Saw
The General Story: Two men awaken in a dark, damp bathroom, with no memory of how they got there. With their feet chained to drainpipes, a dead body in the middle of the floor, and tape recorders with personalised messages played to them both, the game is set. The men race against the clock to figure out how they got there, who put them there, and how they will survive the twisted torture and punishment by a killer who’s nowhere in sight… or is he?
The General Story: Two men awaken in a dark, damp bathroom, with no memory of how they got there. With their feet chained to drainpipes, a dead body in the middle of the floor, and tape recorders with personalised messages played to them both, the game is set. The men race against the clock to figure out how they got there, who put them there, and how they will survive the twisted torture and punishment by a killer who’s nowhere in sight… or is he?
What influenced the
movie: Psychological thrillers were few and far between up until 2004. The excellent
“Seven” of 1995 set the standards for all other “Killers-Playing-Games-with-the-Police”
type of story, and ended so brutally, we could never get it out of our minds.
Saw generated similar buzz before its release but didn’t have the star power of
Brad Pitt or Morgan Freeman backing it. Rather, it was made for a measly one
million bucks, by a couple of Australian film students and starred just a couple
of recognisable actors. Not even the creative forces involved could have anticipated
how much of an influence their little horror film was going to have.
How the movie
influenced the 00's: Released to both critical acclaim and commercial
successes, Saw was the first of eight films in a franchise which set the stage
for most other horror franchises to follow since. An entry was released every
year right before Halloween, the budgets were low, allowing huge profits to be
made, and the landscape of the film equipped the creators to come up with as
many different ways as they could think of to torture, torment ad butcher people
on screen all for our entertainment. As brutal as this series is, it had its
appeal, and what raised it above the blood and gore splatter fest genre it inhabited,
was the character of Jigsaw; his philosophy on the value of life over death,
and his clever way of psychologically messing with his victims to choose
whether they would live or die and make that choices for others as well, left a
lot of room open for this character to be explored and developed.
What makes it stand
out as a film of the 00's: Saw came along at a time, where Hollywood realised
the movies had the chance to make more money than ever before, as budgets could
be lowered but profits could be exceeded, with all previous box office records
just waiting to be broken. On that note, each Saw film was made for less than
ten million bucks, and the whole series went on to gross almost $700 million
dollars in six years. When it wrapped up, other horror franchises stepped in,
taking over the Halloween release date at the cinema, and continuing to push
the envelope for movie goers who had seen it all and weren’t easily shocked
anymore.
Impact of the movie
still felt today: Saw was a series that slowly declined with each entry,
but overall, the films remain popular and have their own sick appeal. The character
of Jigsaw was a well fleshed out movie horror villain, cementing his place
among the greats such as Hannibal Lecter, Freddy Kruger and Jason Voorhees. So much
potential was seen in his character and way of disposing of innocent victims, we got treated to six original sequels then after a short
hiatus, a reboot of sorts with 2017’s “Jigsaw”. I’m sure we will see more Saw
movies in some form or another, and more horror films that are just as macabre,
murderous and maniacal. It can’t be ignored that the original Saw paved the way
for series such as “Hostel” and “The Purge”, all depicting people forced into situations
where the goal is not just to survive but kill or be killed. Who asked for
this? I guess we did, as we kept rocking up to the cinema to watch them, including
myself 😊
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