Jigsaw (Blu-ray, DVD, & Digital)

“Confess – the truth will set you free, but any attempt to violate my rules will kill you. I want to play a game.”

You’ll quickly realize throughout this review that I love the Saw series. So, when I read that the film featured new screenwriters, directors, and cast members, I walked into the theater with high hopes and low expectations. Much to my surprise, I wasn’t disappointed with the film. It is a fresh new story, but still a solid entry in the series. I’ll get into that and more below, but here’s the official description of the film from Lionsgate and the trailer first:

“In the latest terrifying installment of the legendary SAW series, law enforcement find itself chasing the ghost of a man dead for over a decade, embroiled in a diabolical new game that’s only just begun. Has John Kramer, the infamous Jigsaw Killer, returned from the dead to commit a series of murders and remind the world to be grateful for the gift of life? Or is this a trap set by a different killer with designs of their own?”

A Little Backstory (Skip this if you don’t want a recap – minor spoilers included)
Each Saw movie tells two stories: that of the central participants in a series of traps and of the cops who attempt to catch the killers and accomplices. These plotlines always overlap in some way. The first of the series, Saw, perfectly established this standard and ended with a huge twist that each subsequent movie has tried to match. Adam Faulkner-Stanheight and Dr. Lawrence Gordon awake chained to the walls of an old, rusty public bathroom, while elsewhere in the movie, Detectives Tapp and Sing attempt to track down the infamous Jigsaw killer. And just at the end – the truth about Jigsaw’s identity is revealed to the tune of “Hello Zep.” (Side note – Though the character of Zep only appears in the first film, this song is used in every movie as all of the mysteries are answered and secrets are revealed.)

Now I could write thousands and thousands of words about the psychology and motivations of Tobin Bell’s wonderfully crafted character, John Kramer, aka the Jigsaw Killer, and what sets him apart from other antagonists of horror series, but I’ll spare you that. Suffice it to say that Kramer went through a series of tragedies and attempted to take his own life. When that failed, he discovered a new appreciation for life. Using his engineering background, he designed traps that he saw as winnable games and chose victims who he felt didn’t appreciate their life. As he tells one winner, “Some people are so ungrateful to be alive, but not you. Not anymore.” He cut a puzzle-piece section of flesh from the losers to indicate that they were missing some vital piece of themselves needed to survive, thus earning the Jigsaw moniker (a name the media game him that he never particularly liked). Technically, Jigsaw never killed anyone himself. In his eyes, the participants chose death by not beating the traps and fighting to live. Somewhere during the course of the first seven movies, Jigsaw dies (which doesn’t feel like a spoiler, because Jigsaw’s entire marketing campaign was built around this single detail).

It’s been just over seven years since the last Saw film. Without giving too much away, Saw 3D: The Final Chapter (or, let’s just be honest, “Saw 7“) ended with a lot of dead characters, three who walked away, and one who was left for dead in a trap that perfectly reflects the ending of the original film. The seventh film was supposed to be the last of the series, so we are left to assume that said character did indeed die. Then Jigsaw was announced . . .

Fans had questions. Where will this story fall in the timeline? Didn’t Jigsaw die already? Will this continue with the same characters? He died – we saw a body . . . Is this a reboot? With Tobin Bell announced as a main character, people (myself included) were really fixated on the “Is Jigsaw dead or not” thing. Other fans speculated that this may be an origin story for the character.

Jigsaw (the movie in this case – it gets confusing) is actually more of a thriller than many of its gore-driven predecessors, and several of those questions heavily drive the plot. In the special features, the producers and writers reveal that they wanted Jigsaw to have a mystery, who-dunnit? feel like the original film more than the straight-up torture porn that is many of the sequels. I won’t give away all of the answers here, but I will make a case for why this movie is a well-told story and, despite its differences, still fits within the Saw universe.

Plot
The movie begins outdoors. Right away fans of the series will realize how unusual this is. Saw films hardly ever feature outdoor scenes, and each movie almost always opens immediately with a trap of some kind and a redshirt character who probably won’t make it. Jigsaw, on the other hand, begins with a scene that could be straight out of any procedural crime show of the week. A character is fleeing from the cops in a car chase that turns into a foot race. What isn’t immediately clear is that this is part of a trap. The character running, Edgar, is holding a switch. He demands to speak with Detective Halloran and says a lot of people will die soon. Before he can explain, he is shot by Halloran and his officers, and the switch is activated.

When the switch is hit, the movie cuts to a dark, non-descript room. Five unconscious people have metal buckets over their heads and are chained by their necks to a wall of saws. Now, we’re watching a Saw movie! While most of the series revolves around one or two protagonists attempting to win Jigsaw’s “game,” we’ve only ever seen a group of participants in Saw V. (Just a bit of trivia – Saw V was written with five participants to match the movie’s number in the series.) Right away, you know that they aren’t all going to make it out of this.

As the characters wake up, a recording plays with Tobin Bell’s perfect Jigsaw voice informing them that the chains will pull them into the wall of saws if they don’t make a sacrifice of blood. As expected, one character doesn’t regain consciousness in time and isn’t so lucky. This scene was heavily featured in the trailers, so the trap isn’t much of a surprise. The scene is still a good one though, and it does a nice job of introducing the four remaining game participants and their very different personalities. A theme of the movie is also introduced here: Confess – the truth will set you free, but the games’ participants aren’t the only characters keeping secrets.

As the four remaining participants move to the next room, they discover that they are in a large farmhouse. Each trap generally has some name, so we’ll call this entire set the farmhouse trap, though there are smaller traps (including the Saw Wall and the Spiralizer) within. The second scene in the farmhouse trap claims another victim and establishes how far some of the participants are willing to go to survive. Returning viewers will recognize Billy the Puppet as he rides in on his tricycle to deliver further instructions for the players.

With the discovery of a body with a bucket over the head hanging off a bridge in broad daylight, viewers are introduced to the central characters of the other half of the story. Detectives Halloran and Hunt discuss the gruesome death with pathologists Logan Nelson and Eleanor Bonneville. A connection is made to Jigsaw’s work, but viewers now discover that Jigsaw has been dead for a decade. How could he be involved?

The question of Jigsaw’s possible return serves as the end of the movie’s first act. Already, the movie is following the standard Saw structure. We’ve got two plots (participants in a game and the police attempting to catch the killer) that overlap. Though the characters are new to us, the structure is not.

I just want to talk about the lighting and color for a minute. This movie is saturated with bold, vibrant colors! The procedural scenes make use of cold blues and grays, but the farmhouse trap is immersed in rich golds and browns. The exception in both cases is the deep, bold shade of red chosen for blood (and, oh yes, there is tons of blood). The lighting is also exceptional. There appears to be sunlight streaming in through the wooden walls of the farmhouse which constantly makes the participants look like they are just feet from safety. Though these colors and lights look good on the DVD and Digital versions, they are awesome on the Blu-ray disc! They really set the movie’s look apart from other horror movies and even some of the previous Saw films.

Back to the plot – giving away more of the story at this point would feel like spoiling a well-developed story; instead, here’s a brief tease about the rest of the movie. As the participants make their way through the farmhouse trap, the police continue to investigate as more bodies are found. Everyone is a suspect, including one Jigsaw-obsessed member of the investigation. This character has collected and built reconstructions of Jigsaw’s previous traps. Returning viewers will recognize some of the most memorable traps from the first seven movies. These plotlines, participants, suspects, and red herrings continue separately until a final showdown brings all the elements of the story together with a final twist.

Like previous Saw films, Jigsaw ends with a beautiful twist. And I do mean it ends there on the twist – as with the previous films, any further resolution is saved for future movies. To be fair, some of the twists and endings . . . aren’t that great, but the writers really deliver on the Jigsaw twist. The entire movie, you’re supposed to be asking if Jigsaw is really dead or not, and if he is, who is the new killer copying his work? And then, in the final scene, you hear “Hello Zep,” and it’s time for all the questions to be answered. The reveal is well done, and with a second viewing of the movie, you realize just how many clues the writers gave you leading up to that reveal. The writing is intelligent, and the story successfully works as both horror and thriller.

The performances in this movie are also excellent. Tobin Bell is always fantastic as Jigsaw/John Kramer, regardless of his character’s amount of screen time. In one of the previous films, he only has around four minutes of screen time, but those four minutes are some of that movie’s best. He delivers another excellent performance here in Jigsaw. Another strong performance is given by Paul Braunstein as one of the participants stuck in the farmhouse trap. Braunstein manages to bring humor and humanity to his character – something that’s rarely seen in this series.

There is humor in this movie, which is just one of the ways that Jigsaw is set apart from other movies in the series. It has more jokes, more jump scares, more suspects, and a whole lot less backstory than any previous Saw film, but it is still a Saw film. We have almost all the elements that make a typical Saw film. There are two interwoven plotlines, a series of traps, blood and gore, a fantastic twist ending, and even an appearance from Billy the Puppet. The only thing missing is the amount of backstory delivered in previous films. While each movie typically builds on its predecessors, Jigsaw can work as a standalone film and can even serve as an introduction to the series – more on that in the following section. The story is intelligent and cohesive, and the twist does a fantastic job of bringing the plotlines together and explaining the movie’s secrets. This is another excellent entry in the Saw series!

The Challenge
The writers of Jigsaw faced a challenge. Since it’s been seven years since the last Saw film, they had to write a movie that appeals to new fans while at the same time appeases all the returning fans. It’s a tough line. How much backstory is too much? Not enough? They can’t spend half the movie recapping the previous seven, but should they go in cold with no references to the previous films? The writers of Jigsaw have tried to find a balance. The only returning character is Tobin Bell’s Jigsaw, and the only previous character who is mentioned is Jill Tuck in a throwaway line. For returning fans like myself, this is the biggest disappointment of the movie. Jigsaw does not contradict or dismiss the previous films, but it also doesn’t refer to any characters or plot points from those movies other than Jigsaw’s death. A few previous traps are seen, but you wouldn’t recognize them without having seen the original movies. For new fans, though, this fresh slate is a benefit. Though I wouldn’t recommend it, new fans could start with Jigsaw and not be confused or lost in the details. The story isn’t bogged down with recaps and backstories. It allows the story to exist as part of the series or as a standalone film. Jigsaw really feels like a setup for future films. Like Saw 3D: The Final Chapter, the story could end here, but there’s certainly room for more stories. I’m curious to see where, if anywhere, the story goes next.

Special Features
The following special features come with the Blu-ray, DVD, & Digital Combo Pack, but be warned that these features contain spoilers for all eight Saw films.

– Audio Commentary with Producers Mark Burg, Oren Koules, and Peter Block (Blu-ray & DVD only)

– The Choice is Yours: Exploring the Props [6:27] – Featurette (Blu-ray, DVD, & Digital)

– I Speak for the Dead: The Legacy of Jigsaw [1:21:56 total] – 7-Part Documentary (Blu-ray & Digital only)
• “A New Game” – the producers discuss the challenge of choosing a new, yet familiar story
• “You Know His Name” – a discussion of Tobin Bell’s performance and contributions to the series
• “Survival of the Fittest” – finding the right cast members
• “Death by Design” – a look at the visuals of the movie, from the sets to the prosthetic gore
• “Blood Sacrifice” – how the traps are designed and filmed
• “The Source of Fear” – series composer Charlie Clouser discusses the importance of and connection between music and editing
• “The Truth Will Set You Free” – how Jigsaw connects to the past and potential future Saw films

The special features for this movie are outstanding! Lionsgate has really outdone itself with this selection. The audio commentary is with producers who have been with the Saw franchise from the first movie, and this is one of their best commentaries. It’s clear that the producers have missed making Saw films and are thrilled to be back. The props featurette looks specifically at traps made for Jigsaw. Several of the traps from previous films that are featured in Jigsaw had to be rebuilt. While the commentary and props featurette are both interesting, the best of the special features is easily the seven-part documentary. It’s almost as long as the movie itself, but each section is full of information about how the movie was made, casting, audio, character development, sets, lights, hidden Easter eggs, and so much more. If you like knowing how movies are made, this documentary is for you.

Takeaway
Whether you’ve been a fan of Saw for years or you’re brand new to the series, Jigsaw is worth seeing. The movie was clearly designed to appeal to both returning fans and new audiences, and it does both of these tasks well. While there is an air of a thriller to this one, it still has plenty of blood and gore as well as another excellent twist at the end. Visually, the movie is stunning, and the special features only enrich the overall series. Jigsaw is a great return to the Saw series and definitely worth seeing.