. So lesson to doctors. Be a bit nicer, it doesn’t cost much.

But the doctor also was the main suspect in the Jigsaw murders too. Given his medical know how among other things. The film has a good deal of tense sudden moments and also sudden deaths.  Like Detective Lethal Weapon and his partner discovering Jigsaw after looking at his tapes he left behind and identifying an abandoned warehouse. They arrive. Catching Jigsaw. They’re about to slap the cuffs on him when, now he doesn’t escape magically. Instead, unknown to the detectives partner. He triggers a multi-shotgun trap. Killing his partner with gruesome authority.

It’s seriously pretty awesome to see play out, and it’s a tense chase through the warehouse.

Meanwhile we learn more about the Dread Pirate doctor, and his photography partner. A man payed to invade peoples lives and privacy. Taking their photos, selling them to people, even blackmailing. He also was responsible for having taken pictures of the Dread Pirate which landed him in hot water. He was also hired by Detective Lethal Weapon to follow the Doctor as he was sure the man was behind the killings.

So the rules for their game? Simple. Jigsaw is holding the doctors wife and daughter as targets. If he wants to live and see his family again. He will need to kill the photographer across from him. The Photographer? His task is to free himself before that happens. Whoever achieves their goal first, wins their freedom. If they fail. They will both die in that room.

The film splits its time between them all know. The detectives. Dread Pirate, and now his wife and daughter.

I don’t want to go too much into the movie because it’s really worth revisiting, but also if you hadn’t seen it, you seriously need to. Also why are you reading this if you hadn’t seen them?! Shame. SHAAAME!!

So the Dread Pirates family. His wife and daughter are being watched, while Jigsaw watches a camera feed from the house of the rundown bathroom the two chained men sat in and discuss their fate. Also watching from not far away. Is Detective Lethal Weapon. After his partners death, he was discharged from the force, but still continued to watch the Dread Pirate. Still believing him to be the killer. Now we was deadest to prove it by staking out their home. Things are beginning to stack up!

Quickly, and I do mean quickly. We reach the first apex of the film. The good doctor can’t find it within himself to kill the photographer, And the Photographer screwed up his one chance of escape. See. Both men were given hand saws. Which the photographer immediately began using to try and cut through the chain on his ankle. But the Dread Pirate soon realizes what those saws were actually for. To escape the photographer, or the doctor. Would have to saw their own foot off.

But the photographer screwed his own saw up and said nuts to that. So when the deadline comes and goes with no one reaching their goal? It’s time to kill the doctors family.

But his wife had managed to escape her bindings and attacks her would be killer! The detective across the street watches all this and jumps into action. Heading over to the house and chasing after the killer. Which leads to a chase down into the sewers, where he is shot in the chest. The good doctor hears these shots and tries desperately to reach for a cellphone he could use to contact his wife. Unable to do so he flips and begins sawing his own foot off. Once he did so he finds a gun on the corpse in the room and shoots the photographer! Rude dude!! But the photographer is STILL alive!

At that moment the door to their room opens, the killer from his families home and the sewer chase enters and immediately the doctor AND photographer jump on him. The Photographer bashes in the mans skull with the toilet he’d made into his bed/bride.

The photographer is dying, the Dread Pirate totes promises him that he’ll crawl away and find help. He totes promises as he crawls out assumingly to his freedom.

Then we get the best twist of the film. The realization that the corpse in the center of the room, was actually alive the whole time, and was in fact the real Jigsaw. The Photogapher watches in shock while he calmly walks out and informs him that. The game is over. Sealing the photographer in what will become his tomb. A crappy bathroom.

It’s genuinely worth checking out and rewatching. You tend to pick up things you may have missed out on the first go around. But it also shows you the moment this film had heart, and balls. It was a damn good fake out with the reveal at the end, no one saw it coming and on top of that the kills were really twisted. Everyone loved it, so naturally that meant a sequel. Because well. Jigsaw was still alive right? So of course we must!

And so we get it, oh boy do we get it.

SAW 2

Shit gets serious, and so damn fun.

The movie begins with a police informant wearing a spike filled face mask around his head. The cute puppet from the first movie tells him he can survive this trap. All he has to do, is dig out the key implanted behind his eye. Which he’s just….not entirely…dedicated to removing and doing so. So he gets a face full of spikes, and he becomes a holey Jigsaw victim.

This time though, the police find a vital clue from the murder scene. Well two actually. The main one being a message for the lead Detective now in charge of things. Through that, and the lock on the holey mans face mask. They find the warehouse Jigsaw has made into his lair.

It’s a full blown police raid and Jigsaw is calmly sitting there, waiting for his guest to arrive. OF COURSE there are traps and he’s all too happy for them to discover them.

But he also has another fun moment for everyone there. He directs their attention to his computer monitors, and a new, large scale game being played. 8 people all trapped in a room together. Included the Detectives son, and the only person to survive his trap from the first film, Amanda the junky.

The traps are even worse this time around, one of which everyone found horrifying to look at and became the more memorable one of the film, which we shall get too soon.

So we have two stories going on right now. We have the detective and his people going through Jigsaws rooms, files and computers. While they try to find out who those people are, why they’re there, and how to free them and his son. We also have the group of 8 people struggling to play this game and stay alive. Which thankfully for the viewers they are not doing so well with.

Which the first is a bit funny as there is a note and a key which informs everyone ‘DO NOT I REPEAT DO NOT ABSOLUTELY NOT USE THIS KEY ON THAT DOOR, LIKE AT ALL. SERIOUSLY DON’T DO IT BRO!” So someone decides rules are for losers and says “Imma use the key because #YOLO” and they get a bullet through the head when trying to open the door thanks to a gun welded on the other side triggered by the lock.

The group also learns they all are infected with something and will die if they don’t work to gain their freedom. Many cryptic clues are dropped for them, and the one challenge behind all these puzzles. Is that each room has one antidote, for each of them. So teamwork!

Which none of these morons seem capable of. We have a sassy lady who doesn’t take any crap from anyone, we have a roided out guy with anger management issues. The former junky, A level headed ex con, a pretty chill thief, Mr Bullet to the head, another ex von and in the middle of all this, the detectives son.

The fun in this film, comes from the complexity behind the traps, and reason for them. One trap includes a possible antidote inside an incinerator. Which does not go well for the ex con who enters it. It’s not pretty, and the group like myself, now know what burnt flesh smells like. Imagine wet burnt wood and pork. No, I’m not joking. When I was admitted to the hospital back in February they brought a burn victim in and you smelled it. It’s not something you want. Ever.

MOVING right along.

The police are getting nowhere, and the group inside is having even worse luck. None of them know each other and it becomes rather awkward for the detectives son as he soon begins realizing that everyone but him has been arrested and in prison at some time or another.

To make it even MORE awkward. Jigsaw decides to poke at the detective as he tries threatening him about the importance of finding this group. He indicates politely how that might not be the best thing. Which leads him to gift the detective with a nugget of info hidden in his desk. All the people in that trap house with his son? Are all people who he planted evidence on to force convictions, and ruined their lives by sending them off to prison for crimes they didn’t commit. Told ya this was fun.

Especially having Jigsaw sitting there, no rush what so ever to go free or even try. He’s accepted his face happily and is just watching things unfold.

Which leads us to a trap that I both love and cringe at, and others do as well. The oh so memorable tub of needles.

There’s a door that could lead to freedom. They have 2 minutes to dig out a key in the room that could give them this. The key as Jigsaws tape informs them “Is like finding a needle, in a stack of needles. This is a task meant for the rager, but he instead decides to toss the junky Amanda into the pit because, why not. But she’s not exactly wanting to tackle this challenge. So roid rage picks her up and tosses her into the needle bed. Seriously the floor is cut out in a bath tub shape and filled with tons and tons of syringes. Which immediately begin piercing her skin everywhere. It’s. Well what you’d expect it to look like falling into a tub of syringes.

But she manages to find the key and….it’s just a little too late. The door locks, sealing them inside, and their chance at freedom taken away. So back to digging for clues and cures!

The detective is not taking this very well. Especially with Jigsaw repeatedly telling him that he needs to play by the rules of his own game if he hopes to see his son alive again, and hopefully before the others learn of his identity. Mad with his failure and the girl filled with needles not trying to look faster. Roid rage takes off and returns to the room they all started in. Which has a nice little safe in the middle of the room. Meanwhile our group is not doing so well. One of the ladies begins puking her guts out, almost literally, and soon dies. Another is casually spitting up blood but she’s had worse. Our level headed ex con, who also is feeling sick, takes off for roid rage to see what he’s up too.

Thankfully for little detective boy, Roid Rage isn’t there. Because as one of the girls dies from the nerve gas in the house that’s been slowly poisoning them. She points out a clue she remembered from earlier, about X marking the spot. It’s a cracked picture frame with, well a picture on the back. The picture is the detective and his son together. The sassy ex con lady angry with this information gets, well angry at him. And Amanda gets a little peeved as well. So he got off easy.

Speaking of. Roid Rage has a moment rare for him. A moment where his brain clicks and two things become a spark that ignites a thought. This thought leads him to discovering a clue that could have saved them all. Likely. The safe in the middle of the room HAS a combination. On the back of their necks are numbers. Which yes, provide the combination to opening the safe. They all could’ve gotten out of this if they’d worked together. Dummies.

So armed with this knowledge, and the fact that he’s Roid Rager. He decides the best course for survival is to kill the level headed ex con who finds him, and gets the number off the back of his neck. He has a quest now and he’s gathering the numbers he needs to get his friends out. If he doesn’t kill them first.

Which he really can’t help wanting to do. Especially when he discovers who the youngster in their group is.

So now Roider has a side quest. Freedom, and revenge. While watching this on the monitors. Daddy Detective has had enough of this crap. It’s time for good old fashioned police brutality.

So after beating Jigsaw, breaking a finger or two, several. Maybe puncturing a lung. So Jigsaw decides it’s best to do what the crooked detective ask of him. But that also means leaving behind the SWAT team, tech team. Everyone. So of course Daddy Detective agrees.

Meanwhile his son and new friend Amanda are running from Roid Rage for their very lives. Which seems to work out for them, thanks to Amanda. But the son isn’t looking so good. In fact he’s dying. Roid Rage happens across the two who….end up in a familiar room. Why it’s the bathroom from the first film! And there’s even a decaying body because, closure is nice I think. So to stop Rager from killing the two of them. Amanda ask him the logical question of. How can you open the safe, if you can’t read the number on the back of your own head. So Roid Rager tries to recreate the earlier moment he had when a thing called ‘an idea’ came to him. But it fails and he decides the best course of action, is to cut the skin off the back of his own neck to get the number.

So, so dumb. BUT as he takes care of that little problem. It’s time to take care of Amanda and detectives son. But the detectives son was not so bad off as we thought. He managed to locate the hacksaw from the first film and uses it to slit Roid Rager’s throat! A victory for the duo. A needed defeat for Rager.

Now for one more fun moment. It wouldn’t be SAW if we didn’t have another twist no one saw coming.

Since Daddy Detective took off with Jigsaw in a rush to find his boy. Jigsaw takes him to the house where the puzzle took place. Keyword there being, ‘took’. The tech team soon discovers and tries alerting the detective that what they were watching on the monitors. Was in actuality a recording. NOT a live feed.

They also discover the son is, in fact no longer in the house, nor is Amanda. In fact the son was locked away inside a safe in Jigsaws Lair, the whole time. In plain sight of the cops. The detective even sat on it at one point. So the tech team wins the day.

But Daddy Detective isn’t so fortunate. He stumbles into the rotted bathroom and gets drugged and knocked out my Amanda wearing a pigface mask. When he wakes he hears as all the players in Jigsaw’s games do, a recording informing him of what’s happened. It’s Amanda informing him that after she survived Jigsaws test. Jigsaw began helping her. She really did believe he saved her and saw him as a father figure now. He gave her back her life and a purpose. So she helped him setup this trap as revenge for the detective setting her up by planting drugs on her, and the others. Daddy Detective is then sealed in the room, left we assume to die, or face his own test. Screaming from his room, the movie ends with Jigsaw sat inside the car, still very much dying of cancer and now a severe beating. Smiling as he hears the detective scream. ROLL CREDITS!!

There was a time with these films, I would say. Up to part three. Where the stories were intensely good. Part 3 in fact draws closure to the series. If we forget there is 9 films in the series. Part three is like the Part 6 of Friday the 13th where we end the Tommy Jarvis storyline and kill Jason for good and all. You just again, have to forget everything after it.

Part three concludes Jon’s(Jigaws) story. Another case of great traps. Good twist, and a pretty intense story.

Part 4 begins the whole “how many fucking tapes and trapes did Jigsaw plan BEFORE HE DIED?!?!” The man like Tupac couldn’t stop releasing traps after he died. It’s insane and just killed the series.

But the first two carried it on. It brought more story into it, started by the first, carried through in a trilogy. Everything escalates from the first, second and third. Well into the other films. It’s a more than worthy sequel and when it first came out it was held as being a huge success. It’s been years since I rewatched, and I did for this review along with the first, I am very tempted to rewatch the whole series. Just because, admittedly. As shit as the films got after the first 3. As absurd and dumb as the story got. We still had fun gruesome kills and characters we could enjoy seeing get killed off. It was a guilty pleasure series and I am still glad we got them.

The films gave us James Wan

He started the SAW series, then gave is creepy puppets in Dead Silence, AND is responsible for the INSIDIOUS series as well as The Conjuring series. The guy likes his horror, and he has managed a good few hits with them.

Definitely check these out and enjoy the bloody fun