Rotting Pigs, Reverse Bear Traps, And So Much Plot: Every ‘Saw’ Film, Ranked

You can keep your big-budget tentpoles: the one 2021 release I’m really looking forward to is Spiral: From The Book of Saw, a soft reboot of one of the most original slasher franchises of the last 50 years.

Simply put, we’ve been living too long in a Saw-free world. Sure, we got Jigsaw, an attempt to mount new interest in the franchise, three years ago, but I’m used to the world where Lionsgate used to crank out one ugly piece of slasher art a year.

And boy is the Saw franchise ugly. From the very outset, the series has leaned into the most despicable elements of human nature, concocting increasingly vile and inventive ways that desperate people can be unpleasant to each other. The series is a bold, pig-piss slathered refutation to the idea that cinema need to be: A) morally instructive, or B) at all interested in the intricacies of the human soul. Fuck Roger Ebert and his claim that the best movies are “empathy machines”, designed to draw us closer to one another. The Saw franchise proves that cinema can also be downright fucking rotten.

But not every Saw film was created equal under the sun. So, to that end, here is a ranking of each instalment of the series to get you primed and ready for the release of Spiral.

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Saw III

Okay, listen: I don’t really think there’s such thing as a bad Saw film. So don’t take Saw III‘s placement on this list as some kind of sleight against its repugnant character; it’s a pretty good (read: disgusting) time at the cinema, complete with inventive traps and a healthy dash of sadism.

But Saw III has two strikes against it. Firstly, it’s too damn overplotted — for its final reel, the film descends into a mess of conflicting motivations for the once enjoyably uncomplicated Jigsaw Killer, and makes the fatal flaw of offing its antagonist far too quickly.

Secondly: the fucking pig trap. Listen, I know the whole point of the franchise is applying pressure to the squeamish, but I guess the place I draw the line is people slowly getting drowned in liquified rotten pig corpses. Absolutely 100% no thank you.

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Jigsaw

It’s not really fair to call Jigsaw a sequel; in actuality, it’s more of a remix, taking the greatest hits of the franchise up to that point and combining them in new and inventive ways. It’s certainly entertaining — there’s no fat on the thing whatsoever, and it moves from set-up to set-up with ease. But there’s definitely a sense that this is ground that has been well-trodden before.

But worse than that, it’s just not violent enough. I understand trying to cater to a new generation of Saw fans, ones too young to put up with needles of hydrochloric acid or, let me repeat again, liquified rotten pig corpses. And yet there’s something fairly self-defeating about a Saw movie that cringes away from the uglier side of torture.

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Saw VI

Get all these backstories out of my Saw film! I came here for blood, damnit!

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Saw

I know: for some, the placement of very first entry in the franchise will be far too low. But like I say, there’s really no such thing as a bad Saw film, and the original is a wonderfully twisty and twisted good time.

It just seems, in retrospect, both a little too direct — there’s not much of the trademark wallowing in depravity — and a little too clunky — the low-budget seams do occasionally show, and Wan’s overcranked directing style would find more momentum as he got to further hone his chops.

That said, the final twist is a work of pure, diabolical art — who can ever hear the strains of Charlie Clouser’s iconic score and not see that bathroom door slowly being pulled shut?

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Saw 3D

Okay, now we’re really talking: Saw 3D is pure, oversouped insanity. I’ve complained elsewhere in this list about an excess of plotting, but Saw 3D takes the ins and outs of the Jigsaw universe to the next level, piling so many tonal and narrative left turns on each other that the audience bears the risk of developing whiplash.

The last 20 minutes goes for absolute broke, re-introducing old characters, retconning even the simplest B-plot from earlier films, and collapsing under its own bloodied and gore-splattered weight. And it’s in 3D!

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Saw V

Saw films live and die by their twists, and Saw V ends on a doozy — the revelation that all the horror, all the guts and suffering, the audience has sat through could have been entirely avoided. It’s one of those denouements that gives you a sick, lurching thrill in your stomach; a final act twist that changes everything that you’ve seen before. Saw is at its best when the franchise is playing games not just with the doomed characters but also with the audience, and Saw V ends with the equivalent of a bloodied UNO reverse card.

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Saw IV

There’s just something about the Saw franchise’s utilisation of time jumps that I find so appealing. It’s the oldest trick in the thriller book — convince the audience that two scenes are happening simultaneously when in fact they are staggered far, far apart — but it works every single goddamn time. And Saw IV runs the trick into the ground, deploying sleight-of-hand fake-outs with the speed and dexterity of a Vegas magician on crack cocaine.

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Saw II

Saw II isn’t a horror film, it’s a goddamn fantasia, overflowing with plasma-splattered ideas, ghoulish twists and some of the most deliciously inane moralising imaginable. “Fun” isn’t a word that one would usually associate with the Saw franchise, but the second entry is exactly that; a rampantly silly work of gonzo art.

That final twist! Director Darren Lynn Bousman’s absolute refusal to shoot any scene like a normal human being! Writer Leigh Whannell’s “everything-including-the-kitchen-sink” attitude towards character motivation! Nerve agent! John Kramer! Hook the whole demented thing to my veins, thank you very much.

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Joseph Earp is a staff writer at Junkee and Saw obsessive who tweets @JosephOEarp.