How many saw movies are they

This short is:. When Saw co-creators, Leigh Whannell and James Wan were trying to get a Saw feature film off the ground, they needed to convince a studio to back it. Utilising a very small cast including Whannell himself , Whannell and Wan put together a nine-minute short to sell their idea to movie studios.

Although the short was rough around the edges, Lionsgate Films liked what they saw in the mini-movie and this led to the first feature-length Saw film being given the green light. So technically, the Saw series begins with Saw 0.

But, do you need to watch it? If you are curious to see Saw 0. However, the short was designed as purely a promotional piece only, so is not part of the movie series and does not fit into the events that follow. In this first entry, two men wake up in a dank bathroom. The men are chained to opposite sides of the room, with no knowledge of how they got there.

In the middle of the room is a body, as well as a tape recorder. In their pockets, each man has a cassette. Upon listening to their cassette tapes, one man is told he should try to escape the room. The other man is told to kill the first man, or his family will die. Over the course of minutes, the movie jumps back and forth in time and place to reveal details about each man — who they are and why they are in this situation. The film also introduces the mysterious Jigsaw, played by Tobin Bell, the orchestrator of this deadly game of cat and mouse.

Employing a simple premise, as well as a small budget, Saw was released around Halloween and was a huge hit for Lionsgate films.

Here are the Saw movies in relatively! The actual test taking place in 's Jigsaw , which sees five people—each with a horrible secret—wake up in a deathtrap-filled barn, is actually one of the very first games orchestrated by John Kramer, taking place well before the events of Saw. In terms of the main, current-day storyline being told by the Saw franchise, James Wan's original film is the starting block.

However, as revealed through many, many subsequent flashbacks, this isn't even close to Kramer's first trap, and by this point, he had already recruited two conspirators: Amanda Young Shawnee Smith and Mark Hoffman Costas Mandylor. The film's actual Jigsaw test, eight people trapped in a house of horrors slowly filling with poisonous gas—Daniel and Amanda Young among them—is presented as happening concurrently, but actually took place a few days prior to John being arrested.

Soon after, Cecil became Jigsaw's very first victim. John Kramer finds out and recruits Hoffman to his cause.

Lawrence Gordon Cary Elwes from the first Saw has resurfaced — and is revealed as an accomplice of Jigsaw from the very beginning. Gordon — down one foot because he had to hacksaw one off to survive his death game — resurfacing as a top Jigsaw disciple just makes everyone in this universe seem far too willing to join forces with a man who mutilated them in the name of tough love. But there are limits to entertaining brutality, and IV crosses them. Jigsaw victims in this chapter are punished for offenses like child abuse and sex crimes, and if violence is going to be your calling card, you have to make a choice: big gore or horrific exploitation.

IV also piles on the twists. You thought Donnie Wahlberg died in II? None of this even has anything to do with the A plot, which is that SWAT guy Reggie — who was introduced in II — now has to survive a Jigsaw game to save a pair of fellow officers.

Also, even though the movie begins with the body of John Kramer being autopsied, the movie whiplashes you in the climax, revealing that IV actually took place in a concurrent timeline with III , with the characters and narratives colliding in the triage operating theater featured in that third movie. Despite how assaulting they are, Saw movies are actually best binged like a TV show — think of it as American Horror Black Mirror Story — because there are so many threads to hold on to, you need to watch as fast as possible to keep up.

It just starts to feel like cheap tricks. Saw cleans up pretty well in these modern times: This is the first movie that actually looks sort of expensive, and it trades the sickening green color palette of the first seven efforts for actual daylight.

Based on a visible license plate, it looks like Saw takes place in New Jersey, and Jigsaw finally makes the state look like something other than a dreary companion universe to Silent Hill.

Pretty much anyone in these films could turn out to be a Jigsaw apprentice, for any reason, and the gaps could be filled in later. Saw IV also has a timeline twist that sets the poor precedent of twists for the sake of twists, with a reveal meant exclusively for the audience: It turns out Saw IV takes place concurrently to Saw III , and their events converge at the end. Saw V reins in some of these sillier elements. For instance, it features a man being sawed in half by a giant pendulum.

Directed by series production designer David Hackl, the film features three barely cohesive plots, two of which are somewhat interesting. On the other, the film also has a series of extended flashbacks which reveal how Hoffman, once a vengeful Jigsaw impersonator, was roped into working with the real Jigsaw as early as the first film. It also grounds its story in something personal for Jigsaw: Its central victim is the merciless health-insurance CEO who denied John Kramer coverage when he was still alive.

Instead, the plot feels like vengeance from beyond the grave, as the CEO is forced into brutal games where he must choose which of his employees will live or die, as his cold, calculating policies become death traps. On the lore front, Saw VI finally reveals the contents of a letter we saw Hoffman leave Amanda in Saw IV , which we first saw her read in Saw III , and which it now turns out concerns events from before the first film.

The 3D conceit alone made the promise of gore essential to the marketing — plenty of guts fly directly at the camera! At least it has an interesting central character, Bobby Dagen Sean Patrick Flanery , who poses as a Jigsaw victim, makes money off TV and book deals, and leads group therapy sessions for victims from other films. The film nominally pays off a theory fans had been discussing for years: Without buildup, it reveals the sudden apprentice twist that Dr.

Gordon has been working with Jigsaw ever since he sawed off his own foot in the first film. Of course, Gordon had been absent on screen for six entries, so this twist is revealed through flashbacks to nearly every preceding film.