Jigsaw
“I can only hope that the Saw franchise will realize how much underrepresented audiences are dying to see themselves up on the silver screen.”
Title: Jigsaw (2017)
Directors: Michael Spierig 👨🏼🇩🇪🇦🇺 and Peter Spierig 👨🏼🇩🇪🇦🇺
Writers: Josh Stolberg 👨🏼🇺🇸 and Peter Goldfinger 👨🏼🇺🇸
Reviewed by John Manuel Arias 👨🏽🇺🇸🇨🇷🌈♿
Note: This review was commissioned by Lionsgate. The content and methodology remain 100% independent and in line with Mediaversity's non-commissioned reviews.
—MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD—
Technical: 3/5
While not the scariest in the series, nor the goriest, Jigsaw (2017) offers what all the other movies in the Saw franchise do—rust and metal, blood and guts, and a twist you can see coming a mile away. The structure and storytelling have made the franchise its own cliché: Individuals that Jigsaw (Tobin Bell), the franchise’s villain, sees as “bad people” are strapped to terrifying traps; their reason for being targeted gets revealed; a scrappy cop tries to get to the bottom of it; and the killer has been obvious from the very start.
What differentiates each Saw movie involves the traps the victims must escape from. The creativity of their construction, their unforgiving gore—that’s the magnetic feature that keeps audiences coming back. Thankfully, Jigsaw delivers on that promise.
While the traps in Jigsaw are nowhere near as outlandish as those in earlier installments in the series, the Spierig brothers remain inventive in their torture. From acid, to lasers, to a huge and hypnotic blender, the movie doesn’t disappoint. From a directorial level, the cinematography feels solid, the jump cuts and iconic green hue used so well that James Wan, Saw’s original co-creator, would be proud. But in many other ways, the movie suffers. The pacing lags, the characters are so rote, they might as well have been paper cut-outs, and the story itself has been done—to death, if you will.
Gender: 3/5
Does it pass the Bechdel Test? YES
Of the three women with speaking parts, two are graced with the slightest bit of dimension. The first is Anna (Laura Vandervoot), the main character among the five victims who immediately realizes the trick to the opening trap and helps her fellow torturees survive. In contrast to her fellow victim Carly, who is super flat as a cookie-cutter “rocker” girl, Anna demonstrates intelligence, empathy, and kindness. If only the movie had focused on her development, her intentions, and a few more traps for her to outsmart, she’d be an iconic Final Girl. But alas, she’s overwhelmed by the greater plot and loses her head at the end—not just emotionally, but by a backfiring shotgun, to boot.
The second multidimensional woman, who may in fact be the most interesting among all three, is a pathologist named Eleanor (Hannah Anderson) who performs autopsies on the victims. She eventually reveals herself as a worshipper of Jigsaw and a collector of his most iconic devices. It would have been a solid twist if she turned out to be the new Jigsaw, but unfortunately, she’s merely a fan. Right before the movie’s climax, she disappears without explanation, leaving her story arc feeling half-baked. But even with scant screen time and no real development, Eleanor feels significant because—as with many of the Saw films—Jigsaw’s inclusion of women acolytes does one thing very well: It subverts gender norms.
The horror genre typically sees women as passive and helpless, the perfect victims. But when the roles are reversed, a female killer reclaims some power. Even though Eleanor’s actions can be seen as “evil,” the fact of her agency should not be ignored.
Race: 2/5
Despite the recent renaissance of Black horror films, and continued interest in international horror from Asia or Latin America, Jigsaw continues to focus on white characters. The entire movie’s non-white representation is fulfilled by two Black men, one a victim named Mitch (Mandela Van Peebles) and the other (Clé Bennet), a competent detective whose character doesn’t go beyond one or two plot points. Unfortunately, he’s nowhere near as interesting as Danny Glover’s character in the first Saw movie.
Mediaversity Grade: C- 2.67/5
Ever since James Wan first directed Saw in 2004, most of the characters in the franchise have been cisgender straight white men. Jigsaw follows suit, continuing now decades of missed opportunities for the series to broaden its lens.
From competent investigators to courageous survivors of these torture chambers, underrepresented characters would add complexity and nuance to the otherwise formulaic genre of splatter films. More writers of color could be brought on to tell these stories, and more directors of color to realize them.
I can only hope that the Saw franchise will realize how much non-white audiences are dying to see themselves up on the silver screen. How iconic would it be to finally have a protagonist of color take on the infamous Jigsaw—and win?