The best thing about the Saw movies is still their sprawling continuity
A version of this essay on the convoluted lore of Saw was originally published in 2021, to coincide with Spiral ’s release. It has been updated throughout for the release of 2023’s Saw X .
The Saw franchise is the Fast and Furious of torture-porn movies. These films are dedicated both to doubling down on the conceit of James Wan’s original 2004 movie Saw, and to constantly expanding the series’ lore through overindulgent but sincerely applied flashbacks. After two attempted soft reboots — 2017’s Jigsaw and 2021’s Spiral: From the Book of Saw — the 10th entry, Saw X, leans further into the series’ fill-in-the-blanks structure. Its in-between-quel story takes place entirely in the past, further complicating the deep and winding lore that’s really the best thing about this series.
Saw’s central villain, Jigsaw, has actually been dead since Saw III in 2006. But the producers might have buyer’s remorse over that decision, given how he’s proved to be as much of a draw for fans as the ridiculous traps that define the Saw movies. Saw X takes advantage of his popularity by jumping back in time for a story set between the second and third Saw films. While numerous copycats and apprentices spring up later in the movies’ complicated continuity, the specter of the original Jigsaw killer, John Kramer (Tobin Bell), has loomed so large that he’s shown up in almost every entry, and was secretly responsible for practically every new grisly puzzle-murder for five whole films after his demise.
The Saw films can be neatly divided into four distinct eras, but they all share similar traits. By now, fans of the series expect three big things: elaborate traps resulting in self-mutilation, extended flashbacks to fill narrative gaps, and a
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