[Based on the Hit Film] Replaying “Saw: The Game”
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“Based on the Hit Film” is a series of articles looking at the video game spin-offs and adaptations of popular horror and movies. Today, it’s the turn of the Saw games
For much of the first decade of this century, mainstream American horror movies were fairly high in profit, but lacking in originality. Zombie films began shuffling close to the height of popularity and remakes of classic horror were very much the in thing, with some proving successful (Dawn of the Dead, Texas Chainsaw Massacre) and others far less so (My Bloody Valentine).
Such was the craving for something new and exciting that when James Wan’s Saw arrived on the scene, it sparked a flurry of copycats and perhaps too many sequels in a short space of time.
Saw brought something to invigorate the rather listless horror genre. A blood-soaked murder mystery thriller with the twist that the killer tests his victims will to live with some rather brutal and grisly traps. Escape and you’ve been done a favor, meet your demise and you’re just proving you didn’t care that much about living anyway. At least this is how Jigsaw, the series’ iconic killer, sees it.
Who Want’s to Play a Saw Game?
Meanwhile, a couple of years later in video game land, horror was looking for a fresh shot in the arm. At this time Saw had become a juggernaut horror franchise, and the timing could surely never be better for a Saw video game?
Brash Entertainment certainly believed this to be the case, and just before Saw III was set to hit cinemas in October 2006, it announced a deal with Twisted Pictures to create a Saw video game, which would be set to arrive alongside Saw IV the following October.
The idea was that it would be a version of the story from the first film, so as to start a game series that may be as lucrative as its filmic parentage. For various reasons, this would not happen as planned.
After the initial announcement, Brash would go dark on fresh info on the project. The promised tie-in date with Saw IV came and went, and it would be January of 2008 before the game reemerged with Saw’s Billy the Puppet appearing in a teaser. The game, now with a new story within the film universe, was set to appear on PC, PlayStation 3, and Xbox 360 as well as PlayStation 2. Brash hyped up the involvement of James Wan and Leigh Whannell, who were to design new traps just for the game.
It all seemed rather positive after such a worrying period of silence, but Brash may well have been full of hot air because not all that long after, Brash Entertainment handed development over to Zombie Studios (who, despite the name, were most famous for making tactical military shooters). Brash Entertainment opted to publish instead. Unfortunately for Brash, and the game itself, things weren’t going to get better.
It was November 14, 2008, and over two years after target release for the Saw video game, Brash Entertainment was shutting down due to financial difficulties, leaving Lionsgate, Zombie Studios and the Saw game stuck, unsure how to proceed.
A Second Chance at Life
Then came a savior of sorts. Japanese giant Konami took up an interest in the game, seeing it as a possible spiritual successor for its fading Silent Hill series. It agreed to publish and set about having the game redesigned to fit its plans.
While much of the core game Zombie Studios and Brash Entertainment had started with was intact, Konami still had a big say in the overall direction and tone of the finished product. Perhaps that was a case of too many cooks, or maybe the game was saved from being a complete disaster, but it is fair to say the troubled development showed in the final version of the game.
October 22, 2009, three whole years after it was due to arrive, the Saw video game finally landed. It was an ugly, confused creature that occasionally dared to do something interesting.
The plot of the game takes place after the events of the first film. aIt sees The Jigsaw Killer (voiced by actual Jigsaw, Tobin Bell) healing Detective David Tapp (not voiced by Danny Glover) from his gunshot wound. He then places him in an abandoned insane asylum to teach him one of his famous life lessons. Jigsaw then goads Tapp into escaping and chasing him as he sits, bound to a chair, wearing the infamous snapping face mask trap seen in the film.
The infatuated Tapp does escape this trap (thanks to a series of waggles of the analog stick by the player) and goes through the asylum in a bid to catch Jigsaw. Unfortunately, he faces plenty of cruel morality tales along the way. Tapp encounters several people who are in some way connected to him, and he must save them from Jigsaw’s sick puzzles. If that were not bad enough, Jigsaw has other captives held here whose sole task is to kill Tapp if they want to live.
The Jig is Up
Tapp faces plenty of grueling feats and learns more and more about Jigsaw’s origins as he progresses. It’s almost certainly unintentional, but there’s a clever metagame going on. Jigsaw directs Tapp through what is essentially a game, as the player does the same. At best it evokes the spirit of Rockstar’s Manhunt. It mirrors the dynamic between the tortured James Earl Cash and the gleeful, grisly prodding of the director, Starkweather, even if it doesn’t quite match it.
You spend time mostly solving Jigsaw’s grim puzzles, sometimes accompanied by an A.I. partner with their own life on the line. sometimes it involves the destruction of others to progress. Saw: The Game is at its best when puzzles are involved, and frankly, that’s not saying a lot.
Its combat crops up a touch too often and is unwelcome due to how unwieldy and unresponsive it is. It has a decent weapon variety, sure, but it feels neither satisfying to execute nor impactful enough for how violent it is. It doesn’t really sell the danger of the situation when bludgeoning a frightened, yet vicious captive looks and feels more like you’re slapping a sandbag with a pillow.
Puzzles build the tension far better, and some traps that involve the lives of others will give you a short glimpse of what the victim’s grisly fate will be should you fail. Like the combat, it lacks the breathless, violent urgency necessary to replicate what makes Saw’s trap set pieces work, but it comes a lot closer. It doesn’t help that the moral trickery employed by Jigsaw in the films is not properly represented here. Saw: The Game often ends up with gore and distress for the sake of a cheap thrill, rather than tie it into Jigsaw’s ethos of testing people’s desire to live.
Live or Die, Make Your Choice
Despite best intentions, the jumbled project that is Saw: The Game inevitably suffers for its stop-start development under multiple developers and publishers. Critics were suitably lukewarm on the end product in 2009. Many cited the wonky combat and haphazard application of the film’s bloodthirsty morality tales. Despite that, there were things to like for fans of Saw.
These interesting things to come out of it were some of the Wan and Whannell trap design, Tobin Bell’s voice work, and the bleak ending to the game. It can end with Tapp committing suicide after escaping the asylum but not capturing Jigsaw. Or Tapp inadvertently kills the wife of his late partner, Steven Sing, in an eerie echo of his demise in the first Saw film.
Based on the Hit Film: Predator Hunting Grounds
This ending sees Tapp driven mad, spending the rest of his days in an actual asylum where he still believes he’s playing Jigsaw’s game. The first ending is canonical, as the game’s sequel, Saw II: Flesh and Blood, confirms it. The film, Saw V, also features Tapp in an obituary.
Any hope that a sequel with fewer background problems would fare better was demolished pretty swiftly, as Saw II: Flesh and Blood was a massive step back from an already underwhelming game. It was released one year after the first game though, coinciding with the release of the seventh film, so the alarmingly quick turnaround was likely a big factor in that game’s shortcomings.
See Saw Game Run
Konami abandoned the Saw project after this, and as we now know, gradually shied away from horror games altogether. As for the developer, Zombie Studios, they were an early victim of the current console generation. after this, it flopped hard with another whiffy horror title Daylight, in 2014. Zombie Studios reanimated no more in 2015 following the retirement of its owners.
The Saw movie series also briefly died after an oversaturation of sequels. It returned in 2017 to moderate success, and subsequently got another chapter lined up. With a much-changed gaming landscape, perhaps there’s one more shot at getting a Saw video game right in the near future.
Twice a month Joe Lipsett will dissect a new Amityville Horror film to explore how the “franchise” has evolved in increasingly ludicrous directions. This is “The Amityville IP.”
A bizarre recurring issue with the Amityville “franchise” is that the films tend to be needlessly complicated. Back in the day, the first sequels moved away from the original film’s religious-themed haunted house storyline in favor of streamlined, easily digestible concepts such as “haunted lamp” or “haunted mirror.”
As the budgets plummeted and indie filmmakers capitalized on the brand’s notoriety, it seems the wrong lessons were learned. Runtimes have ballooned past the 90-minute mark and the narratives are often saggy and unfocused.
Both issues are clearly on display in Amityville Karen (2022), a film that starts off rough, but promising, and ends with a confused whimper.
The promise is embodied by the tinge of self-awareness in Julie Anne Prescott (The Amityville Harvest)’s screenplay, namely the nods to John Waters’ classic 1994 satire, Serial Mom. In that film, Beverly Sutphin (an iconic Kathleen Turner) is a bored, white suburban woman who punished individuals who didn’t adhere to her rigid definition of social norms. What is “Karen” but a contemporary equivalent?
In director/actor Shawn C. Phillips’ film, Karen (Lauren Francesca) is perpetually outraged. In her introductory scenes, she makes derogatory comments about immigrants, calls a female neighbor a whore, and nearly runs over a family blocking her driveway. She’s a broad, albeit familiar persona; in many ways, she’s less of a character than a caricature (the living embodiment of the name/meme).
These early scenes also establish a fairly straightforward plot. Karen is a code enforcement officer with plans to shut down a local winery she has deemed disgusting. They’re preparing for a big wine tasting event, which Karen plans to ruin, but when she steals a bottle of cursed Amityville wine, it activates her murderous rage and goes on a killing spree.
Simple enough, right?
Unfortunately, Amityville Karen spins out of control almost immediately. At nearly every opportunity, Prescott’s screenplay eschews narrative cohesion and simplicity in favour of overly complicated developments and extraneous characters.
Take, for example, the wine tasting event. The film spends an entire day at the winery: first during the day as a band plays, then at a beer tasting (???) that night. Neither of these events are the much touted wine-tasting, however; that is actually a private party happening later at server Troy (James Duval)’s house.
Weirdly though, following Troy’s death, the party’s location is inexplicably moved to Karen’s house for the climax of the film, but the whole event plays like an afterthought and features a litany of characters we have never met before.
This is a recurring issue throughout Amityville Karen, which frequently introduces random characters for a scene or two. Karen is typically absent from these scenes, which makes them feel superfluous and unimportant. When the actress is on screen, the film has an anchor and a narrative drive. The scenes without her, on the other hand, feel bloated and directionless (blame editor Will Collazo Jr., who allows these moments to play out interminably).
Compounding the issue is that the majority of the actors are non-professionals and these scenes play like poorly performed improv. The result is long, dull stretches that features bad actors talking over each other, repeating the same dialogue, and generally doing nothing to advance the narrative or develop the characters.
While Karen is one-note and histrionic throughout the film, at least there’s a game willingness to Francesca’s performance. It feels appropriately campy, though as the film progresses, it becomes less and less clear if Amityville Karen is actually in on the joke.
Like Amityville Cop before it, there are legit moments of self-awareness (the Serial Mom references), but it’s never certain how much of this is intentional. Take, for example, Karen’s glaringly obvious wig: it unconvincingly fails to conceal Francesca’s dark hair in the back, but is that on purpose or is it a technical error?
Ultimately there’s very little to recommend about Amityville Karen. Despite the game performance by its lead and the gentle homages to Serial Mom’s prank call and white shoes after Labor Day jokes, the never-ending improv scenes by non-professional actors, the bloated screenplay, and the jittery direction by Phillips doom the production.
Clocking in at an insufferable 100 minutes, Amityville Karen ranks among the worst of the “franchise,” coming in just above Phillips’ other entry, Amityville Hex.
The Amityville IP Awards go to…
- Favorite Subplot: In the afternoon event, there’s a self-proclaimed “hot boy summer” band consisting of burly, bare-chested men who play instruments that don’t make sound (for real, there’s no audio of their music). There’s also a scheming manager who is skimming money off the top, but that’s not as funny.
- Least Favorite Subplot: For reasons that don’t make any sense, the winery is also hosting a beer tasting which means there are multiple scenes of bartender Alex (Phillips) hoping to bring in women, mistakenly conflating a pint of beer with a “flight,” and goading never before seen characters to chug. One of them describes the beer as such: “It looks like a vampire menstruating in a cup” (it’s a gold-colored IPA for the record, so…no).
- Amityville Connection: The rationale for Karen’s killing spree is attributed to Amityville wine, whose crop was planted on cursed land. This is explained by vino groupie Annie (Jennifer Nangle) to band groupie Bianca (Lilith Stabs). It’s a lot of nonsense, but it is kind of fun when Annie claims to “taste the damnation in every sip.”
- Neverending Story: The film ends with an exhaustive FIVE MINUTE montage of Phillips’ friends posing as reporters in front of terrible green screen discussing the “killer Karen” story. My kingdom for Amityville’s regular reporter Peter Sommers (John R. Walker) to return!
- Best Line 1: Winery owner Dallas (Derek K. Long), describing Karen: “She’s like a walking constipation with a hemorrhoid”
- Best Line 2: Karen, when a half-naked, bleeding woman emerges from her closet: “Is this a dream? This dream is offensive! Stop being naked!”
- Best Line 3: Troy, upset that Karen may cancel the wine tasting at his house: “I sanded that deck for days. You don’t just sand a deck for days and then let someone shit on it!”
- Worst Death: Karen kills a Pool Boy (Dustin Clingan) after pushing his head under water for literally 1 second, then screeches “This is for putting leaves on my plants!”
- Least Clear Death(s): The bodies of a phone salesman and a barista are seen in Karen’s closet and bathroom, though how she killed them are completely unclear
- Best Death: Troy is stabbed in the back of the neck with a bottle opener, which Karen proceeds to crank
- Wannabe Lynch: After drinking the wine, Karen is confronted in her home by Barnaby (Carl Solomon) who makes her sign a crude, hand drawn blood contract and informs her that her belly is “pregnant from the juices of his grapes.” Phillips films Barnaby like a cross between the unhoused man in Mulholland Drive and the Mystery Man in Lost Highway. It’s interesting, even if the character makes absolutely no sense.
- Single Image Summary: At one point, a random man emerges from the shower in a towel and excitedly poops himself. This sequence perfectly encapsulates the experience of watching Amityville Karen.
- Pray for Joe: Many of these folks will be back in Amityville Shark House and Amityville Webcam, so we’re not out of the woods yet…
Next time: let’s hope Christmas comes early with 2022’s Amityville Christmas Vacation. It was the winner of Fangoria’s Best Amityville award, after all!
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