Saw (film series)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Saw film series is a popular horror film franchise created by James Wan and Leigh Whannell. The current Saw trilogy is one of very few film series where each new film has earned more than its predecessor, along with The Lord of the Rings, Austin Powers and several others.
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[edit] Premise
The main plot of this film series revolves around the Jigsaw Killer, a vigilante who kidnaps victims and places them in deadly traps to test them and see if they are deserving of the life they have abused. The victims, always taken because they have taken their lives for granted and abused them (lying, conning, drug-dealing, etc.), are usually linked to each other in one way or another. The films tend to conclude with a twist-ending that wraps things up, but also creates more questions to be answered in the next film.
According to the St. Paul Pioneer Press, the villain in the movies is a stand-in for self-serving entities in society. Some popular comparisons include the health insurance crisis, moral paradoxes such as stealing to feed your family, and win-lose negotiating techniques. The depiction of these parables is crafted to portray the repugnance of these ills of society.
[edit] Media
The main media of the Saw series are three movies:
- Saw, released on October 29, 2004 .
- Saw II, the first sequel, released on October 28, 2005.
- Saw III, the second sequel, released on October 27, 2006.
- Also, Lions Gate has announced that Saw IV, a fourth movie, will be made, but no official information (cast, crew, directors) has been released, except that Tobin Bell will reprise his role as Jigsaw.[1]
All of the movies are purposely released as close to Halloween as possible. Fans of the series have come to see the release of a Saw film as a Halloween tradition.
Outside these films, there has also been the following:
- A 2003 short that served as a promotional tool before production.
- Saw: Rebirth a comic book prequel to the first film.
In addition, the horror film spoof Scary Movie 4 parodied the first two films.
[edit] Prominent characters
- John Kramer/Jigsaw
- Amanda Young
- Adam Faulkner
- Dr. Lawrence Gordon
- Detective Eric Matthews
- Jeff Reinhart
- Dr. Lynn Denlon
[edit] Saw plot
John Kramer, a toy factory worker, is dumped by his girlfriend Jill as he is too timid and afraid to make a full commitment to her. John becomes sick. During a check-up, John is diagnosed with a frontal lobe tumor. After waiting in the hospital, he begins to notice many people that seem unappreciative for the life they've been granted, such as Dr. Lawrence Gordon (John's doctor who is cheating on his wife), an orderly named Zep Hindell, Paul Stallberg (a man who worked with John in the toy factory who had slashed his wrists for attention), Amanda Young (a drug addict who overdosed on heroin), and Lynn Denlon (a doctor who seemed dead on the inside following the death of her son while cheating on her husband and taking anti-depressants). Utterly depressed by people playing carelessly with the gift of life that John has just been denied, John tries to kill himself by driving himself off a cliff, but survives, gaining a new perspective. John makes it a goal to find ways to test people in vicious traps to see if they are deserving of their life.
John kidnaps his first three victims, Paul, Amanda, and Mark Rodriguez (a man who claims he is ill and unable to work). Paul and Mark fail their tests, and Jigsaw leaves Dr. Gordon's pen, which he acquired at the hospital, at the scene of Mark's death. Amanda manages to complete hers successfully and escapes alive. Amanda and Dr. Gordon are interrogated by the police; Dr. Gordon's alibi proves he is not the Jigsaw Killer.
Jigsaw, planning the bathroom trap in an abandoned warehouse downtown, is confronted by Detectives Tapp and Sing, who learned of his base of operations while reviewing the tape he left for Amanda. Jigsaw distracts the police by activating the trap for an old man named Jeff. During the ensuing chaos, Jigsaw injures Tapp and escapes. Sing saves Jeff, only to be killed by the Quadruple-Shotgun Trap. Tapp, having led Sing into the warehouse without a search warrant, is dishonorably discharged from the force. Enraged over Sing's death, he becomes positive Gordon is the Jigsaw Killer.
Amanda is confronted by Jigsaw at her apartment. She agrees to become his apprentice and continue on his life work when he dies. With Amanda's help, Jigsaw kidnaps Lawrence Gordon and Adam Faulkner, a man Tapp hired to follow and takes pictures of Gordon. Both of them fail their respective tests, but Lawrence still manages to saw his foot off and leave, looking for help. Zepp is killed while being tested, and Adam, now alone, is locked away in the dark bathroom to rot forever. Amanda, shaken with guilt, sneaks into the bathroom to put Adam out of his misery by suffocating him.
Jigsaw kidnaps a police informant named Michael and places him in a trap, also starting a trap for Eric Matthews, a detective known for setting up criminals, by leaving him a message. Jigsaw kidnaps Obi (a man who helped Jigsaw kidnap others), Xavier (A drug dealer), Jonas, Laura, Gus, Addison, and Daniel Matthews, Detective Matthews' son. He puts them all in a large, sealed house filled with nerve gas and traps. With them, he puts Amanda in to keep Daniel alive. Everyone but Amanda and Daniel dies in the house. Daniel is placed in a safe in Jigsaw's lair.
Eric Matthews and his SWAT team arrive at Jigsaw's lair, and intend to arrest him before he informs Eric that his son is in the house. Jigsaw tells Detective Matthews that all he has to do to get his son back in a safe state is listen to Jigsaw. Eric fails his test and assaults Jigsaw, nearly killing him. Jigsaw takes him to the nerve gas house, where Detective Matthews believes his son is still inside. There he finds the bathroom in the foundation of the house, and is attacked by Amanda, who knocks him out and chains him to a pipe before closing the door and informing him that she is taking over the role of Jigsaw. Eric manages to break his foot and escape the chain, confronting Amanda in the hallway outside of the bathroom. There, instead of forgiving him and helping him escape, she kicks him in his broken foot and leaves him to rot.
Jigsaw's condition worsens, and he is on the verge of death. With the help of Amanda, he begins his last tests. Amanda begins her own traps, kidnapping Troy (a man who continues to go back to prison) and Kerry (a detective who studies Jigsaw and his methods), leaving each of them in traps that have no escape. Amanda then kidnaps Jeff Reinhart (A man who's been dwelling on his son's death for the past three years), Lynn, Danica Scott (The only witness to Jeff's son's death), Judge Halden (the judge presiding over Jeff's son's murder), and Timothy Young (the drunk driver who hit Jeff's son), all players in Jigsaw's last test. Lynn is forced to keep Jigsaw alive long enough to see Jeff make it through his series of tests. Amanda begins growing jealous. Jeff is forced to wander through a warehouse, finding Danica in a trap of her own. He has the choice to help her, which he tries to do, but fails. Jeff then finds Judge Halden in another trap, to which Jeff manages to save him from. Lynn begins operating on Jigsaw's brain, keeping him alive a bit longer. Jeff and Judge Halden find the last trap in the warehouse: Tim, the drunk driver who killed Jeff's son. While trying to save him, Jeff accidentally activates a trap that shoots Halden in the head, and fails to unlock the device in time to save Tim.
Once Jeff has completed his warehouse tests, Jigsaw orders Amanda to remove Lynn's trap. Amanda refuses, and rebels against Jigsaw, stating that nobody ever learns anything from his traps. She shoots Lynn in the stomach just as Jeff leaves the warehouse and enters Jigsaw's lair. Seeing this, he uses his only bullet to shoot Amanda in the neck. Jigsaw informs her that it was another test for her, to see if she could cope with the pressure of carrying on his life's work. It is revealed that Jeff was Lynn's husband.
Amanda bleeds to death while Jigsaw gives Jeff a choice to either kill him or forgive him. Jeff, in a fit of rage, cuts Jigsaw's throat with a circular saw blade, not knowing that if he dies, Lynn's trap will automatically kill her. Jigsaw plays a tape for Jeff, revealing that his daughter is trapped somewhere with a limited air supply. The exits to the warehouse slam shut as Jigsaw flatlines, and Lynn is killed by her trap, leaving Jeff alone.
[edit] References
- ^ http://www.comingsoon.net/news/movienews.php?id=17260 Announcement of Saw IV
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