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Saw (2004)
6 Plays3 days ago
In this episode, Carly and Coleman dive into the Saw franchise by breaking down the first movie. We’re rating traps, we’re pointing out red herrings, we are staring into the face of the homoeroticism brought even more to life in Saw: The Musical. This isn’t a pride episode, but it’s also not not a pride episode.
Buckle in, or chain your foot to a pipe, for the first in a series of episodes covering the entire Saw franchise.
**there are some spoilers for later Saw movies but we primarily focus on the first movie
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
Introduction and Podcast Overview
00:00:00
Speaker
This is Carly and Coleman, and we want to play a game. Listen or not.
00:00:33
Speaker
Welcome to What Haunts You, a podcast about the stories that haunt our dreams. You can find our episodes on Spotify and YouTube or follow us on Instagram at whathauntsyoupod. Today we are starting something I have been so looking forward to.
Discussion on the Saw Franchise Introduction
00:00:47
Speaker
I have with me my friend Coleman to talk about the Saw franchise or the first movie of the Saw franchise for today. So welcome, Coleman. Hello, and as soon as I unmute, you can hear me. Yeah.
00:01:00
Speaker
So how did we meet? like tell Tell us, tell people who you are. So I'm a lifelong horror fan I've been watching horror movies since hanging out with friends at their house in elementary school.
00:01:14
Speaker
Probably the last time a horror movie truly scared me was when I was six or seven watching Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and my friend's dad told us he read about it in the newspaper, and It's real and they never caught any of them.
00:01:29
Speaker
A good way to traumatize a seven-year-old. Absolutely. i loved it.
Background of Hosts and Future Plans
00:01:33
Speaker
And then cut to 2020
00:01:37
Speaker
the pandemic leading to the creation of a couple horror groups, the Midnight Movie Society and Scared Yet. And Carly and i ah met through those groups.
00:01:48
Speaker
And I actually specifically remember posting something about Jewish horror on a Jewish holiday and Carly commenting about seeing that as one of her first posts after joining the group.
00:02:03
Speaker
Yes, I was like, I know I'm in the right place now. so we And we talked about doing this but for a while. um And so I'm excited to be finally doing it. So we're going to make a series out of this. We're going to one episode for every single Saw movie um over time. We're not we're not scheduling this.
00:02:22
Speaker
And then maybe if I can convince Coleman, like maybe an extra one at the end to kind of get like a full forest instead of individual trees kind of episode.
Deep Dive into Saw's Themes and Traps
00:02:32
Speaker
um So we're going to talk traps. We're going to talk Jigsaw and his legacy and his disciples and what the hell he is going for, bullshitting himself, whatever. well We'll kind of see where the conversation takes us.
00:02:45
Speaker
You mean the massive hypocritical cult leader isn't straightforward? ah Yes. And I think I have such a soft spot in my heart for Jigsaw. So I think it's good that you're taking that approach because I think I would be so much defending him if it was just me.
00:03:02
Speaker
I mean, both Amanda and John are hear me outs for me. So yes. Yes, exactly. Exactly. Not all, not all of the disciples, but we'll get, we'll get there when we get there.
00:03:14
Speaker
And Jill's not a hear me out. She's just a Yes. That's fair. Yeah, that's I could see that. So Saw opens up with two men, Dr. Gordon and Adam, and they are in a disgusting bathroom chained to the pipes. Adam famously says, I fell asleep in my shithole apartment and woke up in an actual shithole.
00:03:37
Speaker
And in between them, there is a man on the floor of the room who appears to have shot himself in the head. Just to put this out here, massive spoilers, because right there from up here.
00:03:50
Speaker
If you value your time, watch the movie and then come back and listen to this. If you've never seen it. Yeah. And I think especially the first one, because the first one is, I mean, the whole franchise is so special, but the first movie, I think, is particularly special and how how effective it is.
00:04:10
Speaker
So Adam and Dr. Gordon in the bathroom and they each have tape. And Adam's tape is basically just telling him to stay alive. Dr. Gordon's tape is saying that Dr. Gordon has to kill Adam or else his wife and daughter will be killed. So then they're looking around the room and they find the you know, the kind of like iconic saw thing of finding the hack saws that are there left for them to cut their feet off in order to escape the chains.
00:04:41
Speaker
And of course, the name Saw refers both to what you saw and to saws, as well as the jigsaw piece, which is shown but not explained at all in this movie.
00:04:54
Speaker
Right. It's also I think that the moment with the saw is such an iconic staple. I mean, so much of the most iconic imagery from the franchise does come from this first one. And even like the foot thing has been parodied. Is it is it one of the scary movies where he cuts off the wrong foot?
00:05:11
Speaker
Yeah, it's the cold open to one of them. Yeah. So this so this is like ah totally, totally kind of classic visual thing when they pull these when they pull these saws out.
00:05:23
Speaker
Dr. Gordon basically says, I know who did this. And Adam is like, what the, what the fuck? You did this? Right. And he says, he doesn't know the person personally, but that he had been a suspect in a serial, ah essentially a serial killer case looking for the jigsaw killer.
00:05:43
Speaker
ah And that's where we kind of go into the first flashback. Do you, do you want to talk a little bit about like the hospital, like the kind of scene where the cops... Like, take him in. Sure. So we see Dr. Gordon at the hospital where he works. He's a oncological surgeon. He's a well-respected doctor. he's Everything about him is a good life, except he doesn't value his family, which, from his patient John's point of view, means he doesn't value his life. Yeah. And...
00:06:19
Speaker
He's cheating on his wife with, as the audio commentary describes it, the most easy woman in the world who literally starts taking off her clothing before saying hi in the hotel room later. Yeah. and he's pulled aside by cops who want to interview him because he's a but suspect because John left his penlight at one of the crime scenes for them to find.
00:06:47
Speaker
And that's where we get to watch the introduction of Shawnee Smith's Amanda. Yeah. Yeah. When he is at the the interrogation room,
00:06:59
Speaker
he listens to Amanda basically testified to what she's been through. And so Amanda, again, like thinking of these like really iconic saw visuals is the one who survived the bear trap.
00:07:14
Speaker
So I actually, before we get all the way into Amanda during this flashback, we also see two other traps. Well, we see the trap that got him in there, which was the, ah believe that's the one with the safe and broken glass and flammable gel. And it's...
00:07:32
Speaker
It's one of the traps I dislike. I like it as a fan of horror movies. I dislike it as a fan of the character John. Totally agree. i totally agree.
00:07:44
Speaker
So i want I want to ask you, i know I told you I was going to do this. I want you to i want to like rate each of these sod traps. So I'm going to say you can base that on whatever you want to base it on. You can even like say what you're how you're coming to your conclusion.
00:07:59
Speaker
But you have free answers. You have free reign on how you're how you're labeling it. As a horror movie scene, the concept of walking around on broken glass for up to an hour with a burning candle to try to open a safe and save your life is a beautiful, terrifying concept.
00:08:20
Speaker
I love it. On that, it's 10 out of 10. But as a try to value your life, prove you can do something... There's 50,000 numbers on the wall and John says the code to your safes on the wall with no clues or pattern.
00:08:36
Speaker
Literally the best chance of surviving that trap is to put the candle down, put your ear to the safe and just try random numbers till you get through. And it's a horrible test. It's a horrible way to check whatever John believes he's testing and Overall, it's far from the worst.
00:08:59
Speaker
It is technically survivable, although very low odds. So as a horror movie scene, 10 out of 10. a Sawtrap, I'm going to give it a 3.
00:09:11
Speaker
Yeah, that's I think that's fair. I gave it a 4, and in my notes I wrote, this one feels a little unfair, there's just too many things going on. I frequently tell my friends who like the Saw franchise that I think that like as accessibility information becomes more prominent in whatever, like the larger society. And as we're as we're having those conversations more, I always say that I think that he would provide subtitles ah to his to his videos for people with auditory processing issues.
00:09:43
Speaker
Please, please, John, it's only fair. Right, it's only fair. And i think I think that this is one of the ones where you're like, I thought this was supposed to be fair. This doesn't feel very fair. Right.
00:09:54
Speaker
And that's kicking it off, showing his hypocrisy too. But yeah also to what you just said, a lot of the traps in the series and not getting ahead of ourselves, this includes Amanda's trap. Mm-hmm.
00:10:05
Speaker
You wake up, you have the situation explained, and then you have to move to trigger the timer. Like, the timer on the bear trap doesn't start until Amanda jerks her head and pulls the timer starter.
00:10:21
Speaker
so And that's true of a lot of the traps. So I feel like if you've got the tape recorder and you're able to play it again a couple times on a trap like that, that's okay.
00:10:32
Speaker
And on a trap like the main bathroom in this movie where it's, you have almost six hours. Okay. yeah But i want some subtitles on any of the other time dependent traps.
00:10:46
Speaker
For sure. Just for just for processing sake. Right. It's not like John only targets able bodied people. So he absolutely should accommodate if he wants people to have a way to succeed because he says he wants people to have a way to succeed.
00:11:07
Speaker
Yeah. Part of the claim is that he wants people to live, which is interesting. i think he believes that. I think he, but I totally think he believes that too. i don't think he actually does, but I think he believes he does.
00:11:20
Speaker
And it's an interesting thought process of like how much of this is driven by vengeance and how much of it is driven just by like the biology of like the brain tumor messing with his brain. um But I guess that that gets like further down the line. but so we see so we see that candle and safe trap, which neither of us are are a huge fan of.
00:11:39
Speaker
And then the other one we see during this flashback is the razor wire trap, where there is a man who has been self-harming, who by that evidence is not you know not appreciating his life. And he is put into a cage full of razor wire. And basically his tape says,
00:11:58
Speaker
If you want to die, all you have to do is stay where you are. And if you want to live, you're going to have to cut yourself over and over and like find your way through this razor wire.
00:12:09
Speaker
And he had about like two hours to get through it. yeah so So what do you think of that? What's what's your what's your assessment of that trap? As a cinematic horror actual put me in the scenario scene, I think it's actually less scary.
00:12:26
Speaker
I think it's a better, so I wouldn't give it 10 out of 10 on that, but it is a better actual saw trap. It is theoretically survivable.
00:12:39
Speaker
It's based on the person's history, which I think is ah key to all the best traps to make the trap for the person instead of ah just, uh,
00:12:54
Speaker
I made this trap, you were the next person on my list. yeah So I like that a lot. The fact that if someone really wants to live, they can just theoretically calm themself and go very slowly and deliberately and make it through without potentially with less injury than he's self-inflicted on himself and survive.
00:13:23
Speaker
It's definitely not my favorite trap, and I'm not sure what is, but as a saw trap itself, I'm gonna give it a solid 10 out of 10. Wow.
00:13:34
Speaker
And i love, just going a little bit ahead of ourselves, i love the Easter egg with... believe it's in Saw 5 when Cecil dies and Cecil escapes his trap because John made a mistake and he falls forward into a pile of razor wire. And I know from the commentary they did that deliberately as a, this is John figuring out that trap.
00:13:58
Speaker
Yeah.
Exploration of Key Scenes and Characters
00:14:00
Speaker
Yeah. OK, I that this is funny. In my notes, I had it at it as a six out of 10. But as you're talking, I feel like I may be i I may be under underestimated that because I do think the symbolism is good. That is.
00:14:13
Speaker
That is totally like what makes for such a good saw trap when it feels really, really fitting to the person. And like you said, like he's not picking but what like people who are doing well for the most part, right? Like this, this man was clearly going through some stuff.
00:14:28
Speaker
There's a lot of the time, a lot of the time the victims are people who are struggling with mental illness and addiction. um in ways that are like visible and noticeable to outsiders and that's kind of how he targets them so and again I'm rating it 10 out of 10 as a saw trap as a like favorite trap it's i don't know six maybe yeah yeah that's fair and also to what you just said that also goes to the hypocrisy that we'll talk about later with oh someone has mental health issues and
00:14:59
Speaker
So they don't appreciate their life. So let's make it better. Yeah. I like it's a very boomer thing, right? Like, like oh, you're you're not grateful if you're struggling with depression.
00:15:13
Speaker
But yes, I agree that it is a good it's a good saw trap. And I think that the symbolism is good. I do feel like, I guess, like doubtful that he would die so violently in the effort. He had like two hours.
00:15:25
Speaker
I feel like it's much more doable than the kind of like... time lapse made made it look. And so that that knocks some points off for me I think.
00:15:36
Speaker
That's something I've actually thought about a lot, not with this trap specifically, but this trap included. There are a lot of traps that if you just take a second and think about are very survivable and More than a couple of traps have had a way around separate from what John said that if you just took a second and calmed yourself, you could survive.
00:16:01
Speaker
And what we saw with this guy was in the time lapse, we don't know how long he lasted before this, but then he panicked. And when the panic set in, it was over and no one survives a saw trap when they panic. No one. Very true. He's trying to teach mindfulness.
00:16:18
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. John ah is a firm believer in restful calmness. And instead of doing a sponsored ad for our the Calm app, I just want to say this podcast host is brought to you by Union Labor.
00:16:37
Speaker
If you value your life, join a union. Hell yeah. We are pro-union over here. But yeah, so so we see those two. in kind of flashback form. And then right before Dr. Gordon gets taken with the by the cops to be questioned, we we see him actually talking about his patient to a group of residents um about his patient, John Kramer, who has terminal brain cancer. And and during that during that scene, we also meet an orderly named Zepp, who like seems to be very close with John and kind of speaks to Dr. Gordon.
00:17:17
Speaker
His name is John. He's a very interesting man. Yeah. Which kind of feels defensive and kind of feels like he's calling Dr. Gordon out for being like a little impersonal with the clients, which is like a big, obviously like a big read on like a two second exchange. But that was kind of how I took it.
00:17:33
Speaker
And again, going to just who John is, both as a quote unquote sage and without question hypocrite. My father...
00:17:45
Speaker
passed away from cancer. Five years of visiting oncologists and other doctors, i can tell you, all doctors to an extent, but oncologists especially, are very impersonal.
00:17:59
Speaker
So we've got Zepp and John both being offended for Dr. Gordon being a realistic character. Yeah.
00:18:09
Speaker
Well, and just a flawed human, right? A lot of this comes down to like... not being able to see people in like a holistic way and just seeing them for their mistakes or the things that they are, the things that they are like stumbling over.
00:18:25
Speaker
And that's a really good point you make too. Just like almost everything John does comes from not seeing things holistically. Yeah. Yeah. He has a very black and white view of the world. And I think that does really, that really drives him because he,
00:18:41
Speaker
ah Some of this gets into like the later movies, but he even sees like people later on as being like all the way saved, and then like they're all the way bad, and then they're all the way saved, and then they're all the way bad. Right.
00:18:53
Speaker
We have to give them a chance. We have to play a game. There are rules. There are rules. There are rules. And the rules are so important in every Saw movie. And that I mean, it's like the ultimate escape room, right? Like he's like doing is he's doing escape rooms before escape rooms were cool.
00:19:10
Speaker
Yeah. Also, sidebar, the Saw escape room in Vegas was amazing. I believe it. I would probably hate it. I do not like I do not like escape rooms. They stress me out.
00:19:21
Speaker
But I feel like it was probably very cool. I would say between the three of us in our group of eight, we easily solve 90% it. Yeah, i I believe that.
00:19:32
Speaker
I think I would have been maybe like the person holding someone as a human shield. I don't think I would do that in real life, but I think I might do that in in an escape room. Fair.
00:19:43
Speaker
Yeah. So then, okay, so now we're back at Amanda. So Dr. Gordon is is getting interrogated and the two detectives have him listen to Amanda's testimony. And Amanda is...
00:19:54
Speaker
As far as we can tell, the only surviving victim of Jigsaw. So do you do you want to tell you want to tell me about Amanda's trap? I want to give you a line from the intro to Amanda's trap.
00:20:08
Speaker
The key to your device is in the stomach of your dead cellmate. Look around and know that I'm not lying. Cut to 10 seconds later, we see the dead cellmate rolling his eyes because he is not dead and John was lying.
00:20:24
Speaker
Do we think that he was lying or do we think that he was wrong? I've always wondered that about this one.
00:20:31
Speaker
I've thought about it too. And I feel like in the first movie, we don't see him make a single other mistake. Some things might not go exactly how he planned, but nothing... Well, I take it back. There's one mistake in there, which is his last line before game over is, the key is in the bathtub.
00:20:57
Speaker
And we learn later that Amanda didn't tie it off, which is probably exactly right. i mean, that was probably planned from the beginning. That was just an oversight. But the key going down the drain was the one...
00:21:11
Speaker
only other possible mistake. I don't think it was a mistake. There's no reason for him to make that mistake. Yeah. So just too meticulous. I think that's a fair, I think that's like a fair assessment.
00:21:23
Speaker
There's so many places that they could show him making a mistake if that was the point. That's true. That's true. But Amanda's trap is like, again, one of the most iconic things, I think, in the entire franchise. And she has the reverse bear trap which is just like it sounds.
00:21:43
Speaker
Instead of springing shut, it will spring open and it is, you know, hooked on to her, her jaws, her, her like upper and lower jaws.
00:21:55
Speaker
And she has, you know, a certain amount of time to dig the key out of the, the stomach, literal stomach of uh, co-victim, the other person in this room.
00:22:08
Speaker
And she gets out of it just in time, but you do see it snap open after she gets it off. And even without it still being on her, it's pretty it's pretty horrifying to see it snap open.
00:22:22
Speaker
So this is also the only moot trap in this movie and the first time in the series, obviously, that we see John demonstrate a trap before it's used.
00:22:33
Speaker
And that is such an effective tool to show the stress of the situation after the audience already knows she's going to survive. I love that. I also love behind the scenes. I've read this. I don't know if it's true, but they told her, by the way, this is fully functional.
00:22:53
Speaker
Oh, my God. I believe it actually was fully functional, just not as fast. And it really does do the snap motion open motion and they just sped up the film. But what I've read is that they told it to her literally while they were putting it on her for the take.
00:23:10
Speaker
I mean, Shani's a great actress to begin with, but that's just such a good performance and her fear is real and primal because it's the what if something goes wrong? I know it weighed like 10 pounds in real life and oh my god yeah you can see that.
00:23:26
Speaker
Yeah. When she's like flailing her head around, you can see that she is like struggling to kind of not, not get carried away by the weight of it. So in terms of rating it, I'm going to first say that I prefer it to the trap. I gave a 10 out of 10. Like if I were ranking traps, I would rank it higher.
00:23:46
Speaker
But as an actual jigsaw trap, because it doesn't have necessarily the personal connection to her, you know, the other guy cut his wrists versus he's got her in there for being a junkie.
00:24:00
Speaker
And this has nothing to do with that. Although the cellmate had been given an opioid overdose. So in that sense, it does. But that's... still not really because it sacrifices someone I have to take a lot of points away from that I don't like the traps where someone has no chance yeah so I'm only gonna give it a as a saw trap specifically in relation to John's ideals I'm gonna give it a six
00:24:33
Speaker
Yeah, that's fair. i'm i think I have to give it a 10 out of 10 just on just like impact of and like just the bear, the actual bear trap part.
00:24:45
Speaker
I have to give a 10 out of 10, but I think you're totally right. It doesn't carry the symbolism that some of the best ones do. And yes, as cinema, no question, 10 out of 10.
00:24:55
Speaker
It might be my favorite trap in the whole series. Yeah. Yeah. But as a John's but ideals is where i'm going for the six out ten.
00:25:07
Speaker
Yeah, no, I think that's fair. and And Amanda, and in surviving this, has bought into John's ideals. It's revealed. They ask her
Saw's Evolution into a Franchise
00:25:15
Speaker
about this because at this point it's understood, right, that he is doing this to people who he feels are not appreciating their lives in order to make them appreciate being alive more.
00:25:27
Speaker
And she is on but she's on board once she has survived this. Her final line in the movie is, he helped me. Yeah. And this will not be the last we will see of Amanda, but it will be the last we see of Amanda ah today.
00:25:41
Speaker
Yeah. Although there is a deleted scene. Okay, tell me. There's a deleted scene in Adam, outside of Adam's apartment, in his apartment building downstairs. And he sees her and compliments her hair, says it's very punk rock.
00:26:00
Speaker
And she just kind of looks at him like, i would say sorrowfully might be the right word. and walks away. And the next scene is Adam looking through his apartment using his flash as a light.
00:26:17
Speaker
And it's when she's the one who takes him. So they actually wrote and filmed that. Wow. How different is the movie if you know that in this movie? I would say it doesn't really change this movie with knowing the rest of the series at all.
00:26:34
Speaker
But it would have completely spoiled Saw 2 if it was in there. Of course, when this movie was written, there was no idea of a Saw 2. Right. and And I think that's one of the things about the first Saw movie is that it functions so well as a standalone movie. And then it's really Saw 2 that like opens things up into franchise world, right which is which is how it goes. I could not agree more.
00:27:01
Speaker
could not Yeah, which is kind of how it always goes. But I do think more so than a lot of movies, the first one is its own contained literally there's kind of like, like eras to saw, right? There's like the first movie, then there are I think is like the next three movies.
00:27:17
Speaker
And then there's like the second half and then there's saw X, which is like, we're finally back in amazing movies. wonderful Saw territory. I mean, the thing about Saw X, just to what you said, first of all, Saw X is beautiful. The movie is cinematic art.
00:27:32
Speaker
I love it. It might be my favorite movie in the series. Same. But it doesn't feel like a Saw movie in all the right ways. Yeah. It was different enough to be really interesting and like keep you kind of guessing a little bit, but it was it was recognizable as something Jigsaw would do.
00:27:51
Speaker
And another comment just for how contained Saw 1 is, I know this because if anyone wants to know how much i value my free time, I've seen the audio commentary on Saw 1 probably closer to 20 times than it is to 10.
00:28:07
Speaker
Amazing. But the entire Saw 1 was filmed in 18 The first six days were the bathroom filmed entirely in chronological order, which is weird for this series. Yeah.
00:28:23
Speaker
Which is also good because the fake blood they put around Tobin kept spreading, but it worked because it was filmed in order instead of jumping around. But none of that's my point. My point is they got this building in l LA to film in.
00:28:37
Speaker
It's a building that had been filmed in many other times. And there was a lot of leftover set stuff, which they use specifically. Like they did almost nothing for the interrogation room. It was just a leftover set.
00:28:48
Speaker
They filmed the whole movie in that building. wow And when I say the whole movie, I mean, there are three shots in the entire movie that were filmed outside. Everything else was filmed in there, including the car chase between zap and Detective Tap.
00:29:09
Speaker
Literally, they had one person on either side of the car tilting the cars back and forth Well, people ran by with flashlights and that's how they did this the car chase.
00:29:20
Speaker
Oh my God. i didn't I did not know that. That's actually, that's amazing. Yeah. I love like a claustrophobic one room horror movie. And I feel like this movie is is so fun because it gives you that. But then you get little glimpses into the outside world, which apparently isn't very outside world in the context of filming. Right. But I feel like it walks that line so beautifully of really claustrophobic while still giving you like breaks from the claustrophobia but usually in the breaks you're seeing even more fucked up shit so it's kind of you're kind of almost relieved to be back in the bathroom with them where as of right now nothing is really happening right the bathroom despite being super intense it's drawn out intense it's not the you have one minute to get the key
00:30:11
Speaker
Yeah. And in the shorter sequences with the traps, the way it's filmed of like the shot jumping around so much and the angle changing and like it's it's filmed in a really disorienting way that really kind of puts you into the headspace of.
00:30:25
Speaker
like having to look around the room and like immediately assess the situation and figure out what to do because you're like trying to get your bearings in these shots. Yeah, absolutely. And just jumping ahead during the reveal at the end in the commentary, I forget if it's James or Lee, the commentary is with the two of them.
00:30:44
Speaker
One of them makes the comment and here's what we call the epilepsy montage. Because it's just flashing in your face. Yeah. The writing in this movie is so impressive to me. i when I was getting my, I told you this before, but when I was getting my notes ready for this, I was like struck with how complicated and convoluted it all is because on the one hand, it's like a very simple premise. And then on the other hand, it's got like 30 layers going on. Yeah. and it's going to continue to be a beast to try to get the plot in order as we get into like the even more layered convoluted parts coming up.
00:31:22
Speaker
Right. Also, just going back a second, too, and I fully agree what you just said, but going back with the bathroom feeling more relaxed, one thing they talk about in the commentary is for most of the movie when they're filming Dr. Gordon, it's with a steadicam or a dolly, and when they're filming Adam, it's with a handheld cam.
00:31:44
Speaker
And it's to show the control and rational sense of Gordon versus Adam's always been chaotic. And as the pressure starts to get to Gordon, things start to use, they start to use less and less of the steadicam, less of the dolly. And by the end of it, they're filming him entirely handheld as well.
00:32:09
Speaker
Yeah, as he just unravels. And the whole time they're in there, right, Dr. Gordon's wife and daughter are being held hostage in their house at gunpoint, and we see them being held at gunpoint. So it's not, oh, like maybe they're bluffing, like we as the audience have like have been given evidence that this is really happening.
00:32:30
Speaker
And Adam even says to Dr. Gordon at that one point, he's like, they could be killing your family right now. Aren't you thinking about that? Because he is like being very kind of slow and thoughtful and methodical and trying to figure out.
00:32:42
Speaker
Of course, that's what I'm thinking about. Right. That's all I'm thinking about. Yeah. Right. and and and And exactly. Right. Of course, that's what he's thinking about. And that's why he's being so careful and trying so hard to consider all angles. And he has that added knowledge of like what the jigsaw killer is and knowledge that.
00:33:00
Speaker
but this is some sort of elaborate trap that there should be a way out of and that's how he survives and how everyone else who survives survives they as panicked as they might be they're able to find that bit of calm and rely on it and that's why in the end he's able to do the quote-unquote right thing and win his game Yeah, yeah.
00:33:27
Speaker
But before he before he wins his game, the next kind of step in his game. is finding the phone and the cigarettes. So they find a one-way phone that can only receive calls and then some cigarettes and there are instructions basically implying that if he dips the cigarettes into the blood from the man who appears to have shot himself on the floor, that blood has so much poison in it that it will kill Adam. So this is like a way he can, because there's also a gun in the room, but they're kind of saying like, here is a way you could,
00:34:00
Speaker
you could potentially potentially trick him into killing him. Right. And Adam does ask for the cigarettes, like, basically immediately, which I'm with Gould. Give me that sweet cancer. Right. He says an oncologist.
00:34:11
Speaker
He does. And Dr. Gordon is like, I wouldn't put anything from this room in your mouth, with which, yes. Yes. Okay, that brings me to ah another little tidbit, which I only know from the audio commentary. Yes.
00:34:23
Speaker
Maybe the dumbest thing in the that Adam does in the movie is seeing a heart on the back of a toilet tank. i know what you're going And then immediately reaching into the bowl and not into the back where you would think.
00:34:41
Speaker
but the that's bugged me since the first time I watched the movie. i know. But what I learned from the commentary, which James and Lee both said they didn't even think about, but some old lady in one of the test screenings pointed it out to them is Adam reaches into the toilet and with his smoking hand.
00:35:06
Speaker
Yep. With his right hand. And then touches all sorts of other stuff with his shit covered hand. Yep. I'm like, this is how you get pink eye Adam. Yeah. Stop. i think know As a photographer, he should value his eyes. He's a voyeur and all that.
00:35:23
Speaker
Totally. Well, and it's also funny because he opens the tank and finds the stuff and immediately is like, I wish I would have checked there first. But when he's fishing around in the toilet, when he's fishing around in the toilet, Dr. Gordon is like, is there anything in there? And he goes, no solids, which is just like such a good thing.
00:35:41
Speaker
It's such a good moment because everything is so tense. You're like, what are they going to find? Like, what's this going to be? And then he says that and it's like such it's so disjointed and funny. I mean, you know, he had to drop some of his humor because he wanted to flirt with Adam.
00:35:57
Speaker
Yes. that's hard do one We're going to get to the homoeroticism. Don't you worry. we're going to get to it. Of course. Of course. Yeah. And yeah, but it is, I mean, it is like a, it's a ridiculous moment. And I think also, you know, I prefer horror movies that show people in peril making jokes because I think that's so human. Like we just don't stop fucking around ever.
00:36:18
Speaker
And so I also feel like it felt, it felt very honest that, know, he would be being sarcastic still despite like the direness of the situation because that's just like what we do when we're stressed no question it's very human also so you mentioned he found the cigarettes and the cell phone and of course this is where i point out the random bit of trivia that i know you know but some of our audience won't and that is even though Even if Dr. Gordon survives this, which, spoilers for later movies whether or not he does, but even if Dr. Gordon survives this, he's going to have a very bad next day, too, because the only time in the entire Saw series we know the date is the cell phone in the bathroom showing that it is noon on September 2001.
00:37:11
Speaker
ah You can only imagine the way that like the Jigsaw Killer would ah ultimately be overshadowed by by the tragedy of nine eleven and Isn't this is is Saw in New York? Is it ever specified or is it just in some city?
00:37:24
Speaker
It is. It is American City. Yeah. The first movie was filmed in L.A. Most of the sequels were filmed in Canada. But American flags are shown.
00:37:36
Speaker
It's set.
00:37:39
Speaker
Yeah.
00:37:41
Speaker
who and the only time we ever know a specific location is in sawax in Near Mexico City, but not in Mexico City. You're right. So it's just it's just big, generic American city, which to me, like my mind, I guess, immediately does go to New York, though. So it's it's definitely definitely one bad day leading into another bad day. And then thinking about the medical care he would have needed to receive and what that would be like in those in those coming days.
00:38:10
Speaker
I also feel like, though, just with it being the day before nine eleven it leads to, ah like you said, it overshadows in the news. It leads to helping Jigsaw not being caught.
00:38:22
Speaker
And, you know, no one's really going to be looking for Dr. Gordon while he's actually being nursed to health by Jigsaw when they're busy, if it's New York, dealing with everything. And if it's not, still concentrating on New York.
00:38:37
Speaker
For sure. Yeah. So they get that they get a phone call so that the so Dr. Gordon can speak to his wife and daughter and it kind of like devolves very quickly and he's kind of left hearing yelling and gunshots and he doesn't know if they're alive or dead.
00:38:56
Speaker
Is this is this one it's revealed that it's when does that happen? Um, we already know it's Zep a few minutes before that. Right, right. Because Zep calls him. We like know that it's Zep calling him Yeah, he already knows it's Zep at this point.
00:39:12
Speaker
you know Except the, I don't know, one in a thousand members of the audience who just randomly said, it's the dead guy in the middle of the room. ah Mostly jokingly, but you know, the one in 10,000 who actually seriously said that.
00:39:28
Speaker
Most of the audience thinks, oh, it actually is that. Right. Because it would make sense. and And and you kind of see him call Dr. Gordon out on some behavior so you can see that he's like a little moralistic and maybe like a little high and mighty in that way.
00:39:43
Speaker
And like they showed him earlier watching the tapes and it's, I see you. Right. And so Zep calls and Dr. Gordon just hears the gunshots. He doesn't know what's going on. And like he says, OK, it is go time.
00:39:58
Speaker
ah It's time to cut my foot off. I got to get the fuck out of here. i got to help my family. And he's broken at this point. Yeah, and he ties off his his ankle and you don't really there's actually like no gore in this scene.
00:40:11
Speaker
um You see a little blood like kind of splatter onto him, but it's actually quite a tame scene. But you just see like the hacksaw coming up and down and you see his facial expression and he is. The mind fills in way more than special effects ever could.
00:40:28
Speaker
Totally, totally. It does. It does not need to be shown because in his reaction is everything that you need to be it's like thoroughly freaked out. Also on that note, want to just jump to a trap in Saw 3 just for a second.
00:40:42
Speaker
The trap in Saw 3 where there's a woman chained up getting sprayed with water in freeze hole. I hate that one. Uh, for that one, the original version, they were going to have her wearing clothing and instead it's the first time nudity shown in the series.
00:40:59
Speaker
And the reason for that was they tried to do it with her wearing like a tank top or something. And the way it clinged as soon as they started putting water, they determined that was way more sexual looking than having her be topless.
00:41:14
Speaker
I actually believe that. Oh, I agree. I agree. yeah And they they talked about they really expected the MPAA to have problems with that scene. And they had problems with a lot of scenes, but that one they just watched and said, OK, it's good.
00:41:28
Speaker
And it is not sexy. Like she's she's naked, but it's not it's not sexy. It's horrible. It's really horrible. Exactly. Bullying on sexual nudity. Yeah, definitely.
00:41:38
Speaker
So he cuts his foot off. He shoots Adam and Zep comes in to kill Dr. Gordon because he has run out of time. But Adam is not dead because Dr. Gordon basically shot him as like a through and through through his shoulder because he's a doctor and he knows, you know, where to shoot him to not kill him.
00:41:56
Speaker
And Adam, you know, within Gordon's level of panic and he's probably never fired a gun before. I don't think he did that because he's a doctor who really knows what he's doing.
00:42:07
Speaker
I think whether or not he was trying to kill him or not, i think either way he missed. I think either Gordon was trying to kill him and completely failed or was trying to shoot near him. So it would look like he tried.
00:42:24
Speaker
And missed missing. That's funny. I hadn't even thought about it. i like that second one a lot that he was, he was just trying to shoot in his, in his direction. And he accidentally hit him. I really don't know which of the two, but I don't think he purposely, and I've thought about this believe it. It's not like, yeah.
00:42:45
Speaker
I'm choosing to believe that he was shooting in his direction and accidentally hit him So ah Adam beats, Zepp with like the top of the toilet tank and Dr. Gordon basically promises that he'll send help for Adam and then like crawl, you know, drags himself out of the bathroom.
00:43:05
Speaker
And
Detective Subplot and Narrative Complexity
00:43:06
Speaker
so then we kind of discover that Zepp is not Jigsaw and that Zepp is in fact another victim who has like a slow acting poison kind of coursing through his body the other red herring shows up.
00:43:20
Speaker
Yes. Actually, well, he dies before the bathroom, but still the other red herring, Danny Glover's Detective Tapp shows up. And that's one of the things with with the whole franchise too, is like just red herring after red herring after red herring.
00:43:32
Speaker
You can never really know exactly what's coming because there's always like several... paths being pointed to which is fun it's like it's it it always could it's kind of like scream in that way where you're kind of like okay like who it's somebody who's like deeply involved in all of this so who is that gonna be right yeah but there are always so many flashing light arrows that are false flags yes absolutely and actually we've talked almost nothing about uh the two main detectives
00:44:03
Speaker
Yeah. should we Should we pause and just talk of talk about like the kind of dynamic of these two detectives? We also skipped the part where they got the guy out of the trap. There's another trap. Oh, right.
00:44:16
Speaker
It's convoluted movie, as said. Yeah. Yeah. ah Sure. So the first time we really see a Detective Tap, Danny Glover and Detective Singh is um knock I don't remember his name, but in all fairness, the fact that I can name as many actors as I can for anyone who knows me already i impressive.
00:44:36
Speaker
I didn't even remember either of their character names, so you're already doing a good job in my book. but to be Fair. ah They see a guy with a sheet over him when they were first at Jigsaw's lair, and they wake him up and...
00:44:51
Speaker
He's got a drill on either side of his head. And then John shows up. This is, of course, among other things, the indication that Tap is not Jigsaw.
00:45:03
Speaker
Unless he joined him later, which he didn't, but could have. Always possible, though. And we see the drills and... They hear him as, oh, shit. And they just shove the sheet right back over his head like that's going to work. Yeah.
00:45:19
Speaker
I'm sure it's drill. I'm sure it's drill, drill proof fabric. Right. And then John walks in and we see enough of him to see that it's not Zap.
00:45:29
Speaker
o Most people don't realize he's the guy lying on the floor of the bathroom. I know I didn't. But now it looks like, you know, Zap is working with him or something.
00:45:40
Speaker
hmm. And we see him and he goes, oh, you're already awake. I better use a better sedative next time. I'm giving your life purpose. Your purpose is to test for something greater than yourself.
00:45:55
Speaker
So in other words, he has no intention of this dude surviving ever. He's not testing him at all. He's just, eh, you're beyond redemption. i can't save you, but I can use you to save someone else.
00:46:07
Speaker
And as a distraction for me to get away from the cops. Right. But I mean, he's not even thinking that yet. I mean, he's got that as a possibility, but I think he really just...
00:46:19
Speaker
They're never going to find me. He's just there in case they do. But I'm using him for something else, which is further proof of the, oh, yeah, no, I don't actually need to rehabilitate this guy.
00:46:32
Speaker
Everyone needs a chance, but, you know, he doesn't. Makes you wonder what what that guy did. Right? Right. Like, what what was his crime? And maybe he had a different game and he failed but survived and he was brought in.
00:46:47
Speaker
Well, you know, you didn't die, but you also didn't do what I told you to do. Therefore, you don't value your life or charismatic hypocritical leaders are always hypocrites.
00:46:58
Speaker
Very true. Very true. But he is he is maybe my personal favorite of those anyway. Yeah. Oh, definitely. Again, I said he's a hear me out. But yes. So these two detectives are hunting Jigsaw and this happens and they find this man in a trap where he's about to have drills.
00:47:19
Speaker
sent into his his brain. um i don't think this is a very good trap, mostly because they like disassemble it kind of like so easily, which is points against, I would say like I would probably only give this one maybe like a three.
00:47:35
Speaker
So I give it, I definitely give it a low score to what you just said. That goes to something I was saying earlier about a lot of the traps are, this is what John told you to do. This is a way to survive it. But if you just think for a second, even in the literally, I think John says 20 seconds on that, o taking two seconds to think and saying just shoots the drills There's so many of the traps, if you just think for a second, there's another way that doesn't mess you up as much.
00:48:07
Speaker
So I think it's a perfect example of that. In terms of ah cinematic trap, it's great. It's just... It's a great idea. The idea of two drills moving towards someone's head while they can only go... Is terrifying.
00:48:27
Speaker
But also... He literally turned someone into a guinea pig for drugs and an intruder alarm deterrent. So, yeah, I like three out of ten.
00:48:40
Speaker
Yeah, it serves its function well. Yeah. I think you can kind of almost see it as the prototype for some traps that come later on, for sure. Like you can kind of see him experimenting with different things and and which things stick and which things develop further.
00:48:56
Speaker
and that's always kind of fun, too. But yeah, so the detective, one of the detectives dies. Yeah, Detective Singh goes through a tripwire shotguns.
00:49:10
Speaker
Mm hmm. Which I give that a one. I like think that one is like ba that's not even really a saw trap. That's like that's like some home alone type shit. but Yeah, that's a booby trap. That's not a saw trap. That's ah that's home defense.
00:49:23
Speaker
Yeah. So that's kind of like a almost negligible Which again, the guy in the drills is somewhere in between. Yes, totally. And the other detective gets injured and then kind of like goes down the rabbit hole of really needing to find out who the hell Jigsaw is and catch him.
00:49:40
Speaker
And he was already pretty much obsessed too. I mean, remember the scene before that is the detective who dies telling him, you need to go out. we You need to have a life. Some of us are going to get some beers. And goes, yeah, yeah, yeah. Just one more minute.
00:49:57
Speaker
And then Singh starts leaving us like, hey, Singh, come back. Come back. Remember that gang we busted? Yeah, he's very, he's like very, very invested. Singh doesn't seem to think that he's going to come even when he asks him to come. yeah He doesn't seem to think that that's really going to happen.
00:50:14
Speaker
no he's just sitting there on overtime watching snuff films on repeat. Basically, yes. And so he, the one who lives but is injured at the very end of this is like chases down Zep and kills him. And then that's, you know, how we find Zep's tape and discover that Zep is a victim and that he's trying to get the antidote to this poison by taking part in Dr. Gordon's trap, basically, which also sets the stage for a lot of other movies about how he gets he gets people involved in other people's traps and like creates these kind of convoluted webs of traps.
00:50:50
Speaker
Like Amanda said, he helped me. Mm hmm. And then in one of the best twists of all time, Adam is, you know, in the in the bathroom. He's still chained up. He's now also shot in the shoulder.
00:51:05
Speaker
And the guy who had ah appeared two have been shot in the head gets up, ah reveals himself to be John Kramer, Dr. Gordon's patient with terminal brain cancer. He peels off his like special effects cap that made it look like his brains were coming out.
00:51:22
Speaker
And he says, game over, and slams the door. the key to your cuffs are in the tub. Game over. Lights out.
00:51:33
Speaker
Yeah. And, of course, the movie starts with darkness and ends with darkness. And that's obviously very intentional. But also...
00:51:45
Speaker
Adam's entire game was just stay alive. Adam did stay alive. So he said, you can leave, you know, the game's over, you can leave.
00:51:58
Speaker
All you do is get the key. Which, if Adam really valued his life, he might have found a way to break that drain open and get the key. Maybe. Maybe. Yeah. And it's interesting because he does also close the door. So you're kind of wondering, like, could he have really like if he found the key, would he actually be able to get like, we don't know what's out there, which I think is part of the fun and part of the mystery that kind of unravels later in other movies, right? Is that yeah we we see John Kramer leave and slam the door. We see Dr. Gordon kind of like drag himself out of this bathroom. But like we have no idea what's on the other side of that door.
00:52:35
Speaker
right and this movie like you said there's no thought of a sequel when this movie is being made and so it is over that's it that's that's all you're left with is like maybe he gets away maybe he bleeds to death maybe he gets home maybe he gets help like we we have no idea anyone survive maybe neither maybe either And like you said, it starts with darkness and ends with darkness, but it particularly starts with Adam in darkness in the bathroom.
00:53:05
Speaker
And then like we we end with Adam in the darkness in the bathroom. Yeah. Yeah. But it's about what you saw in between. Yes, exactly. So so now taking this whole bathroom situation as a saw trap, what do we what do we think about it Well, first of all, I know this is going to be shocking, but my rating is 10 out of 10.
00:53:27
Speaker
Fair. I mean, it is... i don't... As a rule, I'm against the pitting someone against each other traps where both people can prove they value their lives.
00:53:45
Speaker
But... The way John set it up, especially with insider knowledge from just having watched the later movies, it was set up so they could both live.
00:53:58
Speaker
And so that negates my big issue with it. oo And there's so many beautiful things in there. and I feel like it's very real the way they are watching, you figuring out different things and their emotions leading to different parts and sort of playing against each other with things like Dr. Gordon gives Adam his wallet to see a picture of the wife and daughter. And he doesn't reveal the the note on the back of the picture at that point. So they're like, cause they've got no reason to work together.
00:54:38
Speaker
Right. Well, and that's, I think, a theme that really comes up in the later movies, too, that most of the time when a trap involves more than one person, all the people need to do is work together. Right.
Franchise Expansion and Narrative Consistency
00:54:49
Speaker
Right. And so there's there's some there's some indication of like valuing community and mutual support by Jigsaw in his in his worldview.
00:54:59
Speaker
And I think that even goes more on and on as he goes on, as he picks up more disciples, he he's there watching Amanda and Hoffman and just going, children, children, stop fighting. Yeah, totally. And, and I think that's the, like, that's kind of the fun. And so in this movie, we just have John Kramer as Jigsaw, right? Like that's, that's all we know.
00:55:26
Speaker
We know his kind of basic philosophy, right? Of, taking people who seem to be wasting their lives, not appreciating their lives, throwing their lives away in some form or another, and putting them in these traps with the thought that basically, like, like fighting for your survival will make you appreciate life. so So that's like the that's, like, all we get.
00:55:49
Speaker
There's really not that much information in the first movie. And we barely even get that. I mean, the second movie they have... the exposition dump conversation just to explain that.
00:56:02
Speaker
Whereas the first movie does the beautiful show don't tell of it. Right. so they show a little in the tapes and there's definitely enough to see that That was his intent.
00:56:17
Speaker
But like you could watch the movie very closely and still miss that. Right. and And a lot of good context gets put into the first movie through all of the other movies, which is one of the ah yeah some things get turned into franchises and you just feel like you're losing something with every new movie that comes out.
00:56:37
Speaker
And this is the opposite of that. I feel like even most of the movies in the second half of the franchise, really up until I think Saw X, are not as good as like the first kind of group of them but i never was like even doubting that i was gonna want to see them because i was like i need the lore like i like every movie i see no matter how good or bad it is gives me like a new nugget to chew on of jigsaw even spiral yeah i liked spy i actually liked spiral i feel like it was i didn't yeah i feel like it was kind of like not appreciated that much but i actually thought it was really interesting
00:57:14
Speaker
No, I think Spiral might be the weakest movie in the franchise, but I still like it a lot. And I'm a firm believer that if you're a fan of the franchise, there are no bad movies in it.
00:57:27
Speaker
Yeah. And exactly what you just said, everything expands the lore. Everything leads to it. Oh, this contradicts. No, it doesn't. Because look, they showed you as a hypocrite literally in the first movie. Mm-hmm.
00:57:43
Speaker
Yeah, it's it's wild how much how many layers they're able to add without without anything really feeling like it it can't be reconciled. And that's like forever impressive to me in every movie.
00:57:55
Speaker
it's interesting I'm going to have to think about which one I think is the weakest because I don't know that I would pick Spiral, but I'm going I have to think about it. I don't know if I would either, but I probably would. But I like Spiral.
00:58:08
Speaker
I defend Spiral. Yeah. I hear you saying and saying not like, oh, it's the worst as in it's bad, but just like you love all of them in that one you love the least. Yeah. maybe maybe Maybe when we cover all of the movies, we can like get to the bottom of of what we like how we would rank them, which would be really hard for me, I think. Well, for whatever reason, when Saw 3 came out, I didn't like it Interesting. I didn't dislike it, but I didn't like it.
00:58:36
Speaker
And around the third or fourth time I watched it, I started to love it. And it's definitely one of my favorites now. And I don't know what it was i didn't like about it.
00:58:49
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. We'll talk about the musical later, but i start I went to the musical with my friend Lana, and we started watching through the series together. And when we got up to She made it through all of one, all of two, and about two-thirds of three.
00:59:08
Speaker
And as soon as we got to the brain surgery scene, she goes, I'm done with this franchise. What? It was so intense for her. Oh, okay. That's fair. I thought you meant like she didn't like it or something. And I was like, that part is so interesting.
00:59:25
Speaker
Yeah. The medical nerd in me loved it. And she was like, no, this is too realistic. No. Yeah. No, that part is, that that is one of the harder scenes to watch, I would say too. would I would agree about that.
00:59:37
Speaker
that's interesting That is interesting, though. Yeah, really it's really well done. I mean, that they're they're also well done, I think. And I think that with every movie that gets added, all of the movies are better somehow.
00:59:51
Speaker
No question. You know what I mean? Like, i hear you like like when I think of, like, oh, i you didn't like the third one when it came out. Well, the third one is made better by the existence of the fourth one. And then that one is made better by the existence of the... And, like, on and on and on. Right, right. And they just keep, like... It really feels like...
01:00:08
Speaker
there's such a focus on like the foundation of the series being really like no, never straying too far from that foundation. right The other thing too, just like, again, going back a minute with how much they build on each other and each one and what you just said of each one makes the others better.
01:00:27
Speaker
I spent a lot of the second movie wondering, well, did Gordon live or die? And then, Not the first time watching it by any means, but you know you see the ending of the second movie and with the twist about the location.
01:00:45
Speaker
I worked through a lot of just going through different theory with, okay, well, if Gordon didn't make it, where's his body? And so on and so on and so on. And I led to...
01:01:00
Speaker
okay, literally the only possibility at the end of Saw 2 is that Gordon is an apprentice. So like, I literally left the second Saw movie figuring out the twist of the seventh Saw movie.
01:01:16
Speaker
That's amazing. Not my first time watching Saw 2, but before Saw 3 came out, I knew the twist in Saw 7. Yeah, that's amazing. Yeah. ah You know, I do that. And like you watch through the commentaries and they're talking about, we don't know if Gordon's alive or dead. We don't care. You know, it was not like they wrote it for him to be alive.
01:01:38
Speaker
It was just he has to be alive or they would have shown him. Adam's body is there. If he didn't go back for Adam, he has to be working with them. Or we would have heard about him being one of the dead victims. Like would have like one of those things would have had to happen. Exactly.
01:01:55
Speaker
So they show him in Saw 7 and I'm like, okay, so they're going to finally reveal that he's and apprentice. Great. And they, in the very beginning of Saw 2, they show a surgery scene on the person in the cold open trap.
01:02:10
Speaker
And the doctor doing the surgery is limping. And they retconned in 7 that that was Gordon. But when they wrote it, that was John is limping because he has cancer.
01:02:22
Speaker
Oh, my gosh. That's so funny. Like literally in the audio commentary of two, they talk about a lot of people have said that that's Dr. Gordon. And that's a great theory. But as far as we were in, that might end up being true later. But as far as we were concerned.
01:02:39
Speaker
No, he's got cancer. He's having trouble standing. Yeah. Yeah. He's an old man with terminal cancer. And then later on, it's, oh yeah, of course it was Gordon.
01:02:50
Speaker
Yeah, that's really cool. i did I love that you've watched all of the commentaries. like that's goingnna be It's going to be really fun to continue to hear all the all the tidbits from that. And there's so many parts, I can't think of any other one offhand, that led to just, hey, we made this mistake, but it led to this brilliant idea later.
01:03:12
Speaker
Right. And... Another just random commentary tidbit. They built the bathroom, i don't know how many times, but they got rid of the sets after Saw 1, didn't think there was going to be a Saw 2.
01:03:25
Speaker
They rebuilt the bathroom for Saw 2 using the movie as footage for it. And then you mentioned the wrong foot scene in Scary Movie. Yeah.
01:03:37
Speaker
literally during saw three i think it was it could have been four but i'm 90 sure it was saw three they needed a bathroom again and they didn't keep the one from saw two either they bought the set from scary movie and used it for saw three then kept it for the remaining sequels of the original seven that's really funny that's that's so i love that a scary movie had come out like a Not long before. So they just bought the set from them.
01:04:08
Speaker
Yeah. And it sounds like they kept it that time, which is smart. I feel like they should have learned their lesson after one one go round of that. Yeah, exactly. That's really funny. So they still didn't have the money really to keep at that point.
01:04:22
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, I think that's like actually another real like thing about these movies is like how good they are for the budget. Yeah, and you look at, like, the director of the first movie, who was producer for several, James Wan, he's now, like, everyone knows him in the horror world. Yeah. This was his first big-budget movie. Well, it wasn't a big-budget movie. It was, like, a $2 million dollars budget. But it was his first Hollywood movie.
01:04:46
Speaker
Mm-hmm. And then... Just speaking of his other work, at one point earlier, they give an address of something something Stygian Street. And Stygian Street was a student film he did.
01:05:00
Speaker
Oh, that's funny. Is it a short film? Like, is it fun is it findable? ah You know, I've looked years ago and I don't remember. OK, I might have to do some digging because I love I love watching like.
01:05:13
Speaker
the things people do but but also what a what a movie like he came out the gate swinging like this is such an impressive first like kind of like mainstream horror yeah and um the original original version of saw was they made the amanda scene with lee in the trap as a short film and submitted it to sundance oh i i don't think i knew that either As a short film. And that is findable. I've seen it. It's pretty much the exact same scene, but Lee in the trap.
01:05:47
Speaker
Yeah. Just as like a proof of concept type of a situation. And it was liked enough that it led to, okay you guys should make it really work on the script. And while Lee was working on the script, it was getting more and more buzz at Sundance. And it went from, you're going to film this somewhere in Australia where they're both from to, uh,
01:06:10
Speaker
Hey, so we got money. You guys are going to L.A. Yeah, that's awesome. and I mean, they totally deserve it. It was it was such a good movie. And I know part of why it is the one room was was a budget thing. Like that was part of the wait part of the draw for having it having it be such a contained movie with with fewer sets was.
01:06:29
Speaker
you know, the cost of set building or, you know, permits to film in particular places. And so they they took something that was an obstacle and made it one of the biggest strengths of the movie. Yeah,
Saw's Cultural Impact and Genre Discussions
01:06:40
Speaker
it completely adds to the claustrophobia of the film.
01:06:44
Speaker
Okay. I think we've come to the the time I'm most excited for where you're going to tell me about the Saw musical because I have not had the good fortune to see this musical I've heard about it a little bit from you but I I want to hear as much as you are willing to share about what that is like okay so ah do you want to talk about homeroticism in the movie first because you cannot talk about the saw movie without talking about that yes for sure for sure
01:07:16
Speaker
as my friend Bailey's image that I showed you last night of John, ah not John, Adam and Gordon just leaning in like they're about to kiss each other and says, just dudes being bros.
01:07:31
Speaker
Saw is of course the ultimate meet cute. Oh yeah. And if things had gone just a little differently, if Adam had been just a little bit less stupid, which the musical talks about over and over how dumb he is, uh,
01:07:47
Speaker
They probably would have ran off together and had a wonderful life. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. They would have been like on a beach somewhere sipping fruity drinks together.
01:07:59
Speaker
Yep. ye Gordon's wife would have left him and he would have said, that's fine. I got my Adam boo.
01:08:07
Speaker
Yeah. I get the kid every other weekend. Bye. Yeah. I think he probably would have been OK with that. Yeah. Yeah. But the musical is basically Saw 1 with a focus on that.
01:08:21
Speaker
It is, there is a song about how they're going to get out of the bathroom and go to Applebee's together.
01:08:29
Speaker
Wow, Dr. Gordon's not even going to take him anywhere fancy. He's going to take him to Applebee's? No, it's Applebee's.
01:08:37
Speaker
When Adam is going to reach into the toilet, he's hesitant. He's like, it's awful. And then Gordon just goes, pretend it's my rectum.
01:08:49
Speaker
And he just shoves his hand right in. Also full of shit. Fair. Yes. Oh my God. and I mean, I've seen this, you know, once a year and a half ago.
01:09:00
Speaker
i don't remember all the details, but it is basically every gay fanfic about the first Saw movie without them actually consummating it.
01:09:13
Speaker
i With music added. Nice. So what would like as someone who's such a big fan of the franchise, like what was your favorite thing about the musical, whether that was like plot or just like the way someone was doing it, like like anything from it? What was your favorite thing?
01:09:31
Speaker
How much they leaned into the fan service homosexuality? Yeah, it sounds like it was really funny. It was gay beauty and showing that love can flourish in an actual shithole.
01:09:47
Speaker
Yeah, that's beautiful that's a beautiful. That's a beautiful message and that we should we should appreciate our lives. That's it. And they could get out and appreciate their lives together. Exactly.
01:09:59
Speaker
Exactly. So I think like as kind of a wrapping up point, why do you like this franchise so much? I mean, I like like obviously I'm a huge fan. You're a huge fan. But what what is it about this franchise that you are so drawn to?
01:10:16
Speaker
Well, one of the things that you said about how much each movie builds off the other and every other, it's just amazing. It's not 10 movies.
01:10:29
Speaker
It is one continuous story that builds back and forth and back and forth and back and forth in every direction. And I love the interwoven...
01:10:43
Speaker
total mind fuck levels of interconnectedness with a continuous story and a amazing continuity that actually doesn't really have mistakes.
01:10:58
Speaker
And like, I'm a D and D nerd. Yeah. And I'm a dungeon master. And, you know, I try to put together a story that told in linear time is even halfway as coherent as this. And I never will.
01:11:13
Speaker
but also like, I have to say this in a way that if any of my players listen to this podcast, they don't get spoilers. ah I was thinking earlier with something you said in the good play, the show, the good place in one episodes, we got all five of your clues.
01:11:31
Speaker
Oh, that's wonderful. There were actually 7,437,212 clues, but that's wonderful. and it's like you look at the bathroom and There's probably twice as many clues that were never found.
01:11:48
Speaker
You look at Saw 2 and they wrote a trap specifically for each person in the house. They obviously didn't film most of them, but there's so much stuff that doesn't get discovered. And that's true with all the big traps in the series.
01:12:05
Speaker
ah Well, it's true of all the big figure it out traps, not the railroaded through them traps. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, I look at in D&D, I can almost tell the players something and make a mistake that also tells them something.
01:12:26
Speaker
And with a group of intelligent people, they can still miss it without the life or death pressure that the people in the Sawtrap are in. yeah you know You just think about how many layers upon layers they put into these movies, which is beautiful.
01:12:44
Speaker
And I'm someone who is notoriously good figuring out twists in movies before they come to the end. like I know you were in a conversation the other day about me being too good at this. yeah Yeah.
01:13:04
Speaker
This is a series where... A lot of the time, more probably more often than nine definitely more often than not in the early ones, I have no idea what's going to happen. And it's so refreshing.
01:13:22
Speaker
That makes a lot of sense. And I have had some random times where I have predicted ah twist ending, but it's normally not so much me trying to figure out what's happening and more just like a random thought I have that happens to be correct.
01:13:38
Speaker
um But I'm not usually trying to like find things out before we find them out in the movie. And I feel like in these movies, like there are so many things just like handed to you and you're like, what meal is going to get made here? I keep getting all these ingredients. Like, where are we going to end up? Right.
01:13:53
Speaker
And you're getting, you know, like, it's like you're getting clues that could lead so many different places, but they still are. so But once they're all viewed together, they're so coherent and so cohesive. And it's just.
01:14:07
Speaker
like ah it's a delight, like it's a delight. Every step of like revelation that happens in this franchise is like a jaw dropping moment where you also want to laugh because you're like, oh my God, like this is how this came together. And it never stops being fun.
01:14:24
Speaker
And ah yeah, I mean, it just, it never stops being fun. Absolutely agree. And then the other thing I love about the series that neither of us talked about in the last couple of minutes is It's a complete over-the-top melodramatic soap opera. And I'm here for the dirty tea.
01:14:43
Speaker
Totally. Totally. There's a lot of good gossip in here for sure. Which is really fun. And then obviously, you know, as... and need more drama, as our friend Michelle says. Always more drama.
01:14:55
Speaker
And I think, you know, obviously on top of all of that, there's... be Anyone who likes, you know, gore gory horror is... wants creative death, right? That's like the point of, not the whole point of the genre, but that's a big, that's a big draw to like the more violent movies is, is like, what are the interesting ways we can mangle a body? And obviously these movies are chock full of interesting ways you can inflict pain.
01:15:22
Speaker
We should talk about the elephant in the room of this series with a lot of people and words that I hate, but torture porn. Yeah, so I actually have so many thoughts about that because one of i think I talked about this even like in a recent episode. I mean, I don't know when I'm going to post this, but a recently recorded episode as of when we're when we're recording this now.
01:15:48
Speaker
About how. like torture porn kind of came about after we were starting to see evidence of like American soldiers inflicting torture on people overseas.
01:15:59
Speaker
And so I like have, I take so much issue with this idea of torture porn as like this, like dirty, icky thing. And this, this thing that maybe like inspires violence when it is so evidently like a reaction to extreme violence that people were bearing witness to for the first time.
01:16:21
Speaker
So this like invented the torture porn genre for sure. But I also think that that is like a really, really deeply misunderstood. so yeah I would say the genre comes out of what you just said. And also we witnessed 3000 people die on live TV. Canonically the day after this movie took place.
01:16:40
Speaker
Yeah. And it's, that's what inspired the genre, but yeah. You know, I love the series. It is almost definitely my favorite series.
01:16:53
Speaker
Same. it It's definitely the series I know best. But do I love it as a quote unquote torture porn thing? Absolutely not. I love the creative kills. I love gore because I love practical effects. Yeah. Yeah.
01:17:09
Speaker
But, you know, sawing off the foot sticks in my mind significantly more than most of the much gorier traps. It's just beautiful cinematography. And it's weird to call something in that bathroom doing that beautiful. But it's beautiful from a standpoint of how do they do that and how do they convey that? Yeah. Yeah.
01:17:37
Speaker
I mean, I'm personally desensitized to onscreen violence and know how to separate fiction from real life. I mean, you know, I've unfortunately I've had to do medical stuff at work and had to deal with some real life gore.
01:17:55
Speaker
And it's completely different from watching something in a Saw movie. But.
01:18:03
Speaker
I don't watch these movies for the gore at all. The traps are creative and i watch them for how do they put that together? How do they make that work and then put that on screen without hurting anyone? Yeah.
01:18:17
Speaker
yeah I think that makes a lot of sense. And I, I think I do like it for the torture porn of it all, but I don't think that that stands on its own. Like it, you know what I mean? Like you have to give me like a reason. I mean, and and you think about like, as kind of an analogy of something that's not doing this right would be like the Guinea pig movies which like don't give you a package. They're just like, here's some violence, you know, and until you get into like there's there's there's like some wacky ones like at the end, like later in the later in that series, because I, for whatever reason, have like seen several of those movies.
01:18:53
Speaker
But the first ones are not even really movies. Like it's really just here's some violence. watch it and that doesn't work you know what i mean even if the kills are interesting even if the effects are really good that just doesn't work it's not it's there's no reason to watch that and so it's it's really for me like the combo of the creative kills the symbolism of some of the kills and then like the psychology of jigsaw and like the legacy he leaves and the kind of cult of influence that he creates and like, and, and like how his philosophy in this, you know, we won't get into the weeds on this now, but how his philosophy also starts to get corrupted by people who don't understand what he was really, ah or what he claimed to be about, let's say. Yeah. I'd say that's a good conversation for Saw 2 and later movies, but not so much for now, but
01:19:44
Speaker
Yeah, I don't really know the guinea pig series, but the other well-known series from the same era as Saw that also gets credited with creating torture porn is Hostel. And it's like, I've seen the first movie once.
01:20:00
Speaker
I have seen all of the Hostel movies. I have... i i like Actually, I'm curious, I think, like what you will what you will think about me saying this, but... And I think like Eli Roth is like, we could like talk for a million years about like, is he good? Is he bad? Whatever. Like, I'm not even going to touch that right now, but.
01:20:17
Speaker
Let me actually just answer that question. Yes.
01:20:21
Speaker
But what I will say when it comes to the hostile movies is that Eli Roth is a descendant of Holocaust survivors. And that is not a coincidence that he's created this situation of extreme violence.
01:20:34
Speaker
like organized kind of industrialized violence in Eastern Europe. Like that's like whether he was thinking about it consciously or not, I couldn't really tell you. Like there might even be interviews about this somewhere. I haven't really looked into it.
01:20:47
Speaker
But to me, i think it's like plain as day where those movies came from. And I think it is interesting how quickly people gloss over that or like aren't able to recognize that in these in those movies, which I think isn't really something that I would relate to the Saw franchise, but is like so, so on the face of Hostel.
01:21:08
Speaker
With that in mind, actually, I've been vaguely thinking about trying the Hostel series again. Like I said, I've literally seen the first movie once. And I was like, this is basically just gore for the sake of gore and torture for the sake of torture. And I was, i mean, i could sit through any of them. I'm desensitized enough. It's not going to,
01:21:31
Speaker
But it was like, why am I watching this? I don't need to. And with what you just said in mind, I'd be curious to at least watch the first movie again now almost 20 years later and try the others.
01:21:46
Speaker
Yeah, that may, I mean, yeah, I'd be curious to see what you think. And I think for a lot of people, even with that in mind, it still doesn't work. And I think that's totally
Personal Reflections on Violence in Film
01:21:54
Speaker
fair. i don't think it has as nearly, i like that franchise like well enough, but it doesn't have nearly the substance that's, I mean, it's like not even in the same zip code as Saw.
01:22:05
Speaker
But yeah, I do. That is something I think about a lot with that franchise too. um Just like it's totally fair for the people who say, all the stuff we've been talking about today, like, oh, I might enjoy the Saw series for this and this and this, but I can't get past the gore. And that's totally fair too.
01:22:21
Speaker
Right. And that's, and there there's it's funny, like Eli Roth even like talks about that, like the idea of getting blood in your eyes, right? and or a certain threshold everyone has. And it's like in a different place for everyone. But ultimately, like there will be a point where something might, and and like your point might not exist in cinema. And like my point might not exist in cinema, but we also weigh it against everything else a movie contains, right? But there will be some threshold where once crossed, you will not get the story anymore. You will not write be involved with the characters anymore and it will just be too much. And that's, I think like a, to I think that's like a very valid reason not to watch something, but I do get a little frustrated when people like demonize something because it was too violent for them because
01:23:04
Speaker
Absolutely. Ultimately, like we live in a very violent world. And I do think this is a way that we are processing that all the time. And so, i you know, I think I think separating out when something might be too much for one person versus like saying blanket statement is too much.
01:23:18
Speaker
But I also say that, like bearing in mind that there are movies that I think are like undeservedly violent, where like they're not doing they're not doing the work. Like, I tried to watch August Underground one time, and I, like, turned it off.
01:23:32
Speaker
I will talk about August Underground in a second, but i want to say what you were saying first. I do think, from what I've seen, like, Hostel was violence for the sake of violence on screen, but that doesn't mean it's not still art.
01:23:45
Speaker
And, you you're talking about both of us have extremely high thresholds. I feel like either one of us could do ah August Underground.
01:23:57
Speaker
But why? You know, I feel like there's the threshold of could we stand it versus is it worth it? Right. I mean, that's why one of my favorite movies of all time is Martyrs, which is like one of the artists. love Martyrs. Yeah, it's an amazing it's an amazing movie. It is grotesquely violent, but it it earns like every every visceral violent moment it has. Yeah.
01:24:21
Speaker
There's a major difference between August Underground and Martyrs, which are both grotesquely violent in different ways. Right. I would actually argue that Martyrs is maybe more graphic even. yeah Well, I actually own an autographed copy of August Underground. Oh. my I'm a little surprised by that, I think.
01:24:41
Speaker
They released it like two years ago and I'd never seen the movie. And, you know, up until then, it was almost impossible to find legally.
01:24:52
Speaker
I'm like, well, I'm going to buy this and I'm going to watch this. And as someone who hates found footage movies in general, because i heart i just, so, okay. So I have two problems with found footage. One is in general, I don't, I love it when it adds to the story, but I'd say more often than not, it's done as a gimmick that doesn't really add anything. And,
01:25:19
Speaker
When it doesn't add anything to it, I think it's gimmicky and I don't like it. But the other thing is I have trouble with ah shaky cam and I have trouble with real trouble with blurry cam.
01:25:32
Speaker
Yeah. My eyes just start hurting. so Yeah. one of my One of my friends is the same way where like it's not like they hate it, but it's like really like not comfortable to watch. Right. like It's physically uncomfortable for me to watch and it's...
01:25:48
Speaker
when it's adding to the story, i can tolerate that. it can be worth it, especially when it's a not deliberately shaky. It's just, okay, I'm looking away now, but I'm, so I've watched the entirety of August Underground. And by that, I mean, I've played the entirety of August Underground and watched maybe five to 10% of it because i would have been in, I was already in enough pain looking at the screen for that much. Yeah. And,
01:26:19
Speaker
I had to keep watching, not to like prove to myself that I could, but to see if there's like a part that's worth watching. Right. Is there any redeeming quality about this? And here's what I say is redeeming about it.
01:26:32
Speaker
It is a remarkably well done, good quality special effect movie for how cheaply it was made. It is a beautiful lesson in indie filmography.
01:26:44
Speaker
That's fair. i I would love to watch all four audio commentaries that are on my desk, except I can't turn off the screen and just listen to them. So I will not do that. Yeah. yeah I mean, I guess I could put them on my computer and turn off the screen, but ah yeah, i have so much respect for how that movie was done as well as it was for literally like $5,000.
01:27:08
Speaker
Yeah, that's fair. But yeah, that's fair but It is nothing I will ever watch for fun again. Like I would only watch it if with the screen off as a way to if I'm going to make a movie and I want to learn tricks.
01:27:28
Speaker
There's nothing redeeming to me about it as a movie, but it's still I respect it. i just don't like it. Yeah, that's fair. I think like ultimately a lot of the movies we think of as torture porn. Yeah.
01:27:42
Speaker
That's so funny.
01:27:45
Speaker
I think a lot of the movies that we think of when we think of torture porn, you and i probably think of more extreme movies than the people who would call Saw torture porn. Cause I wouldn't, I would almost not even classify Saw in that way because I do feel like it,
01:28:02
Speaker
earns its stripes like i feel like it it is warranted the violence that is shown um and and it is actually feels like necessary for the story in a way so i agree i definitely argue that it's not torture porn yeah but i also don't think torture porn is inherently bad Yeah, i would I think I would agree with that.
01:28:27
Speaker
i I don't like the word torture porn in general, but I also use it. My problem with it is i feel like it's a word coined by and primarily used by people who want to dismiss stuff.
01:28:39
Speaker
I totally agree because it's a degrading term but ultimately and it's it's designed to be a degrading term and I think it is it's an outside term from like horror culture.
01:28:51
Speaker
Okay, little Saw tidbit that I just remembered that's randomly. I actually, so I didn't see the first Saw in theaters. who But I wanted to. i couldn't. I was 14. I needed ah parent.
01:29:05
Speaker
And I read the review. And my mom, who did go to some horror movies with me, was no. But I remember the review talking about the Billy doll a killer clown doing all of this. Oh my God.
01:29:21
Speaker
That's so inaccurate. Yeah. So when I first saw them, I saw the trailers. I'm like, no. Then I first see the movie. It's definitely not. But the greatest review a Saw a movie ever got was Saw 2.
01:29:36
Speaker
And one of the producers or directors, I forget which, literally, i know this from the audio commentary. He has that review framed on his wall in his office.
01:29:48
Speaker
And the review just said real porn is more dignified. Oh my God. Wow. I disagree.
01:30:01
Speaker
I think both are dignified. I think that, I think Saw just has such a good story and I feel like that's not necessarily true of porn. Yeah.
01:30:29
Speaker
the key to your device is in your dead stomach. Sell me. Let me say that again. yeah