Editorials
A Critical Look at the ‘Saw’ Franchise: Where It Went Wrong and How ‘Spiral’ Can Bring it Back to Life
I don’t think anyone could have predicted the cultural force that Saw would become after it made its debut in 2004, leading to a greater narrative of violence and suspense. Each subsequent year meant a new Saw film, spawning a new Halloween tradition for moviegoers and horror fans alike. That said, as time went on, the quality of the series began to decline.
What started out as “torture porn” with a psychological edge eventually morphed into shallow soap opera. Each following movie, specifically Saw V and onward, chipped away at what made the initial first three films excellent in my opinion. What promise was teased in Saw IV was dropped for conventional splatter fests and bland emotion. Though I have a fondness for Saw, I only find myself truly interested in revisiting those first few titles, finding very little to enjoy in the latter ones.
Then Spiral: From the Book of Saw was announced. Let alone it starring Chris Rock and Samuel L. Jackson – with Rock having come up with the original story concept – the film appears to be a reboot. Darren Lynn Bousman is directing it, who is perhaps the strongest director associated with the past films (alongside that of James Wan).
‘Spiral: From the Book of Saw’
With Spiral’s release this year (the film’s current date is May 14th), I thought that it would be worth talking about the strengths and flaws of the Saw movies. What went wrong with the films? And what can Spiral take away from the good and the bad? Everyone who has watched the Saw films has their own personal ranking of them, so please keep in mind my opinions are my own. And there will be some spoilers regarding the series as a whole.
What sets Saw apart from other films of similar ilk? Well, besides that of the trap gimmick, it is the psychological/philosophical angle it had going for it. In the first Saw, it is discussed between characters how Jigsaw uses his games to rehabilitate people; to force them to acknowledge their wrongs and to gain a new appreciation for their lives. Though it’s a problematic view, it’s also expressed how he doesn’t actually kill people (just puts them in situations where they have to maim themselves, you know). I won’t go into this too much, for there are other essays that speak to this in heavier detail, but much of Jigsaw’s philosophy is the idea of struggle bringing about change; that if a person endures enough, they will gain something profound.
A serial killer with this concept in mind is leagues above the average splatter flick. Not only do the games work to effectively disturb the audience through their physical violence, but they also offer an emotional element. Jigsaw takes people who have done crappy things to others, or who take their lives for granted, and places them in positions that symbolically reflect their particular circumstances. One of the strongest examples of this concept being in Saw III.
‘Saw III’
After losing his son in a tragic accident, Jeff becomes distant from his family, as he is consumed with grief. Given his obsession and unwillingness to let go, Jigsaw has Jeff kidnapped and placed into a game where he must confront individuals associated with the accident that took his son’s life. In each trap, Jeff is given the choice to hold onto his anger, to watch these people suffer and die, or to forgive and possibly save them.
Though the first Saw offers an intriguing premise, brutal violence, and strong suspense, it is Saw II and III that really dive in on concepts of morality, forgiveness, and self-acceptance. Besides its gore, Saw offered more to chew on; its thematic depth helped set it apart from the rest of the “torture porn” crowd, allowing it to be a fascinating work of horror at the time. And then came Saw IV. While well directed, it would also mark the beginning for Saw’s unfortunate decline in quality.
So, what ended up hurting Saw?
For starters, the story became too bloated with melodrama once Jigsaw died. The twist that Detective Hoffman was an accomplice to him is interesting and could have made for a neat narrative to follow; sadly, most of his story is a letdown. Unlike Jigsaw, Hoffman lacks substance. As misguided and wrong as he is, Jigsaw has a philosophy that makes him an interesting character at the very least. Hoffman has a relatively understandable reason behind his first kill, but then proves to have no greater drive outside of being blackmailed and continuing the games. His story could have been a lot more interesting – possibly examining the impact that Jigsaw’s ideas had on him. Perhaps he became more inspired and sought to carry on Jigsaw’s legacy. But no, besides some surface level philosophy mentioned there and then, Hoffman is a very generic killer.
In this direction, the films also lose their emotional and intellectual edge, not including a few games that make stronger efforts to explore morality and internal change. For the most part though, the story begins to roll out weak drama, as well as a heavier focus on twists. Twists in Saw movies are a lot of fun generally speaking, but in my opinion, there’s a difference between how they were used earlier in the series and what they became. When looking back on twists in the earlier films, there is more of a narrative potency to them – they have some form of emotional weight on the characters. As the films continued, the number of twists the writers used only increased, hence losing some of that power to mean anything special. There’s a saying that “Less is more,” and Saw’s writers could have used a hell of a lot less twists (and applied more care to the story).
‘Jigsaw’
In Saw I – III, plot information isn’t rolled out to the viewer with speedy carelessness; there is more time dedicated to being with each character and absorbing their struggles. But as the Saw movies went on, they began providing their essential story details in a quick, paper thin manner – here are a couple quick points about so and so to throw at the audience. Story and character became second to that of the traps and “Ah ha!” moments. Where the series began with somewhat of a contemplative nature alongside its violence, that too was stripped away, leading to a nonsensical story.
All these problems speak to how vapid Saw became overtime. I’m not saying Saw is a work of immense intellectual wealth, but it absolutely had something interesting going for it early on. Though Saws IV – Jigsaw have some strong moments among them, they lack thematic depth and interesting characters (for the most part). Many of the games throughout the series continued to be exhilarating and grim, but if one looks at Saw as only having that one appeal, what really sets it apart from any other splatter movie?
The big take away from all this is that Spiral could give viewers a more engaging story. I’m not saying it needs to be all uppity with philosophical musing, but it could give more to contemplate. Spiral could involve deeper character studies. Individuals who are truly suffering with something in life, have done something horrible, or who are blind to what they have, and now must save themselves. There’s also the opportunity to feature a new killer who has a philosophy in mind, who sees a twisted logic to their actions.
Personally, I want Spiral to unnerve me the way Saw did back in 2004. If I were to think of one element I want out of Spiral, it would be to challenge. To make its audience uncomfortable, to explore subjects of morality and offer an experience that will carry the brutality of Saw, while also including its better dramatic qualities. This franchise still has a special place in pop culture – Spiral is the opportunity to bring Saw back into the horror limelight.
‘Spiral: From the Book of Saw’
Here’s what we know about Longlegs so far. It’s coming in July of 2024, it’s directed by Osgood Perkins (The Blackcoat’s Daughter), and it features Maika Monroe (It Follows) as an FBI agent who discovers a personal connection between her and a serial killer who has ties to the occult. We know that the serial killer is going to be played by none other than Nicolas Cage and that the marketing has been nothing short of cryptic excellence up to this point.
At the very least, we can assume NEON’s upcoming film is going to be a dark, horror-fueled hunt for a serial killer. With that in mind, let’s take a look at five disturbing serial killers-versus-law-enforcement stories to get us even more jacked up for Longlegs.
MEMORIES OF MURDER (2003)
This South Korean film directed by Oscar-winning director Bong Joon-ho (Parasite) is a wild ride. The film features a handful of cops who seem like total goofs investigating a serial killer who brutally murders women who are out and wearing red on rainy evenings. The cops are tired, unorganized, and border on stoner comedy levels of idiocy. The movie at first seems to have a strange level of forgiveness for these characters as they try to pin the murders on a mentally handicapped person at one point, beating him and trying to coerce him into a confession for crimes he didn’t commit. A serious cop from the big city comes down to help with the case and is able to instill order.
But still, the killer evades and provokes not only the police but an entire country as everyone becomes more unstable and paranoid with each grizzly murder and sex crime.
I’ve never seen a film with a stranger tone than Memories of Murder. A movie that deals with such serious issues but has such fallible, seemingly nonserious people at its core. As the film rolls on and more women are murdered, you realize that a lot of these faults come from men who are hopeless and desperate to catch a killer in a country that – much like in another great serial killer story, Citizen X – is doing more harm to their plight than good.
Major spoiler warning: What makes Memories of Murder somehow more haunting is that it’s loosely based on a true story. It is a story where the real-life killer hadn’t been caught at the time of the film’s release. It ends with our main character Detective Park (Song Kang-ho), now a salesman, looking hopelessly at the audience (or judgingly) as the credits roll. Over sixteen years later the killer, Lee Choon Jae, was found using DNA evidence. He was already serving a life sentence for another murder. Choon Jae even admitted to watching the film during his court case saying, “I just watched it as a movie, I had no feeling or emotion towards the movie.”
In the end, Memories of Murder is a must-see for fans of the subgenre. The film juggles an almost slapstick tone with that of a dark murder mystery and yet, in the end, works like a charm.
CURE (1997)
If you watched 2023’s Hypnotic and thought to yourself, “A killer who hypnotizes his victims to get them to do his bidding is a pretty cool idea. I only wish it were a better movie!” Boy, do I have great news for you.
In Cure (spoilers ahead), a detective (Koji Yakusho) and forensic psychologist (Tsuyoshi Ujiki) team up to find a serial killer who’s brutally marking their victims by cutting a large “X” into their throats and chests. Not just a little “X” mind you but a big, gross, flappy one.
At each crime scene, the murderer is there and is coherent and willing to cooperate. They can remember committing the crimes but can’t remember why. Each of these murders is creepy on a cellular level because we watch the killers act out these crimes with zero emotion. They feel different than your average movie murder. Colder….meaner.
What’s going on here is that a man named Mamiya (Masato Hagiwara) is walking around and somehow manipulating people’s minds using the flame of a lighter and a strange conversational cadence to hypnotize them and convince them to murder. The detectives eventually catch him but are unable to understand the scope of what’s happening before it’s too late.
If you thought dealing with a psychopathic murderer was hard, imagine dealing with one who could convince you to go home and murder your wife. Not only is Cure amazingly filmed and edited but it has more horror elements than your average serial killer film.
MANHUNTER (1986)
In the first-ever Hannibal Lecter story brought in front of the cameras, Detective Will Graham (William Petersen) finds his serial killers by stepping into their headspace. This is how he caught Hannibal Lecter (played here by Brian Cox), but not without paying a price. Graham became so obsessed with his cases that he ended up having a mental breakdown.
In Manhunter, Graham not only has to deal with Lecter playing psychological games with him from behind bars but a new serial killer in Francis Dolarhyde (in a legendary performance by Tom Noonan). One who likes to wear pantyhose on his head and murder entire families so that he can feel “seen” and “accepted” in their dead eyes. At one point Lecter even finds a way to gift Graham’s home address to the new killer via personal ads in a newspaper.
Michael Mann (Heat, Thief) directed a film that was far too stylish for its time but that fans and critics both would have loved today in the same way we appreciate movies like Nightcrawler or Drive. From the soundtrack to the visuals to the in-depth psychoanalysis of an insanely disturbed protagonist and the man trying to catch him. We watch Graham completely lose his shit and unravel as he takes us through the psyche of our killer. Which is as fascinating as it is fucked.
Manhunter is a classic case of a serial killer-versus-detective story where each side of the coin is tarnished in their own way when it’s all said and done. As Detective Park put it in Memories of Murder, “What kind of detective sleeps at night?”
INSOMNIA (2002)
Maybe it’s because of the foggy atmosphere. Maybe it’s because it’s the only film in Christopher Nolan’s filmography he didn’t write as well as direct. But for some reason, Insomnia always feels forgotten about whenever we give Nolan his flowers for whatever his latest cinematic achievement is.
Whatever the case, I know it’s no fault of the quality of the film, because Insomnia is a certified serial killer classic that adds several unique layers to the detective/killer dynamic. One way to create an extreme sense of unease with a movie villain is to cast someone you’d never expect in the role, which is exactly what Nolan did by casting the hilarious and sweet Robin Williams as a manipulative child murderer. He capped that off by casting Al Pacino as the embattled detective hunting him down.
This dynamic was fascinating as Williams was creepy and clever in the role. He was subdued in a way that was never boring but believable. On the other side of it, Al Pacino felt as if he’d walked straight off the set of 1995’s Heat and onto this one. A broken and imperfect man trying to stop a far worse one.
Aside from the stellar acting, Insomnia stands out because of its unique setting and plot. Both working against the detective. The investigation is taking place in a part of Alaska where the sun never goes down. This creates a beautiful, nightmare atmosphere where by the end of it, Pacino’s character is like a Freddy Krueger victim in the leadup to their eventual, exhausted death as he runs around town trying to catch a serial killer while dealing with the debilitating effects of insomnia. Meanwhile, he’s under an internal affairs investigation for planting evidence to catch another child killer and accidentally shoots his partner who he just found out is about to testify against him. The kicker here is that the killer knows what happened that fateful day and is using it to blackmail Pacino’s character into letting him get away with his own crimes.
If this is the kind of “what would you do?” intrigue we get with the story from Longlegs? We’ll be in for a treat. Hoo-ah.
FALLEN (1998)
Fallen may not be nearly as obscure as Memories of Murder or Cure. Hell, it boasts an all-star cast of Denzel Washington, John Goodman, Donald Sutherland, James Gandolfini, and Elias Koteas. But when you bring it up around anyone who has seen it, their ears perk up, and the word “underrated” usually follows. And when it comes to the occult tie-ins that Longlegs will allegedly have? Fallen may be the most appropriate film on this entire list.
In the movie, Detective Hobbs (Washington) catches vicious serial killer Edgar Reese (Koteas) who seems to place some sort of curse on him during Hobbs’ victory lap. After Reese is put to death via electric chair, dead bodies start popping up all over town with his M.O., eventually pointing towards Hobbs as the culprit. After all, Reese is dead. As Hobbs investigates he realizes that a fallen angel named Azazel is possessing human body after human body and using them to commit occult murders. It has its eyes fixated on him, his co-workers, and family members; wrecking their lives or flat-out murdering them one by one until the whole world is damned.
Mixing a demonic entity into a detective/serial killer story is fascinating because it puts our detective in the unsettling position of being the one who is hunted. How the hell do you stop a demon who can inhabit anyone they want with a mere touch?!
Fallen is a great mix of detective story and supernatural horror tale. Not only are we treated to Denzel Washington as the lead in a grim noir (complete with narration) as he uncovers this occult storyline, but we’re left with a pretty great “what would you do?” situation in a movie that isn’t afraid to take the story to some dark places. Especially when it comes to the way the film ends. It’s a great horror thriller in the same vein as Frailty but with a little more detective work mixed in.
Look for Longlegs in theaters on July 12, 2024.
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