Life or Death faces the victims of the Jigsaw killer, but what if life is just as good as death?
Visionary director James Wan is behind some of the most thrilling horrors of the last twenty years. From the paranormal scarefest Insidious to the Supernatural mystery Malignant, he has cemented himself as horror royalty. But the film that has stuck with his fans and audiences alike since its release in 2004 offers nothing in terms of ghost stories and demonic possession.
Saw is his most human work, yet the one that leaves audiences horrified whilst the credits roll.
Following two men, Doctor Lawrence Gordon and Adam Faulkner-Stanheight, as they try desperately to escape the grizzly bathroom they are chained to, the film confronts not only the characters’ will to live, but the audiences too, and to what extent you would go to to survive.
John Kramer, or as he is most well known, the Jigsaw killer, creates these traps for his victims to force them to confront the malpractices they have been convicted of, and teach them to appreciate the existence they have been given to its fullest.
Kramer views death to be the ultimate punishment, however, Caitlin Reed, a life-long Saw fan and philosophy student believes it isn’t death and the complex traps Jigsaw concocts within the films that should be the most feared, but rather, the idea of not being able to change your past and correct the wrongs you’ve made.
“People have very mixed feelings about the Saw franchise and the films that precede the original, but I think they really show that dying in a Jigsaw trap is not the worst punishment you can face.”
Reed highlights the character of Amanda Young as a case study. “She’s a drug addict who gets kidnapped by Kramer and put into the reverse beartrap. His idea is that if she escapes this trap then she will go on to better her life and get over her addiction, but really, being put in this trap ruins her life just as much as if she had continued to be an addict.”
Escaping the trap, Young admits to police that she is thankful for what Jigsaw put her through, but the trauma is still raw and real.
“This trauma completely messes with her which is how she ends up joining Kramer in his Jigsaw killer concept, becoming a murderer. It’s tragic really, she overcomes her addiction but the horror of what she experienced keeps her chained to disaster.”
After hearing Kramer’s voice in her room, she’s convinced to join Kramer on his mission, aiding Kramer throughout Saw II and Saw III until her untimely death within the latter film when she is shot in the neck Jigsaw victim Jeff Denion, ultimately not bettering herself to continue her life to the fullest as Kramer had intended.
“It’s seen throughout the whole series. Everyone fears dying in the Saw traps, but really in a morbid way, it’s better to die within one of the traps than live with the trauma of looking death in the eye in this horrifying way, and never being able to move on. The deaths are so gruesome, they have to be for the type of film it is, but it’s either a minute of suffering and panic or a life-time of trauma.”
Reed is correct, this failed motivation conducted by Kramer often has disastrous consequences for his surviving victims.
We see a similar sequence of events with the character Lawrence Gordon. Once a successful doctor, Gordon falls into Jigsaw’s ever holding trap after he is kidnapped and locked in the bathroom in the first Saw film. The trauma he experiences, having to saw off his own leg and hearing his family suffering, leads to him being Jigsaw’s third apprentice, destroying his career and tearing apart his family.
“Obviously there’s questions around the morality of Jigsaw, he’s doing this because he genuinely thinks it’ll help people, but then some of the traps aren’t even possible to escape. Sometimes he puts undeserving people in the traps as a way to torture their loved ones who have committed wrong doings. It gets messy as the franchise continues, but I think the main thing is that he is not helping the survivors. Death is, unfortunately, the best option.”
Could this make Kramer one of the most deadly horror antagonists of all time?
“I think so. He’s not like Ghost Face or Freddy Krueger. They all know that what they’re doing is wrong but Kramer, he thinks he’s helping these people, changing their lives for the better.”
Discussions around the tragedy of the Saw franchise continue today: “The Saw films are truly horrifying because of the tragedy in them, these people could have bettered themselves in other ways but instead their lives are ripped apart even more.”
With the eleventh instalment on the horizon, we wonder if the morality and Kramer’s flawed thinking will be confronted, or if he will continue to trick audiences into thinking death is the worst punishment?