The idea of portraying Jigsaw as an anti-hero, as in the later films, is rather concerning. He's a homicidal psychopath. There's no redeeming Jigsaw, only understanding his warped motivations.
Can't wait for Sawcon 2023! I just hope I don't catch ligma in the meantime. Been going out too much and eating Wendy's too much, even though I've been really into fitness lately.
Everytime you upload its a treat. Really love Saw 2 and honestly would love to see more games or visual novels have this format of an open house with traps.
11:48 i feel like he's a lot like Light Yagami in this way. Its more about the mythos they have created around themselves rather than their motivations or methods.
If all some ones critisism comes down to blah balha goore or blah blah snuff films. It immediately tells me they dont really know what they are talking about.
I hate how they keep trying to make Jigsaw as some deep character in all of the sequels. 5 movies after his death and they still try to connect to him, like it's the Scream franchise.
Yeah, I originally wrote the opening of this video with a mention of it, but figured since I couldn’t find it, it wasn’t worth mentioning. I did just find some old sketches we did on an old laptop. It was the one where we were parodying the “Wii would like to play” ads.
I really liked the Saw series up until around 5. Even used to browse HouseOfJigsaw forums. The sheer convoluted nature of the series made it really fun to bullshit about. The directors commentary for each of the films are really fun to listen to, you can tell they're just having fun.
I agree, I feel like 5 is where things really fell off. 4’s story was kinda just kinda a stalling tactic, where they introduced a new villain but without really going into his backstory or motivation. 5 decides to justify that twist but the new villain just being a guy who kills people because he’s an asshole is so much less interesting than Jigsaw’s motivations in the first 3.
I think I loved SAW 2 way more than the first movie. The traps and deaths were absolutely gloriously made. But acting was also a strong point. I still physically cringe at the needle pit one and the magnum door one. Classics.
I ripped the BDs and DVDs for behind the scenes footage. Turns out, there's different bonus features on the first Saw 2 DVD and the 2-disc release, which don't get ported to the BD. Luckily, that first DVD arrived just in time so I could include all of the featurettes on how they made the traps.
Its crazy how despise me being subbed for years and having your notificstions on, the last time i got a notification of your channel was on your vid of the Last of Us 2
I have fun watching those films, and I agree with you when you state about the declining quality of the series. It's good to see you back, man. I hope we can get your videos more often. Take care! 👍
Not sure I'd call it accelerating. I had some good momentum going at the end of last year, but got sent to Honor Guard for 6 months, which really killed that flow. Now, I'm trying to build that momentum up again.
Great Video! I would go so far to say, this is one of the best vids I've personally seen on a horror movie, let alone a sequel, with how informative and nuanced it is about the movie's qualities and production background. For a long while, I've always saw the saw movies as just a dumb fad and trend horror movie series like movies like Hostel back then. When I properly watched the first 2 movies, I was surprised that they were a lot different and nuanced than what I expected. They were not what I expected that I wonder where did the reputation of it actually came from, other than the sequels being more ridiculous as it went on. I prefer the second one more than the first one for how much Jigsaw is focused and shown and I think you hit the nail on the head regarding why the movie is as good as it is and I also feel the same way regarding the puppet as it makes jigsaw less interesting as a prescence. Tobin Bell as John Kramer makes for one of the all time best villains in a movie and really is what makes the movie, in the same way that characters like Freddy Krueger and Jason Vorhees were for Nightmare and Elm Street. Semi- Off Topic, but I personally never thought about the connection regarding Saw and it's influence on DanganRonpa and the Zero Escape games, as Someone who wants to play them. I was somewhat aware but the point did raise my interest a bit. It's definitely an interesting talking point regarding games and what influenced what, since I don't think Saw was the main inspiration for them(At least from what I know) but probably an amalgamation of other things. I think the movie cube was probably an inspiration and I feel that's probably true, being enough to be remade in remade in Japan. something I don't think I've seen often(Japanese remakes of american movies).
Thank you, I definitely wanted to legitimize the movie for people by exploring a lot of behind the scenes elements that showed how much effort went into it. Same with comparing it to games it may have influenced, showing it had more influence than it may be given credit. I'm not really a fan of Cube, but I went into it with high expectations after hearing it inspired Saw. That one's purely about surviving the environment, not competing in personalized games set up by a mastermind.
Cube is a good movie I feel, but I don't think it makes any sense to bring it up much when discussing saws, as while they may have some similarities, they are both extremely different in concept and execution(no pun intended).
Saw franchise was Flanderised over the years. It went from an intersting psychological horror film into the "Top 10 most Gory Saw Kills!" kind of mindless spectacle. Not so much about being scary as it is getting the audience to go "OOOHHH!!". It's difficult to care without the Y-factor. Why are these people being put through this hell? Is more interesting than the traps themselves. Like you said, they try to do some complex morality thing with Jigsaw but I don't buy it.
I am so happy to see you posting again! Your content is always amazing!! On an off topic, I remember there being a Devious Intent you did for Alden Tate back in the day and I was curious if it was just a Mandela effect or not, because I remember loving it. Thank you
I did but I deleted it many many years ago. It was just a short 2-3 minute thing, because originally, Devious Intent was just meant to be these short in-between videos. That's one of the reasons I did the Kessler video. I felt like that was the equivalent to the redone Solidus Snake video I did.
@HyperBitHero I completely understand and I love all of your Devious Intent videos, the one on Solidus and the Boss are two I watch religiously. I'm just happy knowing that the Alden Tate video did exist and that I didn't make it up, because I've always been interested in Alden, and the idea of what he must have been in Kessler's original timeline, seeing that Kessler took so much joy in what Alden was in Cole's timeline. Again, thank you for making the content you do man, because you never miss a beat and make some of the most thought-provoking and interesting stuff on RU-vid
Thanks for watching for so long! I’m hoping to keep the momentum going. The plan was always to do Ocelot and Skullface videos as well after The Boss, and I still want to get those out soon.
@HyperBitHero Thank you for making the content you do! I have been dying to see you cover Ocelot in a Devious Intent video, I just never wanted to ask because that is a lot of stuff to cover. Knowing that you may soon, I have so much hype and I know you will do it justice. I never saw too much with Skullface personally (from what we saw in Ground Zeros and the Phantom Pain), he always seemed like a weird rip-off of Ocelot trying to impersonate Volgin, not to mention the shock recordings of Paz and Chico. Volgin had nods and hints, and even wacky lines concerning his depravity, but the recording in GZ just feels like cheap shock material. I wish we got to see him more like he was described. I mean this is the guy that cleaned up after Snake/John/Big Boss during both the Virtuous Mission and Operation Snake Eater. For all thematic purposes, he's Snake's Shadow. Out of all we were robbed of from GZ and TPP We really should've gotten a villain more along the lines of the Boss or Soldius or something other than rip-off Yevgeny Borisvitch Adamska in a Lone Ranger cosplay. Especially when Ocelot in TTP didn't seem, feel, or look like Ocelot at all. He still had the core personality traits, but so much felt wrong, and I wish they kept Josh Keaten instead of Hideo just hating on his old cast and paying more well-known actors to do subpar work. Sorry about the rant on the Phantom Pain. If possible in the future, I'd love to see you do a video on David Oh/Major Zero, because he's always been one of my favorite characters. Thanks again.
Yeah, the intent would be to do 2 Ocelot videos. One for 1-3 and then another for 4/PO/V where I go over the downtick of the writing. Same with Skullface, it wouldn’t be a positive video haha. His character is so absurd and conveyed to the player so strangely, but that’s a lot of V’s writing. I already have a huge portion of the first Ocelot video written, but I need to focus on finishing it. Probably would be smart since those videos all performed well. I just love talking about random niche stuff like the last couple videos. Well, I have tons and tons of video at different stages of completion, but I’m getting better about focusing on one until completion.
I have this "idea" of a saw movie focusing on Kramer's character without him being a bunch of flashbacks. Just like the House That Jack Built. Kramer is dead and is traveling to presumably hell, but the whole movie is him talking with the Charon that is taking him while reminiscing cases. It's exactly like the House That Jack Built and does introduce elements of "supernatural" to the franchise, but I think it would be the best way of Kramer be in the spotlight of the franchise again, I also would really like to see him being confronted on his own philosophy. The guy is sadic and hypocritical, he says he always gives a chance of survival, then build a trap like "The Rack" where the victim relies completely on another person that hates him while all his members are getting broken. "live or die, make your choice" my ASS
The firs 3 movies are a great trilogy, anything past that is mindless popcorn fun with a small exception of the 6th one, where the head of the company has to choose between his employees, that one was slick.
I love how you describe movies and games, you can make me interested in stuff I had zero interest before. Great job on the summary and catching amazing details like the red circle and tue inside of the cloak. I want to watch this movie right now! Care to make a video on Hellraiser or the Cenobites?
I don't think I'll ever know if this is the most underrated horror movie series or if people just hate movies with gore. I watched these at release and loved everything about them. Recently i finally watched Friday the 13th and Nightmare on elm street and i have no clue how this series doesnt receive more credit. I would say only the 3rd or 4th movies are overly complex, but the series always clearly was more thought out than everything else in the genre, or really all movies ever made.
Personally I always avoided the saw films because they came off as nothing more than gratuitous torture porn to me. Then again I'm also not a huge fan of slasher films like the Friday the 13th series either.
Great to have you back, especially when you talk about a topic where our opinions are overlapping. 😄 I followed the Saw-series for a while, but fell of after 6, but finally saw 7 5 years after it came out after picking it up for cheap. And rewatching the other movies before watching it, it becomes almost shocking how hard the series fell of, especially at the end. The first 2 films are genuinly great, while the rest of the series becomes a mess of gore, plot-twists and retrofitted plotpoints of wildly varying quality. Saw 7 (or 3D if you prefer) both looked and felt like an especially gory episode of a bad season of Criminal Minds. After that I just didn't care anymore, and haven't seen Jigsaw, Spiral or rewatched any of the films other that the original and 2. What you said about the traps in 2 really ressonated with me. They got so overdone later, especially the one from 5 or 6 that was almost a giant mousetrap with needles filled with acid that melted the torso of one guy. I couldn't help but laugh long and hard at that in the theater. XD
I wish the entire franchise stayed as grounded as the first 3 films, I think 4 and 5 are meh but still have some appealing lore, but I never bothered watching 3D or anything after it.
I do think 4 is solid overall. It's probably the last one I'd suggest without huge asterisks. The issue is that 5 drops the ball with following through on 4's ending. 5 may be my least favorite entry, aside from 3D which is just so obviously bad.
I can handle violence and gore in videogames (to an extent. I had a hard time with dead space), but I cannot stomach gory movies. I like the premise of saw but I will never watch them.
I only watched one Saw movie as a kid on DVD. I can't remember which one, but I think it was the third one. Honestly I was never really interested in the series. I might give them a shot though. At least the first 2 and maybe the third. Thanks for the recommendation Hero.
I think you're underrating Saw 3 a bit. It definitely is not as strong as the first two, but it has some pretty significant highs. Where the first film is mostly about individual people saving themselves from personal traps, and the second is about a big group having to work together, the third is about one guy going room to room finding other people in traps, and he is given the choice to try to save them. The drama comes in because they are all people who he hates and has wanted to punish all along. The scene where he has to burn his son's belongings is surprisingly emotional. All of this in addition to John and Amanda's story with the doctor, the brain surgery scene is one of the best in the whole series. Of course, if you're only interested in the violence, Saw 3 probably has the most brutal traps too, which is even given context in the story in a pretty clever way. Honestly, the only thing that hurts the film is the way it foreshadows horrible future stories and characters for the next four films. If all of that set up were cut off and the ending was more definitive, the three movies would have been a pretty perfect trilogy.
I'm currently 2/3 done writing a follow-up video on Saw 3. I just got the Director's Cut yesterday and started listening to the 3 new audio commentary tracks on that disc. I agree it deserves a lot of credit for big ideas, and it outclasses everything that comes out after, but it's still much more flawed than the first two. I like the designs for several of the traps, but it sucks that the opening ones were never winnable. Then, Jeff's whole game doesn't line up with Jigsaw's methods. He just watches people get tortured until he finally tries to save them and fails. I like the Amanda/Doctor/Jigsaw stuff, but there sure are a lot of flashbacks, which are the worse part of some of the sequels.
@@HyperBitHero It's definitely a mess compared to 1 and 2. The Jill flashbacks and Hoffman set up are made much worse in retrospect, after seeing the sequels (not to mention him swallowing that stupid tape). I stand by the unwinnable traps though, since it all comes back around to Amanda's hate and anger. In a way she ironically created the torture porn that people accuse the first two movies of.
I guess I’m just mad because the Angel trap is like my favorite design, but knowing it’s inescapable takes the wind out of it. I have a lot of the points you’re making here in my script already, like what you said about torture porn, but I think it goes beyond the Amanda traps. For its victims, all of Jeff’s games aren’t all that different from Amanda’s. The first lady for example just wakes up and is essentially murdered by jigsaw without any agency over the situation. Those, alongside the Matthews breaking his foot and the brain surgery scene makes everything come together to be a hyper violent movie more about seeing people suffer instead of trying to escape insane situations.
@@HyperBitHero One thought I've had about the original three movies is how they use every possible version of the formula. The first movie (besides Lawrence and Adam) is all about individual people trying to escape personalized traps. The second one is about a big group wandering around working together (potentially) finding traps along the way. The third is about one single guy who gets to wander around and find other people in traps, with the potential to save them. Each one has a unique flavor. After 3, every movie just re-uses one of these concepts. 4 and 6 reuse 3, 5 and Jigsaw reuse 2. The foot breaking scene is genius, the way he flat refuses the iconic concept of the original and thinks of an alternate way out. That's one of those full circle moments that would have made 3 the perfect stopping point. I understand your frustration about the Angel, but I do think that's part of its charm. When you first see it, you see that she was actually determined enough to get the key out, and wonder if you're missing something since unlocking the thing wasn't enough to escape. The previous movies trained you to always think there was a way out. The realization that it was Amanda all along and that she was just using John's aesthetic to murder her in a horrible way, it's just another cool subversion of the first two, that again would probably work better if it was the final entry.
@@HyperBitHero Maybe it's unfair that the characters in 3 can't save themselves and have to rely on a man who openly hates them, but... yeah. The guy Amanda cuts open for her key in 1 doesn't have much of a chance either lol At least it's better than that horrible nonsense in 4 where the guy is told NOT to save people. I get that it was supposed to mirror 3 in a flipped way, but it was so so bad.
Actually the first 3 are all good with the 3rd arguably being the best. Also 6 is pretty solid as well. Generally though it’s a consistent and sometimes “fun” franchise despite its graphic subject matter.
The second Saw movie is alright, but they really went hard with the whole twist concept to the point of absurdity. Then from there, they kind of went way overboard with the twist concepts. It was never the torture p*rn aspect that I disagreed with, it was just the fact that they weren't great movies. The first one was practical, grounded for the most, it felt human. The others, don't. Spiral recently feels like a missed opportunity.
The first two are the best. But III, VI, and Spiral are decent. I’d argue Jigsaw is actually quite good. VII is silly with some really stupid stuff, but had a few special nightlights (I really liked the ending). IV and V are boring and with little merit.
While the first two we're definitely the best but I can't help but really enjoy the sequels after 2, seeing how ludicrous it got and the amount of dumb rectons and out of nowhere twists it kept me hooked despite the flaws. But 3D sucked hard tho.
Saw 3 is decent though, ironically for everything except the trap segments which are boring filler. It’s more similar to the original, slower and meditative, and has a real dark medical drama feel.
I like Saw 2 quite a bit, but it’s not my favorite sequel. That would be Saw 6. I actually like most of the Saw movies, minus 3D, Spiral, and half of 4.
No, but he is funny to talk about. I don’t think they had a clear direction to go for him in 4 and left it for 5 to figure out, which didn’t stick the landing. He’s just a sadistic dude who kills to kill, which kinda removed the appeal that set Saw apart. He’s almost a slasher villain, who kills the entire police force twice lol.
Yeah, I know. It's the reason James Wan didn't return for Saw 2, and Whannell only did after he could squeeze in the time to tweak the script. I'm just really not afraid of puppets lol
