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Saw II
8 Plays4 months ago
Coleman is back with us for this episode to talk about Saw II. Let’s explore the film that took Saw from iconic horror film to iconic horror franchise. We’re going to talk more about the Jigsaw philosophy, what makes a saw trap a saw trap, and the masterful ways the franchise fills in its plot holes. Join us as we dive deeper into the Saw universe, and get ready to get further into the web that Jon Kramer has weaved.
Full episodes on YouTube and Spotify, and don’t forget to follow the podcast on instagram for updates: instagram.com/whathauntsyoupod
**There were some audio issues with this episode that I did my best to fix.
Intro Music: Body in the trunk by Victor_Natas -- https://freesound.org/s/717975/ -- License: Attribution 4.0
Outro Music: drum loop x5 by theoctopus559 -- https://freesound.org/s/622897/ -- License: Attribution 4.0
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Transcript
00:00:01
Speaker
This is crazy.
Introduction to 'What Haunts You'
00:00:03
Speaker
think of it like god part two in a series oh yeah will be blood
00:00:37
Speaker
Welcome to What Haunts You, a podcast about the stories that haunt our dreams. Find us on Instagram at whathauntsyoupod and find our episodes on YouTube and Spotify.
Deep Dive into Saw Series
00:00:46
Speaker
I'm your host, Carly, and today we are back to the extended Saw universe to talk about Saw 2, which means we are also welcoming back Coleman. So welcome back, Coleman.
00:00:57
Speaker
Good to be back. Good to continue talking about my favorite series that I've watched entirely too many times. And I'm excited to get into the complexity of like Saw 2 through 4 because I think that's one of the best like eras of Saw as we were as we were talking about before.
00:01:15
Speaker
yeah definitely. And this is also probably the number one picked as favorite movie of fans. I can see that. what it wait What is your favorite Saw movie? I don't think I know that.
00:01:30
Speaker
I'm horrible at favorites in general. For many years, I went back and forth between this and the first one. I've told you this before, but I used to not like Saw III, and every time I've seen it, I've liked it better than the previous time. So it's now possibly my favorite.
00:01:49
Speaker
But the other possible answer would be Saw X. I think Saw X is my favorite. i I know that one's not for a while, but I'm really i'm really excited to talk about that one.
00:02:01
Speaker
Currently, it's my favorite. Currently, it's the one I know the least. Yeah. Did I tell you I watched that on a plane once? Nice. I watched it on my phone, so I felt like it was fine with the lady next to me. didn't think it was as fine, but I felt like it was easy to not look.
00:02:19
Speaker
That's perfect. Yeah, I think I know I told you this, but I watched it in 4D, 5D, whatever you want to call it. And by that, I mean, there was a rat running around the theater. Yeah. Get into that hyper reality.
00:02:32
Speaker
Right.
Saw 2's Complexity and Impact
00:02:33
Speaker
So there's something really different about watching Saw 2 compared to Saw 1 because... or just Saw, I guess. But in the first Saw movie, you don't know how complicated things are really going to be. It's really only at the end of the movie that you realize that this is like a complex web of people.
00:02:55
Speaker
And so when you go into the second one, it's like ramped the fuck up because you know... that like nothing is what it seems and that there's going to be twists and turns along the way and like people who are connected in ways we don't understand yet.
00:03:09
Speaker
And that this is all like much bigger than it seemed going into Saw 1. So I'm curious, you remember, I think, better than I do when these movies came out and like seeing them for the first time. So do you remember like what you thought going into the second one for the first time?
00:03:28
Speaker
So before I answer your question, something I thought of with your statement, this movie is sort of the complete opposite of it. It starts off way more complex than it appears to be. You've got this whole big story with the house.
00:03:41
Speaker
Oh, spoiler warning for this movie and the whole franchise, by the way. You start with this whole big house and all this other stuff that seems so important. And none of it matters.
00:03:52
Speaker
All of it is just a prop in Detective Matthew's game. Right. And it completely switches. But to your actual question, I said this in the last episode that I first saw the first Saw movie at a friend's birthday party before the second one came out.
00:04:12
Speaker
And I don't think I saw the second one in theaters. I know I saw the third one on, except Spiral. I wasn't able to see in theaters. Spiral and Jigsaw, wasn't. But I saw all the other in the original franchise in theaters.
00:04:27
Speaker
And I went in there not knowing what to expect, not expecting the half-dead John Kramer for the whole movie.
00:04:39
Speaker
I definitely wasn't expecting the main movie to be ah conversation between ah psychopath who's taunting. When the first Saw came out, people were calling it a mix of Silence of the Lambs and Seven, which both were big inspirations, especially Seven.
00:05:00
Speaker
But this is better. I think this is better than either of those movies. I know that might be a controversial statement, but I i think it outdoes them.
00:05:09
Speaker
That's an interesting statement. And I don't know if I agree, but I don't know that I disagree. I will say i love seven. i love all the silence, all the Hannibal movies, even the bad ones, but I love the soft franchise better, but I don't know that silence of the lambs itself.
00:05:27
Speaker
That's a good, I'd have to think about that. Yeah. But anyway, ah John and Matthew's talking about, is sort of Seven distilled.
00:05:41
Speaker
Right. It's John Doe from Seven talking to Morgan Friedman and Brad Pitt's characters. I don't remember their
Character Focus: John Kramer and Tobin Bell
00:05:49
Speaker
names. Yeah, for sure. And I think that's one of the other big things about Saw II.
00:05:54
Speaker
In the first one, John Kramer is like looming over the story, but he's only minimally in it. And this is where they really ramp that up and decide to make him a fuller character and like make him a participant in the story in a way that he sort of isn't in the first one, even though obviously he is like engineering all of it.
00:06:16
Speaker
In so many ways, the Saw franchise is ah perfect story of things just getting lucky. And I'll talk about that more when we talk more about this movie.
00:06:28
Speaker
But in the first movie, they cast Tobin Bell specifically because of his voice. And other than recording the tapes, which they distorted anyway. Right. He has literally one line.
00:06:43
Speaker
You'll find the key in the bathtub. Game over. That's it. even He doesn't say anything in the hospital. He doesn't say anything that's not distorted. And they cast him just for his voice. They could have cast any actor of a voice.
00:06:57
Speaker
I mean, my voice when I do it isn't as good as his, but you throw a little distortion. What's the difference? Yeah, and you're younger you're younger, so your voice hasn't aged enough yet. Right, but you know they could have cast any old white guy with a deep, raspy voice.
00:07:14
Speaker
Yeah. and this movie, Saw only works as it is because they cast Tobin Bell. Absolutely, and I think that it's so funny because ton Bell...
00:07:30
Speaker
like visibly looks like the nicest man in the world. You know what i mean? When we age, our like wrinkles kind of tell on us a little bit. And he has nice person wrinkles. has like smiley hat, like pleasant face wrinkles on his face. I don't know if you like notice that or not, but he is just- He has the most adorable smile throughout this movie.
00:07:51
Speaker
Yeah. And I think that that sells it so much that like this is ultimately a good man, like driven to- all of this by tragedy and it really sells that more because he is such a friendly looking person right and John Kramer absolutely believes what you just said is true yeah it's not but he believes it you don't believe that he was a good guy before all of this I believe that his intentions were always good fair enough fair enough
00:08:27
Speaker
But i also believe he was always a sociopath, psychopath, whichever you want to use. He was definitely controlling. Exactly. Jill talks later about him planning their conception to the month and for the Chinese Zodiac and so on. The man was a pure engineer.
00:08:46
Speaker
and I work with a lot of engineers. Some of my best friends are engineers. I've got a chosen sister who's an engineer. But a pure engineer is a form of psychopath.
00:09:00
Speaker
yeah Well, because it's very like cold and systematic in this way that in the way that John Kramer is. Right.
Saw II's Notable Traps and Production Insights
00:09:10
Speaker
And like his smiles throughout this movie, he's not smiling because he's happy, except one part I'll say in second.
00:09:17
Speaker
He's smiling specifically to get under Detective Matthew's skin. Yeah. And he claims not to be a killer. We all know that's a lie. He claims Saw 3 has a line...
00:09:32
Speaker
This is my favorite trap. I said that completely wrong, but introducing the rack, he talks about how brutal it is and calls it his personal favorite. The smile he gives on, oh yes, there will be blood.
00:09:47
Speaker
is You can tell that's not just fucking with Matthews. That is fully actually enjoying the suffering. whether it's enjoying Matthew's suffering or whoever else's, but.
00:10:02
Speaker
And the whole time, like the question kind of hangs over the whole franchise of like, what percent of his behavior and his like taking pleasure in all of this is caused by the brain tumor versus just something he gave up on holding back.
00:10:21
Speaker
Yeah. I think the brain tumor Probably. And definitely all his other trauma got rid of his inhibitions. But whether he was sadistic or not is something I cannot begin to answer beyond purely guessing.
00:10:42
Speaker
I think he was always logical and emotionless. I don't know. I don't know if I believe emotionless. I feel like he is lacking empathy is what I mean.
00:10:53
Speaker
Yeah, that that may be that feels more accurate because I think he's very emotional. He's actually quite emotional. Yes, you're right. Whether if he can see emotions in other people, I don't think so. He's not concerned for other people's emotions. Yes.
00:11:07
Speaker
So in Saw 2, the cold open, because it's a Saw movie, so obviously we we just are thrown into the fire, right? Yeah. The cold open is a man named Michael and Michael.
00:11:19
Speaker
Michael is a police informant and we see Michael and he is, he's not quite missing an eye His eye is fucked up though. Like his eye is swollen and has clearly something has been done to his eye.
00:11:33
Speaker
And he is hooked up to a trap that is a death mask that will essentially, when his time runs out, spring shut and kill him. So he is tasked with removing the key from behind his eye.
00:11:49
Speaker
And he kind of like starts to try to do it, but then he gives up and starts calling for help, which never works in a Saw franchise situation.
00:12:00
Speaker
So eventually the trap shuts on him and he dies. And that's the first, whatever, two minutes of the movie. Yes. so his tape begins with, hello, Michael, blah, blah, blah.
00:12:13
Speaker
And then John, as the puppet, quote unquote Billy, says the exact same line he says in Saw 1 with Amanda with the same inflection.
00:12:27
Speaker
I'll do one first. Think of it like a reverse bear trap. Think of it like a Venus fly trap. And I put this trap in a very specific category for if I were in it.
00:12:43
Speaker
I put it in the category of traps that I would just let myself die. yeah Yeah, I actually think that this trap almost seems like the worst trap to me. i I, like, can't even put eye drops in my... I, like, can't even put eye drops in my eyes. I turn into, like... I don't know if you watch Bob's Burgers, but there's, like, an episode where Gail, the main... One of the main character's sisters, like, needs to put eye drops in.
00:13:08
Speaker
And she starts, like, screaming and, like, having a a huge meltdown and just, like, totally... totally freaking out when her sister is trying to put eye drops in her. And like that's how I am if I try to put an eye drop. So I like the idea of being able to take like a scalpel to my eyeball is just totally, that's so beyond, that's so beyond anything I could ever do in even, I think the most dire situation.
00:13:33
Speaker
What's interesting for me about it, like I have trouble with eye drops, but not much trouble. I can put them in. There's a trap in Saw 4, that costs, if the person were to survive, it costs them both eyes, whereas this would only cost one.
00:13:48
Speaker
I could survive that trap. I think I could survive that one too, because I'm not, this is not a visual medium, but I'm not having to like hold the thing in front of my eye. I just have to push a button. And I feel like that's more doable because I think when I can see it, everything in me would be telling me to pull my hand away.
00:14:09
Speaker
Exactly. And I mean, I say this as someone who's performed very minor surgeries on myself. I mean, like, you know, removing a splinter, worse than that, but you know that level of minor. Right. Like I can, if I had to cut into my arm for some reason, I think I could, but my eye, no way.
00:14:29
Speaker
If it was guaranteed, cut my eye out, guaranteed I will live. All I have to do is remove the eye. Maybe. Maybe. I don't even think I could do it then. i don't even think I could.
00:14:41
Speaker
i don't. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. But if it was cut out your eye, dig in, pull out a key, unlock it and get it off in under a minute.
00:14:54
Speaker
I am just going to die. Yeah. Instead of screaming for help or fighting with it, I would sit there as long as I could. And I say this with the meta knowledge of the series of knowing, you know, maybe I don't trigger it until then.
00:15:11
Speaker
And maybe I just sit there for a day and someone finds me and I live. Or much more likely something else triggers it or I die of dehydration or whatever.
00:15:23
Speaker
But if the timer started ticking, wouldn't be screaming for help. I would just be screaming obscenities at John. I think I would just like sit down. I think I think I would just sit on the ground and wait. Yeah.
00:15:37
Speaker
Sit down, meditate, pray, whatever. Just that's it. So what is your rating for this trap? What are what are we giving this trap out of 10? I want to give it one other bit of behind the scenes information.
00:15:51
Speaker
Ooh, yeah. This is one of the most dangerous traps in real life in the movie. oh Many of the traps in the series are fully functional, as you know.
00:16:02
Speaker
And as we talked about last time, right before the reverse bear trap, they told Amanda, by the way, this really works. Or they told Shawnee for Amanda, and some of the fear in her face is real.
00:16:16
Speaker
This is a 20-pound metal device that really worked. They took a cast of the actor's head to build it so that they wouldn't accidentally cut off his ear or something by making it too small.
00:16:28
Speaker
And then when they built it, they had to constantly run down the battery because it closed too quickly. Oh my God. The nails that hit his face are rubber and they push the side. They're harmless. But, you know, just tilting your head to the side, it could mess you up or kill you.
00:16:46
Speaker
Yeah. And even like best case scenario, just wearing, i mean, I don't know how many shots it took to get what they needed. Right. But like even just wearing these really, really heavy contraptions on your neck seems yeah just deeply uncomfortable.
00:17:04
Speaker
Oh yeah. And having to move around acting, it's major respect for a minor character. Yeah. Yeah. And you know that you're going to laugh, I think, when I say this, because it's very... So this is like a... We're spoiling the whole franchise. I don't know. Like, if you really care, then don't listen to these until you finish the whole series, I guess. But yeah i Prefacing this with, like, I understand that this is obvious,
00:17:30
Speaker
It never really occurred to me that like Dr. Gordon is doing all of these procedures. Well, I just like didn't think about I just like didn't think and I didn't read into it. I just like took it at face value of like, oh, someone is and putting this this key in his eye. And I only for the first time, i think this watch consciously, I'm sure like it was probably buried somewhere in my brain, but consciously was like, that's probably Dr. Gordon.
00:17:58
Speaker
So, Carly? Is it not? It never really occurred to the writers either. Oh. Here's what happened. When they wrote it, Darren Lynn Bosman, who co-wrote and co-directed it, and it was his first movie.
00:18:14
Speaker
Wait, did I ever tell you that I met him? You did not. I met him at like a show for like another project that like people he had worked with in the past were doing. And I like got to talk to him for a few for like a few minutes. That is awesome. That is great.
00:18:30
Speaker
Yeah, it was very cool. He was really, really friendly. He was like drunk, I think. I don't know. I don't I guess I shouldn't say for sure. So he's got about a minute of screen time in this movie. Yeah. he play is He worked as a stand-in for Detective Matthews for about, I think, one shot in the end of the movie. Oh. and when Matthews is going through the house after he leaves John before he gets knocked out by Amanda, that's Darren for like one or two of the shots. Oh, that's funny. But also, he's the one who did the procedure on Michael.
00:19:03
Speaker
He's the one in that row. Oh, like on film? Yes. that's so funny. when he wrote it, John was the one doing the surgery. Which makes no sense, literally no sense. But it is funny. i when When I met him, I like saw him from kind of across the room and like did that thing where I wanted to walk up to him, but I was only like 90% sure it was him because I was like, he could just like just be some white guy. Like, I don't know. Yeah.
00:19:32
Speaker
um Right. Like he's, he's not like, he doesn't have any like super, super defining characteristics. So I was like pretty sure, but not a hundred percent sure. So I like definitely stared at him creepily for like 10 minutes before I decided to walk up to him.
00:19:48
Speaker
You've always been a voyeur watching other people play games. ah Anyway. Yeah. So that's Darren doing the surgery but in real life. And when he wrote it as John doing the surgery.
00:20:01
Speaker
And they talk about in the audio commentary on this movie, he does a little limp in there. And one of the either, I believe it was Donnie Wahlberg, Donnie Koppberg, whatever you want to call him, who plays Detective Eric Matthews, who asked about the limp. And he said, i was just trying to put some personality on it.
00:20:21
Speaker
It was my first time on screen. I wanted to do something. And then in one of the later Saw movies in the commentary, Darren said he did that limp because it was him being John having cancer.
00:20:34
Speaker
Then you'll see in the Saw 7 commentary, and we've talked about before that I figured out the twist of Saw 7 before Saw 3 came out. Because you figure, Dr. Gordon, if he's alive...
00:20:49
Speaker
Why was this house never reported unless he was working with them? If he's dead, where's his body? I mean, there's more to it than that, but that's the short answer. And they retconned it in Seven that this was Gordon, but Darren wrote it as John.
00:21:09
Speaker
He limped either to put character or retconned that to be John's cancer. I mean, you know, he's in a wheelchair ah couple days later. Later on, they retconned it to be Gordon.
00:21:20
Speaker
So it absolutely is Gordon. But I knew it was Gordon before the person playing him or who wrote it knew it was Gordon. Yeah.
00:21:31
Speaker
So you're not late. Yeah. It's just so fun. It's just funny. I've seen them all so many times. and That said, I do believe in seven. It shows it being Gordon. I believe they shot a scene or put footage of it in the reveal in seven to show that it was him. But again, that wasn't written when this was filmed.
00:21:52
Speaker
That's funny. That makes me feel a little bit better about it because I felt like I felt very silly when I had the thought that it was the first time I had the thought. But so that's our cold open. That's then we get, you know, title screen.
00:22:05
Speaker
oh and you asked me to actually rank the trap. Let's see. Yeah. What are you giving? What are you giving that trap? Let's see. As one of John's traps, I'll give it a really high score because it is technically survivable.
00:22:21
Speaker
It is related to what the person did, being informant, using his eyes, blah, blah, blah. ah There's nothing cheap about it.
00:22:32
Speaker
In terms of John's ideals and what an ideal saw trap should be, I'm going to give it a solid 10 out of 10 because it's what a saw trap should be. In terms of entertainment, it's a great cold open trap, great reaction.
00:22:48
Speaker
I'm going to give it ah mechanical everything 10 out of 10 in terms of my favorites. It's not one of my favorites, but I've got no, nothing I can say against it. Just not one of my favorites.
00:22:59
Speaker
Yeah, that's fair. I gave it a six kind of for the reasons that you said. Like, it's good. It gets the job done. It's a good cold open. it works as a trap. I really mostly took away from it because it feels like unoriginal in the way that all of the things that kind of remind me of the reverse bear trap feel like a little bit repetitive. But it's yeah so that also makes it such a classic.
00:23:21
Speaker
So you can't you can't like give it it like a two because it's not original because it's like such a quintessential... Right. And behind the camera, it was inspired by the reverse spirit trap.
00:23:33
Speaker
Obviously. So after the cold open, we see like kind of a flashback of Detective Matthews and his son, Daniel. And they get in a fight. Detective Matthews
Detective Matthews' and Amanda's Roles
00:23:44
Speaker
is kind of an asshole and basically like yells in his face. And then Daniel walks away, kind of like seemingly to go home to his mom. Like the parents are going through a divorce. I think they're already divorced, but yeah.
00:23:55
Speaker
Well, he says divorce lawyers, so it seems like they're separated, but they're not they're like it seems like they're in the middle of like a ah very hostile divorce. You're correct, I think. Yeah, and there's a lot of implication that he has bad anger issues and is violent. We find out a lot more about him and he's not such a great guy.
00:24:17
Speaker
We find out he was cheating with Detective Carey. Yeah, and framing people for crimes they didn't commit. Like, he's he's, like, actually kind of just a piece of shit. He's, like, arguably maybe, like, the worst person we've seen be tested.
00:24:32
Speaker
If anyone deserves it, it's him. Yeah. Not that anyone deserves it, but... But he's closer to deserving it than, say, Amanda, who was, like, an addict, right? And, like, that was kind of the extent of her crimes against herself in her own life.
00:24:50
Speaker
Amanda, who is an addict who started in jail after Matthews arrested her for possession. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, this movie is nuts. But we see them have this fight. We see Daniel walk away. And then later that night, Detective Matthews is trying to reach Daniel and Daniel's not reachable. So he's worried. And I actually kind of forgot that, you know, this early that that is his child.
00:25:18
Speaker
So that gets revealed to the other people who are like skipping around. But again, spoilers abound here. um I thought that was revealed to us when it was revealed to everyone in the movie. And I kind of forgot that I like you already know that going into the trap.
00:25:35
Speaker
Meanwhile, you've got Amanda there pretending not to know it Yeah, you know, another thing I noticed only really for the first time this time I watched it was like how not run down Amanda looked by the end of the time in the house.
00:25:48
Speaker
So they talk about this in the commentary. There are two major clues, but it is the biggest clue that she's working with John. And that is everyone else has sores on them. Everyone else is coughing except Amanda and also Daniel Matthews doesn't.
00:26:08
Speaker
yeah And the reason is they were both given the antidote before they went in there. Yeah, that makes sense. Because she does look tired. Like she looks a little bit run down, but she doesn't, she looks like normal run down and the rest of them look like they're dying.
00:26:22
Speaker
Correct. And they talk about in the commentary that she's had the antidote. They don't talk about Daniel. And I assume Daniel was given some, but a purposely smaller dose so that he wouldn't suspect that he's not getting sick.
00:26:37
Speaker
But yeah, she has the antidote. She's healthy. She's, she does throw up when she first wakes up e and the others don't, which could be a reaction to the antidote. I know behind camera that was Shani's idea. She said, I want to throw up when I wake up.
00:26:57
Speaker
But again, that could be like the antidote. That could be the knockout drug, whatever. it also could just be actual stress even if she's working because with this many people involved in a single trap and like that's the other thing in the rest of the franchise there's a lot more of this like multi-person trap right it stops being like in the first one it's two people but it we start seeing more of these like group situations and even if she's working in a situation with that many people there are just so many variables right like there are so many points
00:27:32
Speaker
throughout this process where she could have died. And then the other thing on that, which goes to what you just said, is a question I've asked myself a lot of times, and i have my answer, but I don't know if I'm right.
00:27:46
Speaker
Does she know everything that's going on in that house? And the reason I ask that, she says to Matthews at the end, you're my first test. So I see the house says one of John's tests, not one of hers. Yeah.
00:28:01
Speaker
And yes, it's part of her her test for Matthews, but I feel like I know she helps set up. They show that in one of later movies. I feel like she knows some of the stuff in the house, but not all of it.
00:28:13
Speaker
And she purposely doesn't know all of it so that she'd be able to not blow her cover with them. But my assumption is she knows what she set up.
00:28:26
Speaker
She knows, don't do this, you'll die. Don't do that, you'll die. And beyond that, she might have a couple aces up her sleeve that she never reveals. But I think stuff in the house was new to her too.
00:28:42
Speaker
Some of it. Yeah. Yeah, I think that would make sense. And I think also, like, I almost view it as... The traps within the house are John Kramer's traps, but the trap against Detective Matthews is Amanda's trap, if that makes sense. Exactly.
00:28:59
Speaker
Like John is testing the people in the house and she is testing Detective Matthews. I think her rules are get out alive, keep Daniel alive, make everyone else play by the rules as best as possible.
00:29:13
Speaker
That's her mission in the house. yeah That's it. She's not testing people. She's just there to keep them following the rules. Yeah. So they're in the house, but we don't we're like, so this is, it's so hard to stay in plot because it's so convoluted. So the way that this all kind of kicks off is that detective Matthews gets called into a murder scene. He's kind of like right in the desk, right?
00:29:38
Speaker
At this point, it sounds like he has some complaints against him for maybe violence, maybe lying, maybe for framing people. Like, it's hard to say which things have been complaints against him because there are so many things he seems to be doing that are not okay.
00:29:52
Speaker
He does have the line, I've got IA breathing down my neck. Yes. And so he is called into a murder scene, which is, like, not normal for him at that point. They find Michael the informant dead with a jigsaw piece carved into his body.
00:30:08
Speaker
And Detective Matthews is kind of like, hell no, I like don't want to get involved in this. I have enough things going on. He's saying to the woman he cheated on his wife with, why are you calling me in to see my dead boyfriend?
00:30:21
Speaker
And the reason I say that is he's called in to identify the informant. And Carrie says, the problem is we can't look at his face.
00:30:33
Speaker
And then he identifies him by a tattoo right below his ass cheek. And why a detective would know that about his informant, a small tattoo above his ass cheek, if they're not fucking.
00:30:44
Speaker
That's a good question. I also know on the commentary, Donnie Wahlberg made this joke too. So whether it was written to be that, I'm sure it wasn't, but it's definitely headcanon.
00:30:58
Speaker
Yeah. Fair. Fair enough. That's really funny. So they find his boyfriend and he does not really want to get involved. He's like, I'm getting divorced. My son keeps getting in trouble.
00:31:09
Speaker
i like I'm not trying to get involved in something this heavy right now. Like I have enough on my plate. Look closer, Detective Matthews. Right. And so obviously John Kramer doesn't play that game.
00:31:23
Speaker
If he wants you in, you're in. And he wrote on the wall, look closer, Detective Matthews. So Detective Matthews is in. There's no way around it. So after this, like the SWAT team is going to a warehouse that they found like a connection to from this body.
00:31:42
Speaker
And that's my favorite behind the scenes story in this movie. And I know I've told you this before, but they rented a real SWAT van they had it for four hours and they almost didn't get the shots because the SWAT van wouldn't go above 15 miles per hour, even flooring it.
00:32:00
Speaker
So they did the traditional saw car chase of just speeding up the footage and people shaking it and stuff. They finally went to return the SWAT van found out the parking brake was on.
00:32:12
Speaker
You can also see the camera crew reflected on the side of the van at one point. Oh, I forgot to look for that. I'm going to i have to go back. One of the biggest problems with the SWAT team, which they talk about too, is SWAT team that size would probably have helicopters and stuff.
00:32:27
Speaker
But Rigg has a line that think is kind of hilarious too, which is... Uh, first he says, remember, we're doing this in broad daylight. There's civilians out there.
00:32:40
Speaker
So try not to scare anyone. And then he says, we're going go in teams of three. I'll be on alpha team. We're going to go in and scare whoever's inside. yeah It's literally that long between let's try not to scare anyone, but scare everyone inside.
00:32:53
Speaker
Yeah. He's like, we're going to scare whoever happens to be inside. Yeah. I think that's exactly whoever happens. Yeah. Cause I thought that was funny too. Yeah. But yeah, so they they go in and there are like traps and contraptions everywhere. And i think unexpectedly, they like actually find John Kramer there. They actually find Jigsaw there, which I don't even know if they expected to find him there. I don't think so.
00:33:18
Speaker
I think they were probably expecting to either find evidence that he'd been there that they might be able to use or maybe find another trap. But I don't think they anyone expected him to be there.
00:33:32
Speaker
Yeah, but he is but he is there. Yeah. If they were expecting him, they might have been a little more prepared for booby traps. Yeah, I think prepared for booby traps, but also prepared for like the like kind of mental game of chess that ensues here.
00:33:49
Speaker
Yes. And the one booby trap that they show, I assume you have that on your list of traps to talk about on the staircase. You want to explain it? Sure. so some cops open, they get inside the warehouse, they open a gate with a bolt cutter and start going up a gated off staircase and steps on a pressure plate, which triggers Billy to come out and start laughing and then hit a trip wire and a bolt shoots forward, breaks legs.
00:34:21
Speaker
Doesn't necessarily kill any of the cops, but In the original version that they wrote, but didn't shoot because it would have been too difficult. o It was a blade that was going to cut off legs instead just breaking. yeah that would have been hard to film, but that would have been sick.
00:34:35
Speaker
Either way, this goes so perfectly with John's I'm not a murderer when he's literally just crippling cops for life for doing their job in a position that he literally asked them to come to.
00:34:49
Speaker
Yeah. Well, they really pulled a misery on that. Instead of like cutting off the limbs, they just kind of fuck the limbs up. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Switching from the book to the movie. Exactly. Yeah.
00:35:00
Speaker
Yeah, which makes sense. I mean, that
Morality and Power Dynamics in Saw II
00:35:02
Speaker
does make sense. I think that's like, over ah like, like chopping limbs off is a hard thing to pull off in a convincing way. Yes. But this is a perfect example of John's hypocrisy because he wanted those cops there not to test those cops.
00:35:17
Speaker
All their purpose was, was to fuck with Detective Matthews. That was their only reason to be injured. And I didn't even rank this trap because it's not really a saw trap.
00:35:30
Speaker
Yeah. It's like a more violent home alone trap. It's not a kick saw, like, let me test your survival instincts trap. It's not a game. Yeah. But as far as I know, there was no way around it. I mean, yes. Okay. You, the trip wire and the pressure plate were separate. If they looked very closely, they could theoretically avoid it, but that's not realistic.
00:35:54
Speaker
Yeah. So you could argue it's a Saw 4 prequel to get Riggs not to rush in, but I guarantee you that hadn't been written or conceived of yet. So i go with it's John being petty, doing it just to fuck with Matthews and probably also to fuck with Carrie.
00:36:15
Speaker
It's a bullshit. It shows his bullshit because... you know, I detest murderers, blah, blah, blah. I'm going to cripple or kill someone just for doing their job properly. But really for, for not letting me do what I think is my job properly.
00:36:34
Speaker
Right. And it doesn't even stop him and he wants them to get through. So it's, it's just his hypocrisy. So for a story development trap, I think it's actually more important because it shows that stuff.
00:36:49
Speaker
But as a saw trap, Yeah. i don't know, two? Like it's almost negligible as a Saw trap. It's negligible and hypocritical. But it looks cool. That's why it's not one.
00:37:00
Speaker
It does. It's a good moment in the movie. Yeah. But yeah, so they get there. Jigsaw is there and he tells them that they cannot leave. And this is where the house trap as a whole gets introduced. So we see ah like a bunch of monitors with video surveillance of the inside of a house.
00:37:22
Speaker
And i'm going to help you with your problem in the other room. Is that what he says? Yeah, he tells Matthews, we can't leave, not till you deal with your problem in the other room. Right.
00:37:33
Speaker
And then Matthews looks at like two pixels, realizes it's his son, comes back and goes, who's that? That's your son, Detective Matthews. Don't you remember him?
00:37:44
Speaker
So his son is in this house that is filled with a slow acting poison gas. You know, John Kramer loves a slow acting poison. That's like one of his favorite things. It's a slowed down version of sarin gas.
00:37:58
Speaker
He references the Tokyo subway attacks. Which was sarin. And they did real research on it, which it would kill you in about 30 minutes. So they slowed it down to two hours.
00:38:09
Speaker
30 minutes would be a little fast for a movie. yeah But I have so much trouble keeping the names of everyone straight. Could you do like a quick little rundown of who is in the house? Okay. We've got Jonas, who's an older form. Well, spoiler, but not spoiler. They're all former criminals or convicts, whatever, not necessarily criminals.
00:38:32
Speaker
Jonas, who's an old timer, probably done a lot of time. He's probably the most innocent victim in the game. He's got people on the outside he owes money or whatever else to who are going to come for his family. And again, John's just creating innocent victims there.
00:38:53
Speaker
Then we've got the other old tough guy, big motherfucker, Xavier. Scary. Big scary man. Who from all accounts was, yeah, was the life of the party off camera.
00:39:05
Speaker
He made people laugh nonstop. One scene late in the movie, he's chasing Amanda and Daniel and pounding on a door.
00:39:17
Speaker
They told him just kick on the door as hard as you can. he kicked over the wall and to his credit, the wall falls down. They're all holding back laughter and he keeps acting and keeps charging at them, yelling, screaming and big old smile on his face because the set's ruined. and But he like half his lines were improvised. wow And he was really selling it. He was, he was scary. Yeah.
00:39:46
Speaker
Yeah. Then we've got obbi or Abbey. And the reason I say it like that, we find his tape. and His name is spelled O-B-I.
00:39:59
Speaker
like Xavier says, what the fuck's an OB? b And he goes, Abbey. Two syllables, Abbey. It's my name. And then on the tape, John calls him OB.
00:40:11
Speaker
Same inflection, but O not A, so they all get it different. But Obi is maybe the most evil person in the game. He is an arsonist.
00:40:24
Speaker
He is a kidnapper who kidnapped a lot of these people because they hadn't written that Hoffman was working on this too yet. And so they needed a kidnapper.
00:40:35
Speaker
So John gives him a free antidote as help for that. He's also someone I'm a little scared to meet in real life. To research his role for the crematorium, he read a bunch of books about cremation, spent a night sleeping in a cremation oven. ah He improvised what might be my favorite line in the entire franchise,
00:40:59
Speaker
if you're going to threaten me with a knife, may as well cut me a little. Yeah, that is cold. Or rather, he didn't improvise it. He requested it. He said, i want to do this. Yeah.
00:41:11
Speaker
And he's got a stone cold straight face while Xavier is completely deflated. And then we've got, i think the only other guy in there besides Daniel is a guy named Gus who doesn't live very long.
00:41:26
Speaker
We actually see his trap. He's got the trap. that Emanuel, who I'll mention in a moment, dies in. He was a banker who was embezzling.
00:41:37
Speaker
Emanuel is the one who dies sticking her hands into some razor blades, and it was supposed to be about reaching into the cookie jar with him embezzling. yeah Emanuel well, to quote Xavier, the only door you know how to open is the one between your legs.
00:41:56
Speaker
She's no-nonsense prostitute or something. Another person who, like everyone else in there, except maybe x Xavier, deserves better. Yeah. ah And Avi. And then we've got the most innocent, at least personality-wise, of the group.
00:42:14
Speaker
We have Laura, who I might accidentally call Beverly because I've watched the commentary a bunch of times and that's the actress. laura is younger. She's nice.
00:42:26
Speaker
She was arrested for a DUI. That's not shown, but that's what they wrote for it. Maybe some drugs too. I don't remember, but DUI or DWI. Yeah. And she sort of serves one key plot point.
00:42:41
Speaker
Well, a couple key plot points, really, of she's the one who makes some of the connection about Daniel and Eric being son and father to the people in the house. And she also serves to make the gas real because she dies from a grand mal seizure from it.
00:42:58
Speaker
Yeah. and for people who know me... For six years, I was dating a woman with epilepsy. oh Most of my ex's seizures were not grandmals, but she does a very accurate grandmals, which she'd actually previously researched for having a grandmals seizure in seventh heaven.
00:43:20
Speaker
Oh, okay. So that's random. Yeah. I also think that her presence... Almost serves as, like, not exactly a red herring, because that's not quite the right term, but as a way to disrupt almost their finding out their connection with each other, because she's, like, in a blazer. She, like, looks kind of a little bit prim and proper, and I think that that yeah that makes it harder for them, I think, to make that leap to, like, we've all served time.
00:43:47
Speaker
Yeah, she slows down the connection. Yeah. She also leads to... when she reveals the connection, which it's funny because you're absolutely right. She slows down the connection, but she makes the connection too.
00:44:00
Speaker
She actually leads to something I picked up today on my, i don't know, 50th watch of the movie ah that she leads to a continuity error.
00:44:12
Speaker
Oh, okay. That is throughout the movie, Amanda, picks things up in the house she just picks up random things and if you look very closely you can see all of them at different points in the building with John and Eric and the others and that's supposed to be a subtle hint that it already happened oh she finds the X marks the spot photo that photo later appears in the house showing that this already happened and then Matthews finds it in the house yeah
00:44:50
Speaker
And I just picked up on that today for the first time ever. But again, this is a series with so many mistakes that half the time got made into something good.
00:45:01
Speaker
Yeah, sometimes accidentally. Like the random limping leading to, oh, but it's Dr. Gordon. And his missing foot. Yeah. And like another mistake that ended up going perfectly was With the numbers on the back of the heads that we'll talk about later.
00:45:18
Speaker
Yeah. They put a number on the back of Amanda's neck. It is never shown on screen. That's true of some of the, up but you know they put it there and then they realized later she shouldn't have one.
00:45:31
Speaker
And they never showed it, so it doesn't matter. but They did make the mistake and then retconned it. And if it weren't for the commentary mentioning it, no one would know.
00:45:44
Speaker
She and Daniel don't have numbers. Right. Yeah. And so the last, yeah. So the last two people in the house are Daniel, Detective Matthew's son and Amanda of like reverse bear trap fame.
00:45:57
Speaker
When she wakes up, she really sells her fear like that may or may not be real. It's kind of like you said, kind of unclear, like to what extent she knows what to expect or not. But she is kind of the person who kicks everything off because she starts looking for a tape right away.
00:46:13
Speaker
Yeah, she's the sort of referee to make people follow the rules. And I mean, I'm a Dungeons and Dragons nerd. She's the DM's player character. li Yes, that's like a perfect description.
00:46:26
Speaker
And so she finds the tape and the tape explains the poison gas and says that there are antidotes hidden around the house and there's one in a safe that they have the combination to. And he says, think hard. The numbers are in the back of your mind. And like much later, yeah it gets revealed that they all have numbers kind of like the top of their neck base of their skull. Yeah.
00:46:49
Speaker
And he also says the key to the you'll find the key to their order over the rainbow. And I point that out because a lot of people missed. And I mean, I got this from the commentary. I didn't get it at first.
00:47:01
Speaker
They're all written in different colors. Their order is Roy G. Biv. That's the order. Oh, my God. Yeah. I actually don't think I ever really like even thought that hard about that part.
00:47:12
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, ive the only reason i knew it was from the commentary. Otherwise, I probably just wouldn't have thought that hard about it either. Well, there's also a little bit, i like I would say a little bit of a plot hole here.
00:47:25
Speaker
and and I'm going to say on the whole, this franchise is amazing at like navigating around plot holes. They're so good at fixing them. Yeah, like fixing them and like filling filling them in right?
00:47:38
Speaker
But I think there's a little bit of a plot hole here because the tape gives a time frame But he didn't really know what time they would find the tape. Like, he doesn't, like, there's no perfect measure of when people are going to wake up, even Amanda.
00:47:49
Speaker
And Amanda getting the tape before everyone else is awake would have been suspicious. So, like, that wouldn't have worked anyway. So there's, like, a little bit of a plot hole there. I'm going to agree with you, but I'm going to say it's not serious because the guy in Saw one of the drills to his head was sort of John testing on, and he's done every other one he's done so far, so he's got sort of a baseline idea.
00:48:15
Speaker
And then you figure if one person wakes up, it they're going to wake other people with their freakout when they're... That's...
00:48:27
Speaker
And then what I thought of while I was saying that the gas might not have been turned on until they wake up. that' That is an interesting point. I hadn't thought that actually would make a lot of sense.
00:48:39
Speaker
Now, I'm sure you thought about this more than the writers do. I think that tends to be that tends to be the vibe with this franchise. I mean, it's the perfect thing of they don't. plan that much and then they retroactively add the plan when they have a reason to and they're mean they're the masters of the retcon and the lucky mistake totally because they are so good at going back and like going over the previous films with a fine tooth comb to be like what do I need to put in here to fill this gap or make this connection
00:49:16
Speaker
So they, so they, so Amanda finds the tape, they play the tape. They also find a key with a note that says not to use the key in the door. And obviously somebody still, Amanda's like, no, no, no, don't do it. Don't do it. But obviously somebody does and it activates a trap that just like blows a guy's head off.
00:49:34
Speaker
Yeah. And again, that's a trap that was 100% fully functional as designed. Obviously the gun was not actually loaded. But it was a real gun, really rigged up like that.
00:49:48
Speaker
And that's all they say in the commentary. But I'm going to go with it's probably actually easier to make the trap the way they did than it would be to make it with a fake weapon.
00:50:00
Speaker
Yeah, that still freaks me out, though. Especially because there have been too many people who get shot on set. Like, that's happened more than once, and once should have been enough. I don't know. That freaks me out. Yes.
00:50:11
Speaker
And again, there wasn't even a blank. There was no bullet whatsoever. But... Still scary. Staring down a gun. and then Amanda has a great scene, which they retconned something that makes it so... I'm saying this is definitely for her doing it for the other people in the house, but...
00:50:31
Speaker
Otherwise, I would say maybe she knew maybe she didn't. There's one shot of her trying to take the gun off of the door and failing and giving up. And since in one of the later movies, they show her and John setting it up.
00:50:46
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. And so this is the part, too, where, like, Amanda starts giving them the rundown on, like, Jigsaw. And I wish we had, like, a little bit more to go off of, of, like, what the public knows. There's, like like, some of them know who he is and some of them don't. It's, like, not clear how scared the general public is about what's happening with this killer. yeah But, like, some of them know who he is, some of them don't. And Amanda is breaking it down for them and saying, he wants us to live. This is a game.
00:51:13
Speaker
They have the exact line, don't you watch the news? Yeah. No, I don't. Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, I don't even know if that's better or worse, but she breaks it down for them and kind of says, like, if we follow the rules...
00:51:29
Speaker
we can survive and and he does not want us to die. He wants us to live. She says that at some point. Yeah, she does. And so the whole movie is like jumping back and forth from Detective Matthews and Jigsaw to this house. So like, then we jump back to detective Matthews and he's like freaking out.
00:51:50
Speaker
Jigsaw wants to have like a nice, a nice little private chat with him and says that if they do that, like if, if detective Matthews sends the rest of them, he, they said he, he's like, they don't have to leave the building. They just have to leave this area.
00:52:03
Speaker
And if you do that and you talk to me, you will see your son again. Detective Matthews is like threatening him. And obviously like we know he has kind of a violent history, but John Kramer basically says, I'm a cancer patient. How could you put me in any more pain than I'm already in? Yeah. And Matthews keeps threatening him.
00:52:23
Speaker
Would you be so kind as to get me a glass of water? He does play the infirm old man. but Well, cause he is, it's like not really, it's like playing, but not playing.
00:52:34
Speaker
Yeah. It is. But so one of my favorite things about this movie that doesn't really get talked about, i mean, it does a little, but the whole movie is about power dynamics and who's in power and who thinks they're in power.
00:52:53
Speaker
Yeah. What is the real power dynamic and what is the power dynamic each person involved is perceiving? The entire movie, Matthews thinks he has power over, well, from when he gets there, thinks he has power over John.
00:53:06
Speaker
And physically, he absolutely does. But he's got no power whatsoever. Being sent to get the glass of water. He's a dog on the leash barking for attention while John is easily manipulating him.
00:53:21
Speaker
Yeah. And then the scene I mentioned earlier of Abbey. If you're going to threaten me with a knife, you may as well cut me a little. He stands there unblinking, unflinching, and slits his own throat.
00:53:36
Speaker
While Xavier goes from threatening to kill him to backing up, freaking out. And after he gets the power, Abhi says, i guess I'm going in there.
00:53:48
Speaker
But I get one of them. Yeah. And, I mean, Abhi had power. He chose to die... In the sense of John's rules of failing a trap.
00:54:02
Speaker
But he was in control in terms of the people there. Yeah, for sure. ah The whole time... like Xavier chasing Amanda and Daniel. Xavier's this big, strong guy who's got physical power over anyone there, except maybe Jonas, who was overpowering him until the gas got him coughing.
00:54:22
Speaker
And x Xavier thinks he's got power, but he's got nothing compared to the power of the mind. Even when x Xavier throws Amanda into the needle pit, he's got a little look of, what the fuck did I just do?
00:54:35
Speaker
Yeah, and even in that Amanda has power over him because she has set up half of this stuff. Like, so even in that moment, yeah yeah he is still misguided and thinking that he is the one in control. Yep.
00:54:49
Speaker
The conversation happening here between John Kramer and Detective Matthews is also interesting because when they start to talk about this idea of the jigsaw killer as a concept and like he talks about how he did not ever ask anyone to call him that or like he didn't encourage it and that the reason he carves the jigsaw piece into his, I'm going to say victims, he calls them his subjects.
00:55:15
Speaker
was that it's like a symbol of the survival instinct, which was the missing piece from the people who didn't survive. So he's also playing his claim to his understanding of his behavior as opposed to the media representation of his behavior. Yeah, I thought you liked to be called Jigsaw.
00:55:32
Speaker
No, I never claimed that. The media came up with that. Yeah, so he's trying to take the narrative back almost. Right. And I'm going to agree with Eric Matthews here and say,
00:55:44
Speaker
I've heard it from a million times. Some psycho believes their own stuff. I forget exactly what he says, but i agree with him. You know, John's, this is John's chance to give his manifesto.
00:55:57
Speaker
Yeah. and Which of course, even in the reveal at the end there, he says to Matthews, what's the cure for cancer. Then in the reveal at the end, Amanda says, what's the cure for cancer, the cure for death, immortality.
00:56:15
Speaker
And this movie, not for the audience necessarily, but for John as a character, is his legacy. It is his manifesto. Thesis piece. Right. And he knows he's wrapping things up. He knows he doesn't have long left.
00:56:31
Speaker
Weeks, months at most. And that's if he's in a hospital, not... Fucking around. Eat to shit, left to die. Yeah. yeah Yeah. Okay, so back at the house, they find Obby's tape.
00:56:44
Speaker
And we you were just talking about this scene where he basically climbs into like a yeah like a crematorium like oven to get two antidotes because there's one for him and then one, to like like Jigsaw says, to donate to someone to give to another person.
00:57:00
Speaker
Yeah. And that's when it's revealed that Abhi was the one of the people who was hired to kidnap some of these people. And so everyone starts threatening him and he he just stays eerily calm. Like he is scary. He's so scary. How calm. And like you said, the scene where Xavier is like holding a knife to his throat and he takes the knife and like slits a bit of his throat and says, yeah, like if you're going to threaten me with a knife, you have to cut me a little bit first.
00:57:27
Speaker
Yeah. And then he goes in. He crawls in. He pulls on the needles and like the antidote needles. And the second one is rigged to slam the door shut and to start the fire in the oven. So Abhi like kicking and screaming, telling them to open the door. This scene, even though Abhi is like a really, really scary guy, this scene is like horrible to watch. He is...
00:57:52
Speaker
like scooched into the corner of this oven, trying to like stay out of the fire as much as he can, but the fire is getting bigger and bigger. and there's just like nothing. I mean, there's just like nothing he can do. And so he is just burning alive. And at the last minute they break the glass and he like almost gets out, but it's too late. And it's interesting because this one seems very survivable that if everyone else had been able to act faster,
00:58:21
Speaker
and like think more on their feet that he pretty, I think almost easily could have lived with just like, so ah like not even that many burns probably. So we talked last time about a lot of the traps. If you just pay attention are easily, easily survivable.
00:58:40
Speaker
When the ah furnace is open before he goes in there, you can see the wire that pulls it shut. And whether or not that you can see that it's rigged to one of the ah syringes, I don't know. They don't show enough of the inside to see if you can follow that wire.
00:59:00
Speaker
But you can see that it's wired to go shut, which means all they had to do was take something and wedge the door open and they could have pulled them out. yeah Also, as the tape said, when you're trapped in hell, only the devil can let you out.
00:59:16
Speaker
There's a devil with a gas cut off inside. that if he crawled through the fire and he could put it out, he could have wrapped himself in his jacket and done that. It is definitely a survivable trap if you stay calm.
00:59:30
Speaker
And he does a remarkable job of staying calm. If you were actually in that situation, the fire is not what's going to kill you. It's the heat and the smoke. And well, the heat before the smoke.
00:59:44
Speaker
When you open your mouth and breathe it in, you're going to burn your lungs way faster than the smoke inhalation or external burning. Oh, yeah. I guess if you're in that small of yeah and like literal oven. Yeah. That makes sense. I mean, I'm a trained maritime firefighter. I'm not a fire department firefighter, but I've got a lot of fire training.
01:00:01
Speaker
The heat is yeah absolutely what's going to kill you. And Obby's in the corner. closing his mouth, pulling his jacket over his mouth and nose. He is doing the right thing for if someone's going to save him.
01:00:17
Speaker
But in terms of saving himself, if he put his jacket over his hand and he tried to turn it off, maybe he makes it out. Maybe he doesn't. Like I said, it's got the visible wire. So they took a minute, he could have survived. Yeah.
01:00:31
Speaker
The other thing is if you trace it and you see, okay, this one pulled off easily, this one pulls, oh, it's a lot harder. Maybe you reach up and inject yourself without even taking it off. You know there's a lot of ways he could have survived this.
01:00:45
Speaker
yeah but And I think that this is also the trap that like sets the stage for a lot of following things, not just in this movie, but in the whole franchise. Jigsaw believes in the power of community. yeah He wants people to come together and work together to get through these situations. And I think this is the first time...
01:01:05
Speaker
you really see that yes more clearly. And I feel like this trap and also the gun in the door both serve the, hey, wake up and work together and follow the rules.
01:01:16
Speaker
Totally. But this is such a, it's the perfect mix of it is survivable and, It is, you know, I said in the trap from Michael in the beginning, the Venus fly trap, I would just die.
01:01:31
Speaker
This is a trap where I might live, I might die, but I would 100% try. Yes, for sure. This one feels like worth trying. in Yeah. So what do you what do you rate this one? 10 out of 10.
01:01:45
Speaker
Easily. Favorite trap in the movie, maybe favorite trap. Wow. okay I think it's probably... my favorite in the movie too i gave it a nine um it's so scary mean and he but the acting is so well as he just like makes himself smaller and smaller trying to like stay out of like it just he really he really sells it yeah the acting is perfect the uh trap is survivable but not easily it plays on real life fears of claustrophobia and fire it's the trap fits the victim and arsonist burning the whole setup with the knife actually i'm going to quote a different darren lynn bosman film ask a gentern who they prefer 10 out of 9 will say the pavi the pavi
01:02:41
Speaker
And so on. Yeah. 10 out of nine. You're going to skip. I will leave their diapers dripping. You're not going to finish it. Well, I mean, you started singing too. I thought it was going to go. I love that movie.
Exploring Backstories: John Kramer and Amanda
01:02:53
Speaker
So that that trap is something else. That's for sure. So back with John Kramer and Detective Matthews, John is like sending Detective Matthews on such a guilt trip at this point. He's he's basically saying like, you didn't even care about your son. And now that you think your son is going to die, you are acting like you care.
01:03:13
Speaker
Yeah. Which, you know, it boosts Jigsaw's point, but like, isn't a real point, right? Like everybody gets mad at people and that doesn't mean that you would be fine with them dying.
01:03:24
Speaker
He's just pressing buttons left and right. And that's all, it's exactly what he's trying to do And this is also where we get a lot more, ah guess, character development for John, because this is where we start to see him reflect on finding out about his brain cancer. So he's remembering the day that they tell him that he has cancer. He's remembering that shortly after that.
01:03:47
Speaker
he tried to kill himself and he drove himself off a cliff. And he says, my body had not been strong enough to repel cancer cells, but I had lived through a plunge off a cliff.
01:03:58
Speaker
And that is the moment that he basically decided to spend the rest of his life testing people because he starts to be just like, on top of his kind of stated motives, he's also seems very fascinated by what is survivable to people and what is not survivable to people.
01:04:15
Speaker
He's also shown pulling a pole that was impaling himself out of himself, which is just, you know he's showing himself basically surviving one of his own games.
01:04:27
Speaker
Right. Because if he really had wanted to die, all he would have had to do is stay there. He would have bled out eventually. Like he would have died. yeah And in the moment, you know, survival instinct took over and he saved himself.
01:04:40
Speaker
But again, the total hypocrite because no one's got more survival instinct in probably any of these movies than Xavier. Yeah. But also, if anyone deserves to die in these movies other than Abbie, it's Xavier. Yeah, x Xavier scares me more than Abbie, honestly. But like Abbie, I understand is scarier, but Xavier is like more imminently scary, if that makes sense.
01:05:04
Speaker
That makes perfect sense. x Xavier is primal fear. fear Bobby is academic fear. Right. Like x Xavier looks like, and I'm, I'm not a small person, you know, like I, like I, they but, ah but x Xavier looks like he could pick me up and snap me like a toothpick, you know?
01:05:20
Speaker
I'm a former wrestling coach who's done planks with two people standing on my back. Ouch. Xavier could break me. Yeah. Easy. Like just ease, easily. Yeah.
01:05:32
Speaker
yeah So back at the house, Amanda starts talking about how she has... Wait, so back at the house, Amanda reveals to Daniel, Detective Matthew's son, that she...
01:05:47
Speaker
like first played the game because she had been using drugs and he asks her, you know, her story. And she says that she first started using drugs in jail. And he's like, well, what were you in jail for? And she says possession. And he's like confused about that. And she implies basically that she was,
01:06:05
Speaker
framed for possession and then like turned to using to get through her jail time, essentially. Why don't you ask the cop who arrested me? Wonder who that cop might have been. Anybody? and anybody I hear you. My dad's a a real hard ass.
01:06:22
Speaker
And it's kind of interesting because you do have to wonder a little bit. He wasn't like so hot on his dad and in this moment. He was like not getting along with his dad. You have to wonder if he had been up front with people and been like, I fucking hate the dude.
01:06:37
Speaker
If they would have turned on him or if that would have like brought him into the fold. like Xavier still would have Jonas and Laura both would have been cool. Gus dies too soon.
01:06:47
Speaker
I'm listening to Wizard and Glass right now. So every time I think of Jonas, I think of like Eldred Jonas. Yeah. I'm like the audiobook reader's voice for him.
01:07:00
Speaker
um But literally, I refer, like I said, i I have a lot of trouble keeping the name straight because there are so many characters and they don't really use their names that much in the movie. And I literally, my like the next line of my notes is the scary aggro guy. Yeah.
01:07:15
Speaker
but yeah yeah But so x Xavier like brute forces his way into a room with maybe one of the worst traps ever. um it's It's like not the worst on the surface, but. ah Almost definitely the most infamous trap.
01:07:34
Speaker
Yeah. And there's something so, like, I hate needles. So even though I understand that it's not the worst one, and like the damage it would do to your body if you live is like the basically the least almost out of a lot of them, it's like so horrifying to me. And so...
01:07:49
Speaker
This is the needle pit. And this is x Xavier's trap, like specifically. This is the one that was set for him. He is a drug dealer relying on people's addictions and like preying on people's addictions.
01:08:00
Speaker
And so someone is going to have to dig through this pit of needles to find the key and the antidote that it's attached to He is supposed to go in, but being the scary, horrible man that he is, he picks Amanda up and like throws her into the needle pit.
01:08:19
Speaker
And she's like screaming, obviously, as you would be if you just got jabbed with however many needles. But like Amanda is survivor. Amanda has played this game before. and ultimately, like she's in it to win it. She she starts digging through. Then she's screaming. She's shoving the needles around. She's digging and she does get the key and the antidote.
01:08:39
Speaker
Well, she gets the key, not the antidote because x Xavier fumbles it. Yeah, that's true. But she gets to it. Yeah, she gets to the key. So if x Xavier was really in it to win it, he would have thrown someone else in there with her.
01:08:54
Speaker
There was room for two people to look. Oh, for efficiency's sake. Yeah. Yeah. And while it's happening, right, Daniel is like, someone needs to get in there and help her, but he doesn't jump. mean, which again, like your instincts would tell you not to jump in. It would be a very special person who would actually jump in.
01:09:13
Speaker
So I asked you before you rewatched it to look at a scene and guess the number of needles in the
Production Challenges: Needle Pit Trap
01:09:21
Speaker
pit. And it's a number that I only know from the commentary and special features and it surprises me every time.
01:09:28
Speaker
Okay. So this thing I will give you an answer, but the thing you need to understand about me as a person and the way my brain works is that that pit could have 500 needles in it, and that pit could have 50,000 needles in it, and I would be like, yeah, okay, whichever of those numbers you gave me. So, like, that's the scale of, like, my ability to make these kinds of guesses. Well, humans can only count to about eight.
01:09:57
Speaker
We go one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, some people eight, and then many. Beyond that, just seeing something most humans can't count anyway, so... Right. So that all being said, I'm going to guess like somewhere in the ballpark of 7,000. Okay.
01:10:12
Speaker
okay That's probably about what I would guess. Okay. What is it? It's somewhere between 120 and 130,000. But that's what i'm saying.
01:10:24
Speaker
they bought a thousand needles And they took the ends off of them, right? Okay, so they bought about a thousand needles, and it didn't cover the floor of the bed. So then they ended up getting 7,000 needles. it they got more than but is what it took to just cover the floor not even...
01:10:43
Speaker
like obscure it. They had hired two people specifically just to unscrew the actual needles from the syringes and then put fiber optic syringes in there so that there, mean needles into the syringes so that there'd be something visible.
01:11:01
Speaker
and they ended up not having nearly enough and they hired two more people. they had four people for four days plus two people for two days working oh like eight to 12 hours a day just doing this.
01:11:14
Speaker
Plus a lot of the actors, makeup, etc. also helped. That sounds kind of satisfying. So they literally had over 20 man days of doing that plus the actors and crew and it still wasn't enough.
01:11:30
Speaker
And then they bought another 40,000
01:11:33
Speaker
syringes that didn't have needles on them, just syringes and threw that in there. And they added gunk to make it bigger. And they added some little chunks of foam to make it bigger.
01:11:45
Speaker
That's insane. I mean, they are pretty, they're small, small little things. They also had 10 real needles, which were used in a couple closeup shots. And at one point they had to stop filming because a couple of them fell in the pit.
01:11:57
Speaker
And that took like half a day. Oh my God. Needle at a needle stack. The needles sticking out of Amanda's back and arms are real needles with fake syringes, actually.
01:12:10
Speaker
They had to use real needles to get them to be strong enough because the fiber optic wouldn't hold it. They cut off the tips. They're stuck into a prosthesis, so they could do damage, but you'd have to really try.
01:12:22
Speaker
And then the syringes were ultralight fake syringes on the real needles so that the syringes would be able to hold it up or wouldn't ah bend the needle.
01:12:35
Speaker
Now, my roommate for three of my four years in college was terrified of needles to the extent of we're doing our medical class and...
01:12:47
Speaker
We inject each other of saline in our medical class, and he almost fainted then snuck out of class. That would be me. He was not a big horror movie fan in general, but he loved the Saw series.
01:13:01
Speaker
And it was the one scene he could not watch, and I loved watching him watch it. It's a hard one for me to watch, honestly. I think, and I don't think this is just me. I think that traps, not just in Saw, so I won't just say traps, but situations...
01:13:16
Speaker
that you can more reasonably imagine the sensations of are much harder to watch than things that I totally, like, I can't imagine being in the rack and like having my limbs twisted all the way around. Like I can't picture that, but like I can picture a needle getting stuck too aggressively in my body and then having that happen 50 times, yeah you know, that's like a pretty easy to grab onto sensation.
01:13:42
Speaker
Which absolutely makes this one worse and also absolutely makes Abbie's trap worse because who hasn't burned themselves at least a little? Right. i burn i have I have really bad hypermobility, which also means I have no spatial awareness. So like I burn myself once a week.
01:13:57
Speaker
Yeah. Because I like to cook. um I've got a brand from camping when I was four. Yeah. What's your rating for that one? ah In terms of popularity and not my rating, but just like...
01:14:11
Speaker
This is, like I said, maybe the most infamous, famous, popular, scary trap to people in the series. In terms of personal, let's see, it follows John's rules. It's not an unwinnable trap, although I really think finding the key in 130,000 needles is impossible, but the syringe is glowing to make it findable. so It is winnable.
01:14:39
Speaker
like Xavier, if he didn't fumble, could have won it. ah The fact that you have to throw yourself into the pit gives it bonus points. It follows all the rules.
01:14:53
Speaker
It has the symbolism. It has the symbolism. I don't really want to give it a 10 just because ah feel like that's a disservice to give it the same rating as what might be my favorite trap in the whole series with the oven. And also because like half the traps in this movie, I could give a 10. So I'm to give it 9.2.
01:15:17
Speaker
okay fair I get I would give it a nine for sure I think it's like so I just think it's so scary like I said it there's something about how easy it is to imagine the sensation that makes it yeah we've all been given an injection by someone who didn't have enough patients my first COVID vaccine I remember like it was when we were doing like the drive I don't I guess I don't know if this was near you but we were doing like the drive up situation Yeah.
01:15:44
Speaker
and i went with my mom for her first, which was like that. My first was inside. Yeah. I worked in healthcare. care So I, my grandma and I were able to get, like, I got them during the wave that like the older people were getting them during.
01:15:57
Speaker
And so we drove in together and I was in the passenger seat and I wanted it done in my left arm because I like knew that I was, it would be like incapacitating and that I wouldn't want it in my right arm because I'm a righty.
01:16:10
Speaker
So I like turned around in my seat and she like started giving me the shot before I had like fully settled down. And I was like, ow. And then she was like, and she literally was like, well, you need to sit still. And I was like, well, I wasn't ready.
01:16:24
Speaker
i Like I would have told you I was ready. Yeah, exactly. she like really, really like it hurts. So and like it wasn't just like, oh, it hurt after they all hurt after. But like the actual injection was like done so poorly that it hurts so much right away. So I just like picture that. But like all over me.
01:16:43
Speaker
OK, I'll give you another reason that I'm going to give this the nine point instead of the ten, which is something that probably honestly makes it better. But in my opinion, it makes it lesser.
01:16:55
Speaker
There's three minutes on the timer. Right. And the original version, they actually filmed a version where Amanda's in the pit for over two minutes.
01:17:07
Speaker
And there's 35 seconds of footage of it that made it into the movie. And I'm not saying it should be actually three minutes. I'm just saying I want to see the discomfort of the two minutes.
01:17:20
Speaker
Yeah. I actually think that force for a situation that takes place over two hours, they kind of... missed their chance to do some like real time stuff that would have been really stressful and cool. I think, I think this was, I agree before horror movies were ah regularly like over two hours long. You know what I mean? That wasn't as common back then.
01:17:41
Speaker
You're right. But the other reason they really should have done it. This movie came out in 2005, which means this came out in the height of popularity of the show 24. Yeah. Oh, or they were doing real time TV.
01:17:56
Speaker
And that's another reason they really should have just done some real time with it. Yeah. It didn't have to be the whole thing. Like, you know, what it didn't have to be literally to the whole two hours. But some of these. But like the certain scenes. Yeah. And it's not like it had to be like on her for the whole two minutes, but just like like her in the room and like just everything going on.
01:18:20
Speaker
Yeah. And again, it probably honestly is better with the shorter version. But I know from the commentary that talking about the two minute version and I've never seen it It's not like released as a deleted scene.
01:18:32
Speaker
They all said how much more intense it was. Oh, God, I'm sure. Because how could it not be? right Now you're ready for me to make it more intense than you ever realized.
01:18:42
Speaker
Yes. Shawnee Smith, who plays Amanda. Oh, doesn't she have a phobia of needles? Four months pregnant. Was four months pregnant? Oh my God. That like stresses me out about everything about the movie.
01:18:56
Speaker
No one knew it until the night they filmed this when she went to dinner.
Detective Matthews' Desperation and Climax
01:19:02
Speaker
Well, she knew it, but she went to dinner with Darren and her daughter, her older daughter and her daughter told Darren.
01:19:11
Speaker
Oh my God. Wow. But she was keeping a secret from everyone else. Understandable. Yeah. Wow. That's intense. But yeah, so Amanda digs through, finds the things, but it's too late by the time she gets the key and the door seals.
01:19:30
Speaker
So all all kind of for nothing. And that happens a lot. but And then we're back with the cops because we're just back and forth and back and forth. And They're trying to figure out how to get more information.
01:19:43
Speaker
And this is the point where Detective Matthews starts like playing a little more rough. He's like trashing the office. He's got like 30 minutes left in the two hour timer.
01:19:54
Speaker
Yes. He wants to break John's neck. And John is like reading him dead to rights, like just kind of calling him on his bullshit and like Staying really, really calm as Detective Matthews is like just trashing all of his plans in office. Poke bear, poke bear, poke bear. Yes, totally poking the bear.
01:20:14
Speaker
This is the time where they flash back to the house and like everyone is really looking fucked up. Like everybody is looking way more run down. They really do not look good. ah They look much more sick.
01:20:25
Speaker
The big scary guy, x Xavier, i keep I keep saying that because that is what's in my notes, realizes that there is a number on the back of the dead guy's neck and realizes that this is the combination. So because he is a big douchebag, he won't just like talk to the other people and explain what he has discovered. He pulls a knife on Jonas and So they kind of duke it out. And I actually like Jonas would have won which is very impressive if yeah if not for this poison gas situation, because he kind of gets into a coughing fit and starts coughing up blood long enough for ex Xavier to pick up a weapon. Please tell me what this type of weapon is called. It is on the tip of my tongue.
01:21:09
Speaker
He picks up a maul. It's a spike club. It's an improvised maul, but yeah actually, sorry, an improvised morning star. Anyway. Ooh. That's badass sounding. Okay. Picks that up and kills him.
01:21:21
Speaker
It's so realistic. What i love about that scene is who hasn't been sick, not with poison gas, but been sick and had that debilitating coughing fit where it just, it doesn't matter what's going on. You're done.
01:21:36
Speaker
Right. and Jonas's coughing fit was just like you said, he would have won the fight. Just came at the worst possible time. And he's there as this person who, again, he's got family outside and there's people who's going to come after him.
01:21:53
Speaker
And if Xavier said, i just need the number on the back of your neck to get in, we're going to work together and I'll help you get another antidote. He could have been lying. But if he said that, Jonas would have helped him.
01:22:07
Speaker
Yes, Jonas was trying to get them to work together. Jonas was basically like, I have enough enemies outside of these walls. I don't need to make enemies in here. I need to live. Yeah.
01:22:19
Speaker
And maybe they would have fought to the death after getting the antidote out, but he would have helped. This is also the point where, like, in the other room, the women find the photo of Daniel and his dad, Detective Matthews. And it gets revealed that not only were all of these people in prison, but they were all wrongfully imprisoned because they were framed by Detective Matthews.
01:22:46
Speaker
And obviously, as going to prison tends to do, that, like, totally ruined their lives and, like, set most of them down darker paths than they probably would have gone down otherwise.
01:22:58
Speaker
With neither of us being experts, we could do an entire series of podcasts about how messed up our prison system is. Totally. Even if you're not wrong, like even if you're quote unquote rightfully convicted, it's like you're that's it. You're like that's going to ruin so many things. Yeah.
01:23:14
Speaker
So they find it and they're obviously upset. Then x Xavier finds it, which is obviously worse. And he is pissed. Mm Amanda is protecting Daniel, like, and in the, you know, at the time, if you don't know what's happening, you're like, oh, I wonder why she's like protecting him so much.
01:23:34
Speaker
know And then back with, John Kramer and Detective Matthews. ah Detective Matthews is like over it. And now he's just like fully throttling John Kramer. Like he's beating the shit out of him. Breaking fingers. and He snaps one of his fingers like back. It's that which is another moment that you can kind of imagine a little too well. Like that hurts me to watch. Yeah.
01:23:57
Speaker
And I mean, one thing you have to love about John Kramer is that John Kramer hates the cops and like not just because they're trying to like thwart his plans. Like he just hates the cops because while Detective Matthews is like beating the shit out of him, he goes, now that's the Eric Matthews they gave medals to. Like Jigsaw really said ACAB. Like he was like, he was like cops are violent.
01:24:17
Speaker
Yeah. Jigsaw's, I don't know that he, I think he's, don't think he's full ACAB. But he's definitely not a supporter. Yeah, he definitely knows that like the police system rewards police violence. yes Which goes back to what we were talking about earlier of the staircase booby trap where it's like, oh, they're cops.
01:24:41
Speaker
Exactly. it's just speak I was i remember this like a minute ago when you said just a moment about the breaking the fingers. One of my favorite moments in the movie, my favorite jump scare in the whole movie, and 20 years later, it still gets me sometimes, is Jonas on the stairs to Amanda.
01:25:03
Speaker
When Amanda, earlier in the movie, when Amanda and Daniel are talking, and Daniel says, my father's a real hard ass instead of calling his dad a cop.
01:25:14
Speaker
And then Jonas tells Amanda, we found another room and it's the needle pit. But just the way Jonas pops up is.
01:25:29
Speaker
I still jump sometimes 20 years later, yeah probably 50 plus viewings. Yeah. Yeah. It's well done. It's very it's like well done and not overstated. so at the hat So this is where we get to like another... but this this one Like you said, i mean this movie is full of like really, really iconic traps. So what's this girl's name? ah Emmanuel?
01:25:53
Speaker
So she, I don't know what to call this. I call this like, like a reverse, like straw hole. Cause that's like what it makes me think of. Yeah. Like you stick a straw in and the spikes are like the little spiky parts of the cup are like down. And then, so she finds an antidote and she sticks her hands up through the holes and And there's razors that are cutting into her wrist if she tries to like withdraw.
01:26:19
Speaker
And this is another one that's really like sad to watch because it would be really, really easy for anyone to help her. Yeah. You know, if you just stuck like your fingers up there and like held the thing open, she could, I mean, very easily yeah withdraw.
01:26:34
Speaker
Like the correct way to succeed in this trap is they show there's a key inside and a lock up on the top. And, The way you win this trap is you, with one hand reach another hand hold it open, and you might cut yourself a little, but not super badly. Right. And you unlock it on the top, pull your arm out, go around, and instead, she gets one hand in and pulls the syringe up, dripping the liquid out, making it completely useless.
01:27:08
Speaker
Yeah. And in her delirium, she reaches up with the other hand and gets rid of any hope of getting out as well as making her pain worse.
01:27:20
Speaker
Right. And that is when like Xavier walks into the room and, ah you know, she thinks maybe someone's going to help her. And he just looks at the number on the back of her neck and then leaves her there to die.
01:27:33
Speaker
Again, just going for actors versus people and x Xavier supposedly being the nicest, most interesting, most ah improvising funny guy. Before they filmed it, Emmanuel's actor says to Xavier, be careful of my hair.
01:27:48
Speaker
I've got hair extensions. And he said, I've had them before. i know how much that hurts. And if you look, he is so ginger with her hair.
01:28:02
Speaker
He's he is. He's very gentle. And it comes off like he's being a creep, which is perfect because. Yes, it seems like weird and seductive, like not seductive, but like it like it would be seductive. Right. Which is perfect for adding to the atmosphere.
01:28:19
Speaker
But really, it's just the nice guy trying not to hurt someone else. And it just makes him so much creepier when in reality, it's sweet. I'm sure he thought about that, too. Like, how can I do this gently, but in a way that is still really scary? i hope I think so.
01:28:38
Speaker
And like I said earlier, this trap was written for Gus, who got shot in the eye. And the actual theme was reaching your hand into a cookie jar.
01:28:50
Speaker
and taking things because he was an embezzler. I would love to have heard the tape, but of course it's perfect to see Emmanuel pull out the tape, not have a tape player and just toss it aside and reach in. And it's, it shows her desperation.
01:29:08
Speaker
Yeah. Cause they're running out of time. And I think both her desperation right down to getting the second hand in there after it was already pointless. Yeah. and Xavier looking at the back of her neck.
01:29:23
Speaker
I think both of those two moments are way better than the trap itself. Yeah, absolutely. Because it's it just, it really sells, like you said, the desperation of the situation, and it really shows the toll that this is all like taking on everybody. Exactly, exactly.
01:29:44
Speaker
Because they're getting more, like you said, like they're kind of getting more and more delirious and like less able to think clearly or strategize. It's kind of like you said, it's with the exception of Amanda and Daniel.
01:29:55
Speaker
And so ah Xavier is like storming around the house, chasing Daniel and Amanda and Amanda like to try to get their numbers from the back of their necks.
01:30:07
Speaker
And Amanda finds a door below the safe, like a trap door. And the key from earlier unlocks that door and they go through the door. And by the way, that's the scene I mentioned earlier where Xavier accidentally knocked down a wall in real life. Yeah, yeah. He's pounding on the door and he knocked down the whole wall.
01:30:24
Speaker
That's amazing. I would love to see that blooper. Which, by the way, when ah I saw the Saw musical, they had to pause the musical because one of the walls fell down.
01:30:37
Speaker
I think I told you that like when I actually saw it, but yeah, it was like a set dressing wall on top of a real wall and it fell down. And yeah. That's so funny. Classic.
01:30:48
Speaker
Classic Saw moment. Classic Saw moment. Just like shaking a car. Yeah. For a car chase. Yeah. um Okay. So Jigsaw at this point has like taken...
01:31:00
Speaker
Detective Matthews in the car, or well, like Detective Matthews is driving, but they've left at this point. They've kind of snuck out. Now it's like really quickly cutting back and forth between Amanda and Daniel running through the house, being pursued by x Xavier, and then Detective Matthews looking around the house and like finding the dead bodies of the other people.
01:31:23
Speaker
And then the SWAT team arriving at another house, and And then but so like we're all over the place as you tend to be in a Saw movie. And then back at the warehouse, the detectives that are still there can't see the SWAT team on any of the security cameras, even though the SWAT team is like, we're here, like we're inside. Not you're not there. Repeat, you're not there. Repeat, not showing up Repeat, can't see you. Repeat, can't see you.
01:31:48
Speaker
Right. And so the hallway that Daniel and Amanda are running through spits them out right into the original Saw bathroom, which is such a good moment. It's such fan service without feeling forced.
01:32:03
Speaker
Like you're yeah like you really see it and you're like, of course, of course, it's all in one place. Of course, it's just rigged to look this way, but it's really all one place. It makes a lot more sense. that he has this one place that he's able to build all of these rooms in and then that he has houses and places all over the place.
01:32:21
Speaker
I mean, he does have another house just to send the SWAT team to, but it's a regular house. Yeah. Crucially. It's a regular house. It doesn't have all this like elaborate shit in it. Right. I mean, in real life, it's actually the exact same house because they couldn't afford another location, but it's set up to be a normal house.
01:32:40
Speaker
Yeah. Yes. Well, it's set up to be a normal house that looks similar to delay their realization. Right, right. And so they are in this bathroom and Xavier gets to them and Amanda is basically like,
01:32:53
Speaker
If I don't tell you your number, how are you going to know what your number is? And he's like, they're the he's like looking for the mirrors. The mirrors are dirty. They don't like really work. And Daniel's playing dead. and what Amanda knows and Daniel doesn't yeah and is she cannot let him have the number because she has no number.
01:33:12
Speaker
Yeah. Daniel doesn't know that he doesn't, he probably hasn't even realized about the numbers. Yeah. But Amanda knows we cannot give him our number.
01:33:23
Speaker
You know, Amanda, who's at this point in the continuity, wants people to live. Amanda, who's always trying to save lives and...
01:33:34
Speaker
breaks rules to save lives at this point. Yeah. She would probably just say, okay, I'll read you Daniel's number and he'll read you mine and then we'll read you yours.
01:33:45
Speaker
You can get the antidote, leave us alone. Right. But she can't do that, which leads to all let you finish what happens. Right. This is like a crazy fucking moment. x Xavier reaches back with a knife and just peels the skin off of his neck and To get the number. And I have to say, and Amanda actually looks like genuinely fucking horrified but in this moment.
01:34:09
Speaker
and Like she is like, she looks shaken to her core. She's witnessing. First of all, she's witnessing that. Second of all, she's witnessing he has the survival instinct right there. Yeah. And third, she's witnessing if he's that unhinged, I might be fucked. Yeah.
01:34:25
Speaker
Right. Because that's the thing, right? Amanda may be in on it, but like there are so many points in this movie where she could be killed. Yeah. the other thing about this is like he does this without looking.
01:34:36
Speaker
And so I'm like, that was a big old risk. You could have cut the number in a way that obscured it too much. Like, like, how did he aim that perfectly?
01:34:46
Speaker
Yeah. Well, he took a big chunk. He took like... he did. Yeah. a deck of cards size piece of skin for a number of the size of a quarter. He did. He did. He really went for it. Basically right after this, Daniel slits his throat with the saw, the famous saw of, of saw fame.
01:35:05
Speaker
And that's that for x Xavier. Like that's, that's it. He, he did all that. He had that survival instinct and, Daniel killed him. I mean, right, like rightfully, I would say killed him. It was, it was self-defense, but you know, she made the little shoplifter into a actual murderer. Yeah.
01:35:23
Speaker
And sorry, not a murderer.
01:35:28
Speaker
And the other thing on that too, is just, it's a little hint that the movie drops that, you know, everyone else is coughing and hacking shit up.
01:35:40
Speaker
Up until right before that scene, we never saw Daniel sick at all. And then, again, we talked about he must have had probably some antidote, but not as much.
01:35:51
Speaker
He coughs up a little bit of blood. Everyone else has been coughing up blood for an hour and a half. Right. He coughs up a little bit of blood and looks at Amanda and freaks out. Meanwhile, Laura's already died from the gas before he's had his first symptom.
01:36:07
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. And to go from that to her telling Xavier he's dead, but it's perfect with Xavier's not paying attention to that kind of thing because it's a different people. He doesn't care about different people.
01:36:18
Speaker
Right. He's just in it for himself. So at this point, Detective Matthews is walking through the house. He's looking for Daniel. The SWAT team is looking for them at the other house. And finally, they figure out that they are not watching live security camera
Conclusions and Franchise Continuity
01:36:34
Speaker
footage. They are watching tapes.
01:36:36
Speaker
They are watching something that has already transpired and is over. And the SWAT team isn't even at the right house, but Detective Matthews is. And Detective Matthews gets to the bathroom.
01:36:49
Speaker
Famous, iconic pig mask person pops up and drugs him. and back at the warehouse the timer counts down and a nearby safe opens and reveals that daniel is safely inside the safe with an oxygen mask strapped to his face and he is alive and like relatively unscathed other than a lifetime of trauma yeah his first murder witnessing a bunch of people dying you know he's fine yes totally lots of therapy in store for this one
01:37:24
Speaker
Yeah, you'll find him in a safe and secure state. Yes. I mean, John only literally told Eric Matthews twice. Yeah, he always because he always tells you what's happening. He always tells.
01:37:40
Speaker
And then when he agreed to drive him, he said game over. He said, you lost. And now it is Detective Matthew's turn for real, right? Like this was kind of his game, but now it's his game for real.
01:37:53
Speaker
On the tape is not John Kramer, but Amanda. And it's finally revealed officially that Amanda didn't just survive her trap. She became a John Kramer disciple. She has joined up for the cause.
01:38:09
Speaker
He helped me. Yeah. And Matthews is her first test subject. And in like a mirror shot of the first movie, she says game over and slams the bathroom door shut.
01:38:22
Speaker
And it's so iconic. With a completely different scream from Matthews versus Adam. And somehow, maybe because this is already a sequel, I don't know, but something about this moment feels like more of a setup for the next movie than the end of Saw does. The end of the first movie is like, okay, Adam's going to die. Like, that's the end of that.
01:38:49
Speaker
Yeah. That one is closing a door and it feels like a closed door. And this one is closing a door, but it feels like an open door. And of course, Saw 3 begins seconds after Saw 2 ends. Right. Right.
01:39:02
Speaker
but But also, you know, we Saw, it was a short film that got, okay, we're going to make a movie, write a script. They didn't have a sequel planned.
01:39:13
Speaker
Right. And yes, they brought in the writer and the writer-director of Lee Wannell and James Wan as producers who helped on this.
01:39:25
Speaker
But it was a different main people. Darren Lynn Bosman replaced both of them. Yeah. Yeah. Darren did, I believe, two through four. He did that whole chunk. And I think from five on, he was involved the same way James and Lee were like producer, helper, not heavily involved.
01:39:44
Speaker
Yeah. But he is really responsible for making this a franchise. Yes. And he did a great job. And of course...
01:39:55
Speaker
James and Lee have gone on to be such successful creators. That was their first movie. Right. Darren's gone on to be so successful. This was his first movie. Right. I mean, this was a knockout of the park immediately.
01:40:08
Speaker
and was like a $3 million dollars budget or something ridiculously low for the amount of special effects they pull off and everything. I love this movie. The first movie is such a good, like, capsule movie, right? It's, like, so self-contained.
01:40:23
Speaker
but I just love the way that this sequel just ramps up the complexity and says, oh, you thought this was going to be a little complicated, but no, we're going to throw you in the deep end. Like you're going to see yeah that this is bigger than you could ever imagine.
01:40:39
Speaker
What's funny is this movie is, like you said earlier, way more straightforward, way more simple, but exactly what you just said of, but it also makes everything more complex and bigger.
01:40:52
Speaker
Right. It's like the actual plot is much more simple and like easy to follow. But the implications of the movie are vast. Yeah.
01:41:02
Speaker
Another thing that's great about the first four movies is each one could be the end. Or it could be... There's more. I mean, just to spoil the first four movies, rapid fire.
01:41:14
Speaker
First movie. It's a capsule, like you just said. But the killer walks away at the end. Second movie. Oh, hey, the killer may or may not still be alive, but his apprentice is alive and free. Yeah.
01:41:28
Speaker
Third movie. Oh, I guess everything's done. Both killers are dead. But, oh wait, the fourth movie took place at the exact same time? What? Right.
01:41:39
Speaker
right Right. But again... crazy That's really crazy to me, how they pulled that off. Yeah. ambigu And obviously, three and four were written together, which was not true about anything before that.
01:41:52
Speaker
Right. And then four sets up five perfectly. And then with five... And six, it's like it could end there or not. Just like all the others could easily have been the end.
01:42:05
Speaker
Seven is like this movie where it's just, hey, there's more. We can keep going a million times. which again Right. Here are a bunch of new and interesting ways for the human body to suffer.
01:42:16
Speaker
Yeah. But also, hey, there's 50 disciples right there. Yeah. And we're doing franchises. Yeah. Of course, that ends with my, I've said this to you before, my biggest complaint about the movie Jigsaw is the premise they set up worked fine. There's nothing wrong with it, but there's, they should have referenced Seven.
01:42:41
Speaker
They should have referenced the support groups. When they've got that set up, why are they ignoring it? Yeah, that would have been something that they should have brought back, I would say multiple times.
01:42:52
Speaker
I have the same complaint about Spiral, but it's just they set it up for copycats. And then they had the next two movies be copycats that weren't using that setup.
01:43:04
Speaker
Right. It was an interesting choice, but I'm excited to talk about that one and like talk about the like the way the support group functions in this universe. Because that's really an interesting concept that like the people who have survived...
01:43:16
Speaker
would all be in a support group together, like, talking it through. And the differences in people's reactions to the experiences. Exactly. The people talking about how he helped them, how their life is better, and then, lost my fucking arm, how am I any better off? like Which is obviously totally valid, like, that there would be also people who were like, no, this was horrible and I hated it.
01:43:38
Speaker
but Yeah. I'll talk for hours or days about how much John is a hypocrite and a cult leader and... His stuff is all full shit, but that doesn't mean the logic isn't real. And that doesn't mean there aren't some people it could help.
01:43:56
Speaker
Right. Making meaning of trauma. Yeah.