After ending the twentieth century with a brief slasher revival, sparked by the 1996 release of Scream, the horror genre, in Hollywood, at least, was in a slump. The juggernauts that dominated the last third of the twentieth century– Michael, Jason, Leatherface, and Freddy–were presumed dead, Ghostface just wrapped up a pretty open-and-shut trilogy, and none of their derivatives seemed to make as much of a splash. No new horror icons seemed to be on the horizon. That was, until, a first-time director and first-time screenwriter decided to put two men in a nasty bathroom and kickstarted a horror phenomenon in the process.
Obviously, I love Saw (2004). It’s one of my go-to films to introduce people to the horror genre. I’ve spent countless hours determining which traps were survivable for a PowerPoint night. It’s a film that ages like a fine wine: the initial mystery of the Jigsaw Killer still retains its novelty, even on multiple rewatches, and the imagery of the traps does much the same. Even if its sequels, and the franchise’s “torture porn reputation,” have outshone Saw in some ways, the original work stands on its own sawed-off ankle two decades later.
The plot of Saw seems simple in comparison to the wild, still ongoing, nearly unbroken soap opera that the franchise became. Two men, Doctor Laurence Gordon (Cary Elwes) and Adam Stanheight (Leigh Whannell), wake up in a dirty bathroom with one ankle each chained to the wall. They’re the latest victims of the Jigsaw Killer: a prolific serial killer known for trapping his victims in elaborate traps akin to escape rooms. Should they win, like in the case of Amanda Young (Shawnee Smith), they’re free to live. However, if they lose–as most do–they die. It’s kill or be killed.
Saw’s reputation and success live by its interesting premise: a killer playing judge, jury, and executioner, putting his victims into traps and having them fight their way out. This sort of vigilante justice and a sharp uptick in gore instantly set Saw apart from the more subdued “mainstream” horror fare of the decade prior.
The traps themselves are appropriately terrifying. Not only are the traps fully functional, but the stellar production design and effects teams made them look as if they were made by someone with enough time and anger in their heart. Nothing is so elaborate or mechanically involved that someone with an engineering background, like John Kramer (Tobin Bell), couldn’t build. They’re perfectly grungy–apt considering the general tone of the film. The traps themselves have since become iconic–the Reverse Bear Trap, in particular, becoming a running specter throughout the franchise.
Although the traps are the most iconic part of the film, on par with Billy the Puppet, they aren’t the central focus. There’s an inherent grunginess and edge to the film–something lacking in horror from the previous decade. For those obsessed with the aesthetics and anger of nu-metal music, like I am, Saw feels like a filmic extension. The excessively green color grading adds to the overall grime of the film; it’s reminiscent of the nu-metal music videos permeating the early 2000s. This tracks since former Nine Inch Nails keyboardist Charlie Clouser composed the score: a fantastic blend of orchestral and gritty, industrial sounds. Everything just feels so appropriately gross.
The release of Saw marked many firsts for modern horror–ones that would guide the trajectory of the genre for the following two decades. The film was the directorial debut of James Wan and the writing and acting debut of Leigh Whannell; the two originally conceived and filmed Saw as a short before eventually getting the budget to expand it to feature length. The film was, obviously, a phenomenon and an immediate boost to their careers. Wan would go on to helm the now-massive Conjuring and Insidious franchises as well as the recent cult classic Malignant (2021). Whannell continued writing for the Saw and Insidious franchises before eventually moving to direct the remakes of Universal’s The Invisible Man (2020) and The Wolf Man (2025).
That’s not to ignore the seven straight years of sequels, either. While Saw is a strong film on its own–exploring both how far people may go to survive, and how one small mistake can snowball into massive spanning consequences–its sequels are what truly shot the franchise to icon status.
This is how the Saw franchise developed its “torture porn” reputation; as Darren Lynn Bousman and then Kevin Greutert took control of the franchise, the gore ramped up in both severity and absurdity. Interestingly many of its most prominent cast and crew stuck around as the franchise grew. The franchise’s stalled revival attempts with 2018’s Jigsaw (which brought back Tobin Bell) and 2021’s Spiral: From the Book of Saw (directed by Bousman), and its successful resurrection with 2023’s Saw X (directed and edited by Greutert) last year prove this. Something about the franchise, some secret charm, keeps bringing cast and crew alike back to it, even over a decade later.
Nearly twenty years after the original release of the film, Saw’s nasty legacy lives on strong–even if the original film itself is way less bloody than its legacy implies. It’s a pillar of the modern horror landscape. Jigsaw and his silly little puppet are simply too iconic and beloved. The sheer number of cast and crew members that have left and returned to the franchise is a testament to its staying power. Here’s to twenty more years of reverse bear traps and epic bad luck.
Retrospective Courtesy of Red Broadwell
Feature Image Credit to Lionsgate via Collider