Saw is a 2004 American horror film directed by James Wan in his feature directorial debut, and written by Leigh Whannell, from a story by Wan and Whannell. It stars Whannell alongside Cary Elwes, Danny Glover, Monica Potter, Michael Emerson, and Ken Leung. The film tells a nonlinear narrative revolving around the mystery of the Jigsaw Killer, who tests his victims' will to live by putting them through deadly "games" where they must inflict great physical pain upon themselves to survive. The frame story follows Jigsaw's latest victims (Whannell and Elwes), who awaken in a large, dilapidated bathroom, with one being ordered to kill the other to save his own family.
The film was originally written in 2001, but after failed attempts to get the script produced in Wan and Whannell's home country of Australia, they were urged to travel to Los Angeles. In order to help attract producers, they shot a low-budget short film of the same name from a scene out of the script. This proved successful in 2003 as producers were immediately attached and also formed a horror genre production label, Twisted Pictures. The film was given a small production budget and was shot in 18 days.
Saw was first screened at the 2004 Sundance Film Festival on January 19, 2004. Due to positive audience reception, Lions Gate Films picked up the distribution rights for the film. Originally planned for a straight-to-video release, they decided to instead release the film in theaters in North America on October 29, 2004. The film received mixed reviews from critics. After topping the opening weekend box office, the film would go on to gross $104 million worldwide to become one of the most profitable horror films since Scream (1996). The success of Saw launched a media franchise, including several sequels, video games, theme park rides, and merchandising. The first sequel, titled Saw II, was released the following year in October 2005.
Plot
Adam Stanheight, a photographer, awakens in a dilapidated bathtub with his ankle chained to a pipe. Across the room is oncologist Dr. Lawrence Gordon, and between them is the corpse of a suicide victim holding a revolver and a microcassette recorder. Both men find a tape in their pockets, and Adam retrieves the recorder. Adam's tape urges him to survive, while Lawrence's tape orders him to kill Adam by 6:00, or his wife, Alison, and daughter, Diana, will be murdered. After listening to the tapes, the duo uncovers a clue leading Adam to find a bag containing two hacksaws inside the toilet. Both men try to saw through their chains, but Adam's saw breaks. Lawrence realizes that the saws are intended for their feet, and identifies their captor as the Jigsaw Killer, a serial killer who tests his victims' will to survive through murderous contraptions known as "games"; Lawrence knows about him because he was once a suspect.
Five months prior, Lawrence, after discussing the terminal brain cancer of patient John Kramer with his medical interns, was interrogated by detectives David Tapp and Steven Sing, who found his penlight at the scene of one of Jigsaw's games. Lawrence's alibi cleared him, but he agreed to view the testimony of heroin addict Amanda Young, the only known survivor of one of Jigsaw's traps. Tapp and Sing later found Jigsaw's warehouse using the videotape from Amanda's game. There, they detained Jigsaw and saved a man from a trap, but Jigsaw managed to escape after he critically injured Tapp; Sing was killed by a shotgun trap.
In the present, Alison and Diana are tied up and gagged in their apartment, as their captor watches Adam and Lawrence through a hidden camera. The house is simultaneously watched by Tapp who, after being discharged from the police following Sing's death, has become obsessed with the Jigsaw case, and remains convinced that Lawrence is the killer. Meanwhile, Lawrence finds a box containing two cigarettes, a lighter, and a one-way cellphone. Adam asks Lawrence for the cigarette but Lawrence discourages this. He recounts his abduction in a parking garage by a pig-masked figure. Adam recalls his own abduction when he returned home to find a puppet in his darkroom, where he stored photos of Lawrence.
Held at gunpoint, Alison calls her husband and warns him not to trust Adam, who admits to Lawrence that he was paid by Tapp to spy on him, and reveals his knowledge of Lawrence's affair with one of his medical students whom he had visited on the night of his abduction. Lawrence deduces that the affair is the reason why he is being tested. Adam finds a photo of Alison and Diana's captor, whom Lawrence identifies as Zep Hindle, an orderly at his hospital.
Zep, seeing that Lawrence has still not killed Adam, moves to murder Alison and Diana while Lawrence listens, but Alison frees herself and fights him. The struggle attracts Tapp's attention, and he saves Alison and Diana before chasing Zep to the sewers, where he is shot in the chest after a brief fight. Lawrence, only aware of the gunshots and screaming, is shocked but cannot reach his cell phone. In desperation, he saws off his foot and shoots Adam with the corpse's revolver. Zep enters the bathroom to kill Lawrence, but Adam, having survived the gunshot, bludgeons him to death with the toilet tank lid. Lawrence crawls out of the bathroom to find help while Adam searches Zep's body for a key. He finds another tape, which reveals that Zep was just another victim of Jigsaw, following rules to obtain the antidote for a slow-acting poison in his body.
The "corpse" lying in the room suddenly rises to its feet; it turns out to be John Kramer, who is the real Jigsaw Killer. John tells Adam that the key to his chain was in the bathtub; it went down the drain when Adam had first awoken and drained the water. Adam attempts to shoot John with Zep's gun, but John electrically shocks him through his chain. John exits the bathroom before sealing the door, leaving Adam alone to die.
Cast
Production Development and writing
After finishing film school, Australian director James Wan and Australian writer Leigh Whannell wanted to write and fund a film. The inspiration that they needed came after watching the low-budget independent film The Blair Witch Project. Another film that inspired them to finance the film themselves was Darren Aronofsky's Pi. The two thought the cheapest script to shoot would involve two actors in one room. Whannell said, "So I actually think the restrictions we had on our bank accounts at the time, the fact that we wanted to keep the film contained, helped us come up with the ideas in the film." One idea was to have the entire film set with two actors stuck in an elevator and being shot in the point of view of security cameras.
Wan pitched the idea to Whannell of two men chained to opposite sides of a bathroom with a dead body in the middle of the floor and they are trying to figure out why and how they are there. By the end of the film, they realize the person lying on the floor is not dead and he is the reason they are locked in the room. Whannell initially did not give Wan the reaction he was looking for. He said, "I'll never forget that day. I remember hanging up the phone and started just going over it in my head, and without any sort of long period of pondering, I opened my diary that I had at the time and wrote the word 'Saw'." Before writing the word "Saw" in a blood-red, dripping font, the two had not come up with a title. "It was one of those moments that made me aware that some things just really are meant to be. Some things are just waiting there to be discovered", Whannell said.
The character of Jigsaw did not come until months later, when Whannell was working at a job he was unhappy with and began having migraines. Convinced it was a brain tumor, he went to a neurologist to have an MRI; and, while sitting nervously in the waiting room, he thought: What if you were given the news that you had a tumor and you were going to die soon? How would you react to that? He imagined the character Jigsaw having been given one or two years to live and combined that with the idea of Jigsaw putting others in a literal version of the situation but only giving them a few minutes to choose their fate. Wan did not intend to make a "torture porn" film, and the script only had one short segment of torture. He said the film "played out like a mystery thriller". It was not until the sequels that the plot focused more on torture scenes.
Funding and short film Whannell and Wan initially had $30,000 to spend on the film, but as the script developed it was clear that more funds would be needed. The script was optioned by a producer in Sydney for a year but the deal eventually fell through. After other failed attempts to get the script produced in Australia from 2001 to 2002, literary agent Ken Greenblatt read the script and suggested they travel to Los Angeles, where their chances of finding an interested studio were greater. Wan and Whannell initially refused due to lack of traveling funds, but the pair's agent, Stacey Testro, convinced them to go. In order to help studios take interest in the script, Whannell provided A$5,000 (US$5,000) to make a short film based on the script's jaw trap scene, which they thought would prove most effective. Whannell played David, the man wearing the reverse bear trap. Working at the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Whannell and Wan knew cameramen who were willing to provide technical assistance for the short.
Wan shot the short with a 16mm camera over two days and transferred the footage to DVDs to ship along with the script. Whannell wanted to play the lead character in the feature film. The short helped show that Wan and Whannell were a "director-actor team" rather than just wanting to sell the script. Wan said, "Leigh and I just loved the project so much and we wanted a career in filmmaking so we stuck to our guns and said, 'Look, guys, if you want this project, we're coming on board—Leigh has to act in it and I have to direct it.
In early 2003, while in Los Angeles and before they met with producer Gregg Hoffman, Hoffman's friend pulled him into his office and showed him the short. Hoffman said, "About two or three minutes into it, my jaw hit the floor." He quickly showed the short and script to his partners Mark Burg and Oren Koules of Evolution Entertainment. They later formed Twisted Pictures as a horror genre production label. The producers read the screenplay that night and two days later offered Wan and Whannell creative control and 25% of the net profits. Even though Wan and Whannell received "better offers" from studios like DreamWorks Pictures and Gold Circle Films, they were not willing to chance Wan's directing and Whannell acting in the lead role. In order to finance the film, Hoffman, Burg, and Koules put up a second mortgage on their Highland Avenue headquarters. Saw was given a production budget of between $1 million and $1.2 million.
Casting
Cary Elwes was sent the short film on DVD and immediately became interested in playing Dr. Lawrence Gordon in the film. He read the script in one sitting and was drawn in by the "uniqueness and originality" of the story. Koules was Elwes' manager at the time. To prepare for his role as an oncologist, he met with a doctor at UCLA's Department of Neurosurgery. In August 2005, Elwes filed a lawsuit against his management firm and producers of Saw, Evolution Entertainment, alleging "breach of contract and unjust enrichment". Elwes said that he was promised that he would receive a minimum of one percent of the producers' net profits from the film and did not. Elwes claims he only received $53,275 and a salary of $2,587.20. The case was later settled out of court and Elwes reprised his role five years later in Saw 3D.