The Saw series started out as a fever dream project for film students James Wan and Leigh
Whannell but has since developed into a whole franchise of gore.
The central villain Jigsaw initially presented himself as a non-serial killer who just wanted
to force troubled people into appreciating and fighting for their lives.
But as the series went on, his games eventually made it clear that he and his minions just
wanted to see people suffer.
As a result, some installments definitely turned out better than others.
From worst to first, here's a ranking of all the Saw movies so far.
"Let the game begin."
Saw 3D: The Final Chapter
By the time the seventh piece of the Jigsaw puzzle came into play, this series looked
almost nothing like the original.
In the pic, Detective Hoffman was so busy running around cleaning up his own messes
that the day's games seemed like an afterthought meant only to follow formula.
In fact, there were two major group traps that were completely devoid of value to the
overarching plot.
Whoever thought it was necessary to have a man rip all the skin of his back off in 3D
might just be sicker than Jigsaw.
There were a couple of elements of redemption—like Dr. Gordon making a long-overdue comeback
to the series to tie up a few loose limbs.
And there was a kernel of something interesting in play with the fake Jigsaw survivor at the
center.
But the movie was frustratingly disjointed, and Hoffman's Terminator-style raid on the
police department laid waste to the entire framework of Jigsaw's "legacy."
Saw III
The third installment of the Saw series was one of the most problematic for several reasons.
For starters, the victims were completely sympathetic and even less deserving of their
fates than anyone else.
Submitting the father and mother of a drunk driving victim to torture trials just because
they're not grieving the way you might want them to?
That's cruel, even for Jigsaw.
Even worse was the fact that the new traps for this installment were unnecessarily gruesome,
to the point of being unwatchable at times.
And let's not forget about the table saw brain surgery we just had to watch unfold.
Sure, it was a clever turn of fortune that the person who was really being tested was
protege number one, Amanda.
But the choice of victims here seemed to exhaust the whole generous Grim Reaper identity Jigsaw
crafted for himself in the previous pics, making Saw III among the series' slackest
chapters.
Saw VI
Whereas Saw V managed to make Detective Hoffman interesting, Saw VI did not.
Since he'd already killed off Strahm, and the spate of drug addicts and other officers
who'd run afoul of Jigsaw were dead as well, Hoffman's victims list became pretty arbitrary
and ridiculous.
"Do you like how brutality feels, Mark?"
This time, he picked on a pair of predatory loan sharks and one particularly nasty insurance
adjuster who'd denied John Kramer coverage for some experimental cancer treatments.
Bearing in mind the fact that this movie was released in the wake of the subprime mortgage
crisis, it's understandable why the filmmakers might try to get political and punish greedy
people.
However, the plot was still flimsy and underexplored, and seemed extra gruesome just for the sake
of shock value.
Combined with some terrible acting and forced twists, it became stock shlock long before
the timer ran out.
The redeeming factor of the movie that keeps it from landing last on the list is that Hoffman's
voyeuristic copycat game in the beginning was a pretty decent metaphor for the Saw series
as a whole.
Saw IV
For the fourth installment, director Darren Lynn Bousman decided to delve into John Kramer's
wretched rationale by bringing in his tragic story with his wife into the picture, along
with another secondary psycho to fill in the timeline gaps as John Kramer took his leave
of the world.
But the central player of the games, Lieutenant Rigg, was wholly undeserving of his trial.
So what if he was passionate about his job and missed out on a family vacation or two?
The punishment never really matched the crime in this series, but especially so for Rigg.
That said, the clever culmination of events at the end was a fresh surprise that saved
this story.
The fact that Jigsaw was still in control of his crew, even while lying cold on an autopsy
table, was delightfully bonkers and managed to renew any fading interest in what was next.
Saw V
By the time we got to the fifth film, it was Detective Hoffman who'd taken over Jigsaw's
kill crew.
He was sloppy enough to attract some heat from on high in the form of FBI special agent
Strahm.
Strahm was obsessively committed to the cause of nailing his prime suspect, even after escaping
his own death trap by way of an ink pen tracheotomy.
So, the game of cat and mouse that ensued between them was pretty epic.
Meanwhile, the games that were afoot in Saw V were also a bit more precise and interesting.
The victims of this round weren't just helplessly being ripped to shreds but instead at least
pretended to use their brains before engaging those mechanisms that would cause their eventual
demise.
The gore of the games was mercifully dialed down a notch, which gave more room for the
sound effects team to fill in the blanks, rather than always leaning on graphic visuals
to get the job done.
This film's return to a teamwork element in the games was refreshing, and the passionate
pursuit of Strahm culminated in a crushing twist ending that was as jaw-dropping as anything
that came before it or after.
Saw II
Director Darren Lynn Bousman managed to avoid the sophomore slump with the first sequel
to Saw.
In fact, the film gamely expanded the world that'd been established in the original and
offered a new vein of intrigue for the subsequent sequels to float on.
The backbone of the selected group of victims, stuck in a dirty doom house where they're
racing against the clock to flesh out their own shared histories was still there.
But the movie managed to layer that element with a compelling subplot about Jigsaw's arresting
officer, Detective Matthews, and his missing son.
And on top of that, there was the surprise return of Amanda, which answered the question
of what would actually happen to those few who managed to survive Jigsaw's game.
Unlike some of the other sequels, the entire plot was pretty polished and managed to give
the series some staying power, so movie two is the second-best of the series.
Saw
There was something very artful about Saw's approach to the macabre that made the movie
such an indelible experience.
The puzzle pieces of skin taken from victims' bodies were meant to be symbols of what was
missing from people's lives, but they were also a collective metaphor for the audience's
job of digesting everything that happened in the film.
The small-scale setting of two and a half people locked in a bathroom playing a game
of Clue for their lives was surprisingly effective.
And so were the whirly-cam montage tricks used to show off other terror traps.
So, Saw opened the door to much more interest in exploring the sick, sad world of Jigsaw,
especially after it ended on such a twist that it was decidedly not "game over."
The movie was still far from perfect, of course.
The film had some moments of lazy acting and low-budget camera angling that are pretty
cringeworthy upon review.
But even if it didn't boast the slickest cinematography known to Hollywood, Saw was still an original
and very disturbing abstraction for the auteurs to explore and was executed with impressive
efficiency and invention.
For those reasons, it's still the best.
We'll just have to wait and see if the next sequel, Jigsaw, manages to bring some life
back into the series, but until then …
"Game over."
"Noooo!"
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