As hard as it is to believe, the original Saw movie is twenty years old in just a few weeks time.
And God knows I have written a lot about this franchise in the last few years – some (most) would say too much. But the truth is, this movie, and the series by extension, feels intimately connected to my love of movies, and, especially, my love of horror, and I simply couldn’t let this anniversary go by without talking about it just a little bit.
Of course, it’s virtually impossible to disentangle this movie from the franchise that followed it or, indeed, the careers of James Wan and Leigh Whannel, both as collaborators and solo artists. The Saw franchise – which, only last year, released its tenth and unfairly-excellent chapter – is one of the most prominent franchises of the twenty-first century, a mix of high camp, high gore, and Tobin Bell doing that little pursed thing with his lips that sends me into orbit. And, while I do adore the franchise as a whole (despite my better judgement), the first film still holds a very special place in my heart.
I was about ten when the original movie came out, but despite the fact I was far too young to watch it at the time, it still loomed large on the cinematic landscape I grew up with. Saw was a byword for all the films I was most fascinated by, and most firmly banned from watching: violent, gory, scary, gritty and gross and grimy and grotty, a shorthand for the then-newish “torture porn” subgenre (even if I don’t think it’s a particularly fair example of that – the first movie, at least). It hovered in the background of my movie awareness, a transgressive and unknown slice of horrible committed to celluloid, and all the more fascinating and tempting for it.
So, when I came to actually watch it, I had created this sort of mythos around the movie that, perhaps, it didn’t entirely deserve. The truth is, this first movie reads very much like a first movie, for Wan, Whannell, and the franchise at large – it’s a bit scrappy around the edgy, with a script that could have used another polish and a few performances that leave a little to be desired.
But, fundamentally, it’s still a great film, a tenacious and distinct movie that comes out of the gate with a strong visual style, a fantastic story with a still-iconic twist, and a few genuinely impressive horror sequences (the photography pig-man scene? Still one of the best the series has done, truly). Even watching it now (which I do about once a year), it still feels like an engaging, exciting entry into the world of 2000s horror. There’s such a richness to this world and especially the character of Jigsaw himself that a franchise feels inevitable, if not necessary – what we see here just isn’t enough, the blend of procedural and slasher almost never-bettered.
Twenty years later, Saw holds an even bigger place in my heart than it did when it first came out – the brilliant fandom community that has sprung up around it, the actors and directors who have returned to the series to imbue it with new life, and the unending influence it has had on the horror genre in the decades since its release are impossible to deny. But I would love to hear about your relationship with this movie, twenty years later – were you a fan at the time, or did you come to it later? How do you think it stands up after two decades? Let me know in the comments below1
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By Lou MacGregor
(header image via Reddit)
No But Listen 