Saw Franchise

By Andy King

I researched the Saw franchise which is made up of seven films. Each film was released on the Friday before Halloween: Saw (James Wan, 2004: Twisted Pictures and Evolution Entertainment, $1.2m: $103m [world; $55m USA], 7.7) Trailer; Wiki. 18. Saw II (Darren Lynn Bousman, 2005: Twisted Pictures and Evolution Entertainment, $4m: $148m [world; $87m USA], 6.7) Trailer; Wiki. 18. Saw III (Darren Lynn Bousman, 2006: Twisted Pictures and Evolution Entertainment, $10m: $165m [world; $80m USA], 6.2) Trailer; Wiki. 18. Saw IV (Darren Lynn Bousman, 2007: Twisted Pictures, $10m: $139m [world; $73m USA], 5.9) Trailer; Wiki. 18. Saw V (David Hackl, 2008: Twisted Pictures, $10.8m: $114m [world; $57m USA], 5.7) Trailer; Wiki. 18. Saw VI (Kevin Greutert, 2009: Twisted Pictures and A Bigger Boat, $11m: $68m [world; $27m USA], 6.0) Trailer; Wiki. 18. Saw 3D (Kevin Greutert, 2010: Twisted Pictures, A Bigger Boat and Serendipity Productions, $17m: $136m [world; $46m USA], 5.5) Trailer; Wiki. 18. There have also been two video games made based on the films; Saw: The Video Game and Saw II: Flesh and Blood.

Quotes from Reviews

Saw: 'claustrophobic, demonic ethos rarely seen today' (Guardian) Saw II: 'duff horror sequel' 'merely sadistic' (Guardian) Saw III: 'strictly second-rate' 'the third entry is the weakest yet' (BBC) Saw IV: 'jittery, over-edited style and jagged storytelling' (Empire Magazine) Saw V: 'tedious, lame and pointless' (Time Out) Saw VI: 'back to Saw basics in gripping, gruesome manner' (Empire Magazine) Saw 3D: 'could do with more depth' (Empire Magazine)

Budget and Box Office

The budget for the Saw franchise has increased for each new film but it has always been a low budget franchise. Each film grossed around $100m to $150m at the box office, however Saw III grossed $165m which was the franchise's highest grossing whereas Saw VI grossed $68m which was its lowest. Saw 3D was the last film to be released and it doubled the worldwide box office grossing of the previous film in the franchise (Saw VI). This will of probably mainly been an outcome of the film being in 3D as more people will of found the film scarier or felt more involved in the film, which is good for horrors and quite a new experience for the audience.

What the Franchise Added to the Slasher Genre

The Saw franchise has been described as 'torture porn' by critics, which has resulted in the growth of the term.
The films in the franchise also have a puppet called Billy in them. This allows the killer to visually communicate with his victims without him being seen. The Saw films also use a lot of traps for the victims to escape from. In the first film the only victims that die are male, which is unusual for horror films.

Killers and Weapons

The main 'killer' in the film is John Kramer (played by Tobin Bell) who was also known as 'The Jigsaw Killer' or just 'Jigsaw', after leaving jigsaw pieces. However he wasn't actually a killer, as Dr. Gordon says about him in the first film:
"Technically speaking hes not really a murderer, he never killed anyone, he finds ways for his victims to kill themselves.

John's wife had a miscarrage due to an assault on her by a man called Cecil, which eventually led him to divorce his wife (Jill). John was later told by Dr. Gordon that he had cancer and an inoperable brain tumor and was dying. He was then denied health coverage by William Easton. John then attempted suicide because of his depression but he survived it, which made him value his life more.

This caused John to try to get people to appreciate their lives more. He did this by putting his carefully selected victims in traps, telling them why they have been put in the circumstance and telling them how to escape. If they managed to escape then John believed that it would cause them to appreciate their lives more.

John began recruiting apprentices to continue what he had been doing, as his health was getting worse. The only known apprentices were Amanda Young, Lieutenant Mark Hoffman and Dr. Lawrence Gordon. Amanda Young and Dr. Gordon were both survivors of Jigsaw's traps in the first film.

Victims
In total there were about 64 deaths in the Saw franchise (including Jigsaw and his apprentices etc.), but not all of them were in traps.

Summary
Something that surprised me about the films was the short amount of time they were shot it. The first film was shot in 18 days and the second was done in 25 days. I was also surprised at the quality of the films for their low budgets. One of the things that might influence my own slasher opening is using subtle references from other films/directors in my opening. For example, the James Wan in the first film uses lots of references from Dario Argento's horror films, such as black gloves of the unseen killer.