SAW WEEK: Spiral - From The Book of Saw (2021)

 

Taking a leaf from the original Saw movie, Spiral is primarily a gruesome police procedural, but here we have a Jigsaw "copycat" killer taking out corrupt members of a city police force.

While not a target for any of his traps per se, the killer seems to have a special interest in the department's one good cop, a hilariously over-the-top, almost parody of the lone wolf stereotype, Detective Zeke Banks (Chris Rock).

There are definitely moments when the dialogue and actions of characters - and not just Rock's Zeke - are so wild and melodramatic - while hammering home perceived clichés of the Mel Gibson/Lethal Weapon-style of renegade cop who always gets the job done, no matter the cost - that Josh Stolberg and Pete Goldfinger's script plays like a send-up of the genre.

After one "off-the-books" solo mission too many, Zeke's boss, Captain Angie Garza (Riverdale's Marisol Nichols) insists he partner up with rookie detective William Schenk (The Handmaid's Tale's Max Minghella) when a call comes in to investigate the death of an apparent homeless person in the subway.

If only Zeke had been days away from retirement, Spiral would have ticked every cliché on the genre bingo card. In fact, I'm slightly disappointed that neither he nor his dad said: "I'm getting too old for this shit!"

Zeke's father - the former police chief Marcus Banks (Samuel L Jackson) - mysteriously disappears before he is able to discuss the case with his son, causing the already stressed Zeke additional concern.

We are treated to some glorious flashbacks of Jackson sporting a wonky fake moustache that just made me giggle childishly.

However, the exaggerated police drama is balanced against the bloody "tests" that the killer puts their victims in. 

While they seemingly abide by John Kramer's rules that the person must have a chance of escape, the chances appear to be very thin... and failure results in a bloody mess for the police to pick through.

Honestly, you don't have to be a detective to figure out the identity of the killer if you pay attention to the way some scenes are shot and how one particular murder is handled, but the confirmation of their true name in the final act is when the film truly comes into its own.

Actually, the concluding scenes of Spiral save the film, retroactively explaining some moments from earlier in the narrative (as Saw movies are won to do), but, as with the later films in the original Saw franchise, this killer simply isn't as original or layered as John Kramer (the original Jigsaw).

I think I was expecting a very modern reimagining of the Saw franchise, but - despite the big names and presumably bigger budget - Spiral ultimately plays out like just another by-the-book entry in the franchise.

But I guess the clue was in the title.

SAW WEEK: Jigsaw (2017)

It's seven years since the last Saw movie was released (Saw: The Final Chapter) and, in the universe of the franchise, a decade since John Kramer (Tobin Bell) died... but his 'games' appear to have begun again.

Once bodies start appearing, bearing the hallmarks of Jigsaw victims, hardboiled detective Halloran (Callum Keith Rennie) and his new partner, Keith Hunt (Clé Bennett) refuse to believe that Kramer has risen from the grave, even though the forensics are pointing them in that direction.

Instead their suspicions fall closer to home when they start to look at pathologists Logan Nelson (Matt Passmore), a widower and single parent suffering PTSD, and Eleanor Bonneville (Hannah Emily Anderson), an adrenalin junkie with a sick obsession with the original Jigsaw murders.

Meanwhile, five people are being put through a series of life-threatening "games" in an isolated farm location, distinct from the usual urban settings of the previous franchise entries.

However, when they fail, their corpses turn up in public places around the city for Halloran and Hunt to find.

Jigsaw definitely leans more towards the original police procedural approach to the mystery of who is committing the crimes.

Yet, while the film throws us a few curveballs, it doesn't really do a good enough job of obfuscating the trap-setter's true identity.

Once you've figured this out early on you spend the rest of film mentally batting away the red herrings that try to drag you in a different direction.

Also, come the final act, one of the protagonists - the closest the film comes to having a hero, you may have thought - simply disappears from the action completely.

Genuinely atmospheric and the first of the franchise since the original to look really cinematic rather than like a blood-spattered  TV show, Jigsaw has a more contemporary veneer than the mid-franchise sequels.

Conversely, the traps - while elaborate - have a grittier, and less extravagant, feel to them, probably because of the rustic locale they have been constructed in.

The script, by Josh Stolberg and Peter Goldfinger, is solid, and, as is common with this franchise, messes around with the concept of non-linear narrative, twisting the plotlines into a complex bundle that even fills in more 'blanks' in John Kramer's very industrious backstory.

I'll confess I love the way everything meshes together across all the movies, making them, in essence, one single narrative.

It does appear though that from the moment Kramer learned of his cancer diagnosis, he started building an array of massive "games" around the area, without anyone noticing, and recruiting several loyal acolytes to assist him... none of whom gave even a hint to anyone else they were involved in these massive undertakings.

Which, again, brings me back to the inescapable conclusion that polymath (engineer/architect/philosopher etc) John Kramer - aka Jigsaw - would have made an incredible Batman villain, from the panache he brings to building deathtraps and his ability to attract devoted henchmen to the way his 'games' continue to unfold 10 years after his death.

In fact, by this stage of this non-supernatural horror franchise, you're almost convinced that if anyone could find a convincing way to return from the dead it would John Kramer.

I purchased the eight Saw movies as a 'box set' bargain in the Sky Store, for just £20, and while wading through some of the middle-period - more 'torture porny - sequels I started to wonder what I had let myself in for.

But, by the end of Jigsaw, my interest was definitely piqued by the prospect of seeing Spiral: From The Book of Saw.

SAW WEEK: Saw - The Final Chapter (2010)

The ironically named Saw; The Final Chapter (there are already further movies and possibly more, I guess) was full of surprises.

The biggest being that I came away from this gory offering with great admiration for the tight plotting of the whole franchise to date.

This episode had ties to numerous events - but possibly not explained - in previous chapters, and I like to think was all planned from a very early stage.

Of course, this also further compounds the feeling I mentioned the other day that the on-going saga - which is seven parts of a single story - as much like a blood-spattered  HBO series as a horror movie franchise.

While occasionally looking like a cheap '80s cop show, and sometimes hampered by some hilarious overacting from key players in the story, Saw: The Final Chapter (aka Saw 3D aka Saw VII) manages to cram so much into the first hour that you think the credits are about to roll, and then a whole new development unfolds.

The film also brought back Cary Elwes as Dr Gordon, from the original (and best) Saw flick, which I wasn't expecting 

The first big Jigsaw trap takes place in broad daylight in a storefront window, which seems too public for a classic Jigsaw trap and appears to serve only to later reintroduce the survivors as members of a support group.

The main trap-driven plotline of the movie, which was presumably all set up before John Kramer (Tobin Bell) died (he appears in a telling flashback scene), centres around testing Bobby Dagen (Sean Patrick Flanery, of Young Indiana Jones fame).

Bobby has made a name for himself on the self-help circuit (which is where he crosses paths for the blokes from the storefront trap) after publishing a book documenting his supposed survival in one of Jigaw's games. Only it's all bullshit.

So Jigsaw has Bobby kidnapped and then runs him through a series of tests, with the life of one of his friends and confidantes in the balance each time.

Let's just say Bobby isn't very good at these games.

Meanwhile, the police are closing in on Jigsaw's surviving accomplice, Mark Hoffman (Costas Manylor), who escaped the "reverse bear-trap" that Kramer's ex-wife Jill Tuck (Betsy Russell) put him in at the end of the last movie.

Hoffman is now on the hunt for Jill, who turns herself over to the authorities seeking protection and immunity.

I have to say, while it eventually all comes together very satisfactorily, I haven't been impressed for a while about how the franchise got hijacked by Hoffman's story.

As becomes increasingly clear in this chapter, he's just a deranged mass murdering serial killer, without the code of ethics (and superhuman engineering skills and limitless resources) of the more charismatic - but deceased - John Kramer.

I keep coming back to the conclusion, even though killing off the main villain and then continuing his deeds posthumously is a brilliant twist, that John Kramer's Jigsaw would have made an archetypal Batman villain... and I'd have loved to have seen a gritty crossover with the Christopher Nolan era Batman movies. 

While the planned sequel to Saw VII never got made, as box office interest in the franchise was waning, I'm looking forward to finding out how this all ties in to 2017's Jigsaw... and then Spiral: From The Book of Saw.

SAW WEEK: Saw VI (2009)

Picking up from the end of the last chapter, but with numerous flashbacks to weave the narrative into earlier episodes in the franchise, Saw VI concerns itself with the FBI closing in on Hoffman (Costas Mandylor) while John Kramer (Tobin Bell) gets to play one 'final' game from beyond the grave.

Hoffman is still trying to shift the blame onto the late Agent Strahm, but his injured partner Perez (Athena Karkanis) is back on the case - with Agent Erickson (Mark Rolston) - and she clearly has doubts about Hoffman from the get-go.

Although the opening "pound of flesh" sequence of Saw VI leans heavily towards gratuitous torture porn, the remaining 'tests' adhere more to the old school appeal of the original couple of entries in the franchise.

John - aka Jigsaw - has arranged for the man who refused his insurance cover, William Easton (Peter Outerbridge), of Umbrella Health, to be put through a series of 'games' which involve life-and-death situations for members of his staff.

This whole sequence is one of the best exemplars of the point that Jigsaw has been trying to make, and while I could never condone his methods, the perverse nature of America's health insurance system never fails to boggle my mind (coming from a country rightfully proud of its National Health Service).

Taking place in what appears to be an industrial maze under an abandoned zoo, there are elements of Freddy's boiler room in the atmosphere of these scenes, and eventually - that is, until the final twist (because there's always one) - you almost begin to feel sorry for William.

That storyline ends in gross death, but, for once in this franchise, it manages to go so over the top as to cross into the dark humour of Grand Guignol.

Meanwhile, the other plotline continues to fill in John's backstory, putting more of the plot in the hands of his ex-wife, Jill Tuck (Betsy Russell), as we learn the contents of the mysterious box that John bequeathed her in his will (in Saw V).

I was also pleased to see the return of the first of John's accomplices, Amanda Young (Shawnee Smith) in these flashbacks, as she was always more charismatic - even if totally bonkers - than the oily and unlikeable Hoffman.

Her unmasking as one of Jigsaw's team was a shock, whereas Hoffman might as well as having walking around with a placard on his chest proclaiming his guilt. 

I have to confess that after the uncomfortable nature of the last film, Saw VI is something of a redemption - at least for the moment - for the franchise as, by having the traps set up by John and 'operated' by him posthumously, it moves back towards the modus operandi that made the first film a surprising hit.

SAW WEEK: Saw V (2008)

The intricate - and convoluted - timeline of the Saw franchise continues to be simultaneously continued and further complicated with 2008's Saw V.

Picking up from the end of Saw IV (which is also the end of Saw III!), FBI agent Strahm (Scott Paterson) finds himself unceremoniously dumped from the Jigsaw investigation, even as he starts to realise that the cop being hailed as a hero, Mark Hoffman (Costas Mandylor) was actually Jigsaw's protégé all along.

Flashbacks help explain how Hoffman made such a dramatic switch from law officer to sidekick to a supervillain, even as we watch another of Jigsaw's games unfold (set in motion around the time of his death), featuring five people being forced through a succession of tests.

Barring the initial torture device shown in the film (and we later learn why), Saw V sees the various gruesome traps reverting to the true ethos of John Kramer, these are devices that - with an application of intelligence and a level head - a person is meant to escape from, even though they will possibly be injured in the process.

It's all about the learning process.

That said, there's definitely a steady increase in the gruesomeness of the traps (the whole 'hand-and-spinning blade' shtick, for instance), and a nasty sadism creeping into some of the lingering camera shots.

As with the previous entry in the series, parts of Saw V's story run in tandem with earlier films, filling in gaps and explaining elements we might not have picked up on previously (or made incorrect assumptions about).

While this is definitely more coherent than Saw IV, it's harder to feel the modicum of empathy for Hoffman that we might have felt for Kramer who - up until the whole 'creating killer traps' stage of his life - seems to have been an okay fellow. 

Increasingly, the interlocking plot elements and story strands give the franchise the feel of an ongoing television show, rather than a series of movies.

Not only does the timespan of the contemporary events across all the films so far feel very compact, but it also feels as though crucial 'clues' are being left out, simply so they can be addressed (or retrospectively backfilled) in a later film.

This transition to a serialised television formula also got me thinking about how I would use a villain akin to Jigsaw as an antagonist in a roleplaying game.

Initially, I would ensure that the player-characters were never the targets of the villain's traps, rather they would be the investigators coming upon the aftermath.

I guess I'd possibly consider having them burst into a room and finding a person trapped in one of the "Jigsaw" devices and try to save them from it, but, personally, I wouldn't put my players in a situation where a character of theirs could die (so graphically) in a trap, just because they couldn't figure it out.

To my mind, player-characters are supposed to be "heroes", rather than victims. Unfortunately, playing it straight by the Book of Saw, there aren't really any true heroes per se in these stories (not that survive more than a couple of films, anyway), which is why the story set-up needs to be tweaked with a bit.

Unless, of course, you're playing some version of Call of Cthulhu - or a similar hardcore horror game - where the player-characters are often considered expendable anyway.

SAW WEEK: Saw IV (2007)

Even though Jigsaw - aka John Kramer (Tobin Bell) - is well and truly dead (the film opens with his gruesome autopsy), his 'games' continue, thanks to a message on a wax-covered microcassette found in his stomach.

Obsessed SWAT officer Daniel Rigg (Lyriq Bent) is led around the city through a series of challenges that he believes will help finally free long-missing cop Eric Matthews (Donnie Wahlberg) and Rigg's friend, detective Mark Hoffman (Costas Manylor). If he can reach them in time.

Meanwhile, FBI agents Peter Strahm (Scott Patterson) and Lindsey Perez (Athena Karkanis) believe Jigsaw had a third accomplice, as well as Amanda Young, and that's driving their investigations.

This leads them to Kramer's ex-wife, Jill Tuck (Betsy Russell) and, through a series of flashbacks, we learn a major chunk of Jigsaw's "origin story", his motivation, and get to witness his first "game"... which turned out to be less than successful.

There is a twist in the third act (isn't there always), but in the process the plot gets twisted beyond breaking point, with the story ultimately feeling like an abandoned William Burroughs cut-up experiment as it mucks around with non-sequential storytelling techniques.

Saw IV does tie in with the previous episodes in the franchise, interlocking its various puzzle pieces with the narratives of episodes one through three, but I'm still not convinced it isn't without plot holes.

There are definitely elements of later events hinging on fortuitous outcomes in earlier traps that could never have been predicted so far ahead of time.

However, among the things I have grown to appreciate about the Saw franchise, well the few opening salvos, at least, is (a) Jigsaw's code of conduct (he is testing people, and he wants them to save themselves) and (b) given Jigsaw's failing health, his ability to attract followers to his growing "cult".

Unfortunately, as the series has gone on, and its become clear that people other than Kramer are rigging his traps, innocent people are starting to suffer as collateral damage.

Because his acolytes don't adhere to his rigid guidelines, those moments of random violence simply for shits and giggles - as I said before - are when the franchise lurches over the line from horror-thriller to torture porn.

There's a danger these are becoming more in style of Eli Roth's Hostel flicks, simply challenging the endurance of the audience, and running the risk of drowning out the "learn to appreciate your life" message with buckets of fake blood. 

The interesting part of this entry in the on-going saga of Jigsaw was the development of Kramer's backstory, what pushed a decent man to become a Riddler/Joker-level trap-builder and torturer. 

This is the last entry in the series to be directed by Darren Lynn Bousman, until Spiral: From The Book of Saw.

However, the scriptwriters of Saw IV, Patrick Melton & Marcus Dunstan, also penned the following three chapters (Saw V, Saw VI, and Saw 3D) - which were all directed by Kevin Greutert - so it'll be interesting to see what kind of continuity there is through these latter entries in the story of Jigsaw.

As a brief aside, given their simple sequential sequel titles, I feel the film makers missed a trick with Saw IV by not having some play on "i.v." as in an intravenous drip. But maybe that's just me.

SAW WEEK: Saw III - Extreme Edition (2006)

Saw III continues the story of Saw II, by showing us the final fates of Eric Matthews (Donnie Wahlberg) and Kerry (Dina Meyer), and even bringing back Adam (Saw III scriptwriter Leigh Whannell) for a curtain call.

But, with Darren Lynn Bousman again in the directing chair, this episode in the franchise deliberately veers into torture porn territory as Jigsaw's deranged protégé and Julia Louis-Dreyfus lookalike Amanda Young (Shawnee Smith) takes the reins on designing some of the elaborate traps.

She doesn't exactly play by Jigsaw's rules, enjoying the power of putting her captives into death-traps that have no escape route and throwing some Hellraiser-level shit at people purely out of sadistic glee.

One of the set-pieces in particular ("the rack") is so over the top that it transforms into Grand Guignol, having raced so far past good taste that it has emerged on the other side as grim humour.

With the police investigation dismissed early on, the main thrust of Saw III is the kidnapping of depressed but brilliant surgeon Lynn Denlon (Bahar Soomekh).

She is forced by Amanda to operate on her mentor's brain tumour while simultaneously a vengeance-driven grieving father, Jeff (Angus Macfadyen), is put through a maze of tests.

Lynn is told that she must keep John Kramer (Tobin Bell) - aka Jigsaw - alive for the duration of Jeff's "game". If he dies, or she tries to escape, the collar fitted around her neck will blow her head off.

Once again, the plot builds to grand twist, and while very cleverly engineered it somehow lacks the impact of the magnificent reveals from the pervious two chapters in the story of Jigsaw.

However, especially with the resolution of Adam's arc, you also realise that the three films could easily work as a single epic movie (James Wan, while not directing, returns to assist Whannell with the story).

The ending clearly shuts the door on one major plot thread (or does it?) and I'm fascinated to see how the franchise will be milked for five further sequels... and a soft reboot.

SAW WEEK: Saw II - The Director's Cut (2005)

The Saw saga continues in the creatively named Saw II, where we meet disgruntled, corrupt, cop Eric Matthews (Blue Blood's Donnie Wahlberg), who is the latest police officer drawn into the twisted machinations of Jigsaw.

Called to a crime scene by his ex-partner, Kerry (Starship Trooper's Dina Meyer), clues on the victim's murderous torture device lead Matthews to an old warehouse, where he finds the wheelchair-bound, dying Jigsaw (Tobin Bell) .

But before Matthews can arrest the criminal mastermind, Jigsaw - who says his name is John - reveals  that Matthews' brattish son Daniel (Erik Knudson) is imprisoned in a booby-trapped house with half-a-dozen other people... and it is slowly filling with poisonous gas. 

Jigsaw has, essentially, invented the modern "escape room" genre.

Although not directed by James Wan, Saw II's director Darren Lynn Bousman wisely homages many of Wan's stylistic quirks (particularly the use of a flurry of fast, disorientating cuts) to cement the continuity of the franchise.

Once again, we have the parallel storylines - the captives in the house trying to figure their way to safety before the gas kills them, and then the police officers interrogating Jigsaw to try and find the location of the house.

However, while Bousaman co-scripted the film with the first movie's writer Leigh Wannell, this chapter severely ups the ick factor, leaving less to the imagination and rubbing our faces in more of the gore.

In fact, there was one sequence in particular - involving a woman in a pit - that I found almost unbearable to watch, as it triggered one of my medically-recognised phobias.

Squirm-inducing moments aside, thanks to some marvellous scriptwriting and plotting, Jigsaw is a Batman-level villain (he really reminds me of my favourite Bat-rogue, The Riddler, for the trails of clues he leads).

And John very clearly conforms to the old maxim that all great villains believe they are the heroes of their stories. Jigsaw definitely believes he is making the world a better place through his twisted "games". He actually wants people to survive, because he believes they will come out the other side as stronger personalities.

As in the original, the film climaxes with a brilliant twist, where all the clues were right in front of us (and Detective Matthews) but we were all constantly chasing red herrings and misdirects.

The traps are nastier in this one, because we see them more in action rather than enduring the tension of wondering what would happen if they were set off, but we learn a bit more about Jigsaw, his illness, and his cunning plan to defeat it.

Further confirming the overlap in the Venn diagram of 'comic book superheroes' and 'the Saw franchise' check out this delightful article on Bloody Disgusting about Six Comic Book Death Traps That Would Be Right at Home in the ‘Saw’ Franchise.

Which also makes for inspirational reading for RPG gamesmasters looking for some devilish traps to throw player-characters into.

SAW WEEK: Saw (2004)

Liberal use of the derogatory term "torture porn" is often used to throw Saw under the bus, lumping it in with lesser works of lower quality.

However, in truth, director James Wan has managed to pull off some Texas Chain Saw Massacre level sleight of hand that makes people remember seeing something that was far more gruesome than is actually shown on screen.

Sure, there's some nasty torture devices shown in Saw, creations of the enigmatic Jigsaw Killer, but the terror invariably comes from the suggestion of what the devices could do to their victims rather than graphically depicting it.

Saw is really a dark police procedural, striking a similar vein to Seven.

Here the mysterious antagonist is imprisoning people he believes are wasting their lives and, in his own sick way, is trying to make them appreciate what they have... or die trying.

Even the police's nom de guerre for the antagonist is a misnomer, as Jigsaw doesn't kill people in the film, rather he puts them in situations where they often end up killing themselves.

The bulk of the contemporary action in Saw centres around a pair of strangers - Adam (Saw scriptwriter Leigh Wannell) and Dr Lawrence Gordon (The Princess Bride's Cary Elwes) - waking up in a seedy bathroom with no idea of how they got there or how to escape.

Both are chained to strong pipes on opposite sides of the room and there's the corpse of a man, who appears to have blown his brains out, on the floor between them.

They soon realise they will have to work together to try and solve the puzzle they are trapped in.

As the story begins to introduce flashbacks into the men's lives, we are also drawn into the second main plot thread, that of the hunt by driven cop David Tapp (Danny Glover) to unmask the Jigsaw Killer... and his increasingly obsessive belief that Dr Gordon is his man.

Events culminate in one of the most memorable twists in modern horror since M. Night Shyamalan's The Sixth Sense.

You can only fully appreciate this the first time you experience it, but it's a masterstroke from director Wan and writer Wannell in both simultaneously laying out all the clues and totally misdirecting their audience.

Revisiting the film, you will then see all the Easter Eggs.

Definitely not the faint-hearted, Saw is as much a mystery movie as a game-changing horror.

Taking the maxim 'less is more' to heart, James Wan - in his first mainstream directing gig - gives viewers just enough for their imaginations to fill in the rest, cutting away before actually showing anything truly gruesome.

Those films that followed and sought to emulate its style often focussed too much on realising the suggested brutality and not enough on the mystery angle, but Saw still stands up 17 years later as a powerfully engaging crime thriller.