'Jigsaw': It Could Have Been Great

(There will be spoilers about the Saw series in this article. If you do not want anything spoiled for you, watch the films and come back. Or if you don't care about spoilers, then read on!)

When it comes to movies I am a huge enthusiast, lover, and creator. From a very young age I remember seeing JurassicPark, and it turned my world upside down. There was even a time that I believed that dinosaurs were real—I was five, give me a break. As I got older I was in love with the horror genre, specifically with the 1990 version of IT. Tim Curry's performance is something that still haunts me and my brother to this day.

As my love for horror grew, I was introduced to a new type of film that exceeded all of my expectations: Saw.

It was a film that made me realize that you didn't have to follow rules of normal horror films and that a twist ending could still be done. The actors were amazing and the concept was simple: one room, two guys chained, and hacksaws. To find that John Kramer (the antagonist) was with them in the room the whole time blew my mind as it did for everyone else that I watched it with.

We had two solid sequels that I believe were necessary to further the plot because there were still questions that needed answered: "Where is Eric Matthews?", "Who helped Amanda?", "What happened to Jeff's daughter?", etc.

Saw 4-7 were good for plot points, but it did get very messy very quickly. By the time the seventh installment was announced, we had the title Saw 3D (later to be called Saw: The Final Chapter). This was merely a gimmick to sell more expensive tickets and the traps utilized the 3D way too much. It was lame.

They strayed way too far from what the original set out to do in the first place, make a very simple but effective film. Even through all of it I eagerly awaited the ending to see where they we're going to "end" this series. Our main antagonist Agent Hoffman is setting off to escape after the final trap (also killing Jigsaw's wife) and get away with everything when we see three men in pig masks take him down with a syringe.

And who is under the pig masks? That's a great question because we only see one of them, Doctor Gordon from the first film. The man who cut off his foot to escape. It's then explained that he has been helping ever since Jigsaw rescued him after he survived his test.

So let me get this straight, Gordon spends the entire first film threatening Jigsaw that if he lays a finger on his family that he will kill them and after he has his breakdown, then mutilates himself to escape (to reach his family by the way) he decides to work with him?

That is lazy writing. Not everyone that Jigsaw saves becomes an apprentice, how does Gordon's decision hold any water? It was such a cheap way to end the series, especially with more questions.

In 2017 we got JIGSAW and this was a pathetic attempt at trying to revamp the series. The whole film was about Jigsaw's very first trap, which it tries to make you believe that it's not. It's a very advanced trap for it to be such an early piece of his work. The acting is not up to par and the biggest problem of all is that Logan's character has had nothing to do with any of the other films but yet he was Jigsaw's "first apprentice"? Give me a break.

Twisted Pictures (from what I can tell) re-branded the saw series with a new working title without caring about any kind of context whatsoever. Here's what should have been answered in JIGSAW:

Where is Gordon?

Who were his helpers; was one of them Logan?

Is Hoffman dead?

Why is it so important for Logan to take revenge as Jigsaw?

And where has Logan been for the past 10 years?

We get a reference to one of the previous characters which would have been a great transition into explaining all of these things. But they didn't. Instead they decided to do what sequels do: make money.

That's what this film was for, soft reboot a franchise to make money. And that is not how you make a series or a sequel. Ten years of waiting to release a film that did absolutely nothing for its predecessors. If they were a smart company they would have James Wan and Liegh Whannell take there story back and do it properly. Until then Saw will be a failed series that should have been better.