The Saw franchise is one the most
iconic, yet hilarious franchises of all time. [clip] - Absolutely.
- Of all time. - Of all time.
- Of all time. [YMS] But what made it so successful, despite the
increasingly poor reception? And where did it go wrong? Like all great stories, we must start at the beginning. James Wan and Leigh Whannell wanted to make a
movie, but they didn't even have a million dollars, so what better way to make a low-budget
movie, than to keep most of it in one room? [clip] The whole concept to the film was
born out of the fact that they had no money. We can't have them leave the room, so we'll
have to chain them somehow to the wall. And then they ask themselves the question
"Wh-Why are they chained there?" [YMS] Somehow, it just managed to work. I
mean, it's not flawless, but it's a horror classic. They made a cross between Cube and Seven, and it was awesome. And the film was so successful, it spawned
six sequels, and two video games. [clip] The fact that they've been true
to those, er, those concepts, I think, is going to strengthen the game, and
the kids are gonna really enjoy it. [YMS] Now, I'm sure I don't really need to explain to you what
Saw is. Jigsaw Killer kidnaps some people, and then kills them, but doesn't really kill them, cuz he's making them kill themselves in a
different way. And it's all so they learn to appreciate life a bit more. Yeah, you weren't appreciated your life hard enough, asshole! It's a clever and tightly-knit story, where
the characters actually have character. And for the budget, the filmmaking was actually pretty impressive, despite the fact that James and Leigh
moved on to make a bunch of bullshit. Although I really like this movie, I'm still left with quite a few questions. The movie opens up with Adam waking up in a bathtub,
but he looks like he's been unconscious for a while. It's not like the water's rippling or anything;
why is he alive? He wasn't hooked up to oxygen. OK, raise your hand if you're going to argue that Jigsaw dropped
him in the bathtub, like, two seconds before the movie started. - OK, now listen to this:
- [clip] Who's that? [YMS] OK, now slap yourself in the face. When would Dr. Gordon have tried yelling? Seems like he's
been awake a lot longer than Adam. What if he drowned? I mean, Dr. Gordon's objective was to kill Adam,
so would Jigsaw just be like, "OK. Um, you win?"? Seems like it's leaving a lot up to chance. But all of Jigsaw's games
go over perfectly, despite the ridiculous amount of variables So what about the poison in the blood? Would that mean that
Jigsaw's just breathing in a bunch of poison the whole movie? Wasn't the plan to kill Adam that way, by making him inhale it? This movie certainly isn't as flawed as the later Saw films. In fact,
the only other issues I have with that are in terms of delivery. [clip] I know it's you, you son of a bitch! - [phone] Larry.
- Ali? [YMS] But one of the biggest reasons why this works as a
stand-alone film, is that it leaves a lot to the imagination. But of course, if you make a film and leave a lot of
unanswered questions, that means if open for a sequel. [clip] Game over. - [interviewer] Right, right.
- But, it's funny, though. [YMS] One year after the release of Saw I, and Saw II's already
out in theaters. Which is pretty crazy if you think about it. But I guess what makes it a Saw movie is that it's
low budget and shot within a short amount of time. And although they stayed true to the first film, this is the
one that redefined it as a series. Now it's just torture porn. [clip] We're not really into, um, you know, gizzards spilling out of, er,
you know, s-somebody's stomach, or, you know, heads being cut off... Despite the sequels of Saw! [YMS] And like all huge horror franchises, the films
became less about the victims and more about the villain. Jigsaw was on his way to becoming a horror icon, and boy
were they lucky to cast Tobin Bell as Jigsaw in the first movie, because as the film's go on, it becomes increasingly
apparent that he was carrying the whole series. [clip] We might as well just right "Insert Tobin Bell
dialogue here.", cuz he's gonna write it himself anyway. No matter what I come up with, that we think is pretty good, he's like, "Well, it's a good try, Mark, but, you know, my character
wouldn't do that", or "My character's [unintelligible]" And you're like, "Wow, Tobin, you're right. That is better!" In Saw IV, there's a trap that wasn't working properly
mechanically, and I had an idea on how we should change it, and so we changed it, and, er, it worked much
better, and it worked better dramatically. Tobin was a guy laying face down for seven days. And he just
laid in that pool of blood. It was never like "Uh, I gotta lay here." It was like "That's what... [gruffly] That's
what I gotta do. I lay in the pool of blood." [YMS] Despite what it created, this is
actually my least favorite of the Saw movies. It's not nearly as intelligent as the original, and
it's not quite stupid enough to be funny yet, although with the amount of variables in this
game, it does make it quite a bit more ridiculous. Like, Jigsaw was really banking on that kid to make it out
alive, otherwise the cop's game wouldn't have worked at all. Not to mention he spent the majority of the movie in police custody.
If someone just followed the two when they left, then he'd be fucked. But at least we get to learn that Jigsaw is a master troll, because
all the Donnie Wahlberg had to do was just sit there and wait. He would have gotten his kid back and
everything. That's all he had to do. And now it turns out that Amanda was part of the Jigsaw crew
before this movie even started. Gotta have a twist, right? [clip] A difficulty with Saw II was "W-What do we do now?
What's our new version of the guy getting up off the floor?" We spent a lot of time trying to come up with, um, new surprises. - Game over.
- I'll fucking kill you! [YMS] One Halloween later and they've
already pumped out another cash magnet, and like Saw II, this one's directed by Darren Lynn Bousman [clip] Anyone can make a gore movie, anyone can. Er, you just go, go down to the store to buy some
pig innards and, and, you know, ketchup and blood. [YMS] So now that they've made that twist at the
end of Saw II, I guess they gotta develop on it a little. So they continue with Amanda as one of the main characters,
but now her character's just becoming less believable. Like, it's already bad enough that we're supposed to believe
that she's like "Yeah, I'll just start killing people with you now.", but now she's just annoying. I guess you don't really have to
understand her character's motivations if you just pass her off as nuts. And although she did a great job selling
the most iconic scene from the first movie, now that her character's completely changed, I don't
think she does that good of a job playing it anymore. [clip] Well, acting is like a game of tennis, so th-the
better your opponent, the better you're gonna play. [YMS] She definitely works a lot better as a
fragile drug addict than an intimidating villain. [clip] Game over
[YMS] "But we made it as a twist, so we're doing it anyway." As for the movie itself, I appreciate the fact
that they've become a bit more fan conscious, Like, they kinda just make fun of the first movie by having
Donnie Wahlberg escape the chain by breaking his foot. But as for the plot, it's kinda dumb. And Jigsaw's
morality lessons are getting kinda questionable. Like, the main game is for some guy who lost a son to a drunk
driver, and apparently he wasn't handling it well enough. So what, did Jigsaw just read the news, and by like, "Oh, some kid just died. I'd better check up on
his dad to make sure he's appreciating his life. Looks like you could use some counseling. I'll just kidnap his daughter." So each of the traps have to deal with whether or
not he decides to save people that were responsible. So he has to save a girl from freezing to death in a meat locker. [clip] - A girl is strung up in a meat locker.
- Yeah. - It's a cold meat locker.
- Yeah. Randomly, at random intervals, ice-cold water is being sprayed
until she freezes to death into a block of ice. Which film? - 6.
- 3. Shoot! [YMS] But how long has she been hanging there? What if the
dude just woke up a little bit later? Would she already be dead? Jigsaw and Amanda have kinda been occupied. You know, if you just rolled up your shirt and put it on
your face, you wouldn't even be hurt trying to save her. But he turns around two seconds later,
and she's already a full block of ice. Oops! He does manage to save one guy, but he just dies
for no reason in the trap that he's not even a part of. OK, you guys should have just all been out of the way, and tied
your shirt to the key and crouched down and it would be fine. And in the midst of this, they've kidnapped a
surgeon so she can perform brain surgery on Jigsaw. They show some scenes of Amanda and Jigsaw setting
up the game for Saw I, but they don't show Dr. Gordon. Probably because he was busy suing them. So, by the end of this, Jigsaw's plan
just happens to work itself out. Again! Like, he knew that the judge was gonna die for no reason, he knew that Amanda wouldn't let the surgeon go for no reason, so that this guy could come in then accidentally
kill his wife. He pretty much knew everything. And he dies at the end of the movie. What a conclusive trilogy. So it's Halloween of 2007 and Saw IV comes out. It seems like a lot of films don't like attaching the number
4 in the title cuz people would be turned off by it. But Saw wears this as a badge of honor. So, where's the plot gonna go from here, now that Jigsaw's dead?
During the last movie, Jigsaw just put a bunch of wax on a tape, and then swallowed it, which confirms my suspicions
that he knew that everything was going to happen. Yeah, he planned for himself to die right then and
there. There's no variables, Jigsaw's an omniscient god. [clip] Is there, eh, a supernatural side side to the character? [YMS] Must've been really hard to swallow but he pulled it off. And the jist of what the tape says is "Ha ha!
I'm dead, but I'm still gonna be doing shit." So we see the first trap: one dude has his eyes sewn
and the other has his mouth sewn, and some reason, the dude who wakes up in the room blind automatically assumes
that the muffled screaming he hears must be his attacker. Too bad, you're dead. So we start of the main plot with a few protagonists left from the
first films, and even then, they only made small appearances. But you gotta work with something. And this guy irresponsibly runs
through the door to try and save his partner, but she's already dead. And now he's Jigsaw's next victim for the
main game. So what's his life lesson? [clip] But with your survival came your...
obsessions. You wanted to save everyone. [YMS] "Yeah, you wanna save everybody." What does
this have to do with appreciating life? Come on, Jigsaw. Why do they even still pretend that Jigsaw has morals? [clip] I think it is, like, the dichotomy of good versus evil, you
know, he does these evil things, but yet, his heart is really good. [clip] Anyway, we learn that Donnie Wahlberg is still alive, and now
he has to go save him. And also battle his obsession to save people. [clip] Their lives hang in the balance of your obsession.
Will you learn how to let go, and truly save them? [YMS] Wh-What the fuck? And the B-story's just a
bunch of conversations with unfamiliar characters. So they decide to show Jigsaw's wife.
And this woman cannot act for shit. All of the other actors in the Saw franchise have been pretty
decent, even a lot of the small appearances in the traps. So how does a woman like this get into one of
the lead roles and play an important character? [clip] Were you a fan of the, of the
franchise before you'd even signed on? I'm not a horror fan, but, you know, my friends were the
producers, and, yeah, I was definitely very excited for them. - Ah, you were friendly with the producers beforehand?
- [murmurs of agreement] How do you know them? - Well, I was engaged to Mark Burg.
- That would do it! [YMS] So, Officer Rigg has to save this woman because Jigsaw
put her in a trap. "She's a prostitute, she deserves to die!" But Darren Lynn Bousman keeps interrupting
the scene with awkward scene transitions. OK, what was so important that you had to interrupt
this scene for? Oh, you got a match on the fingerprints. [clip] - Have you checked this?
- Twice. [YMS] Cool, well I guess we can get back to that scene now. You know, we already wasted five bullets. You'd
think you coulda just shot through her ponytail. He finally frees her anyway, and then, "Oh no! She's tryna kill him!"
This scene is so exciting, I can't wait to see what happens next. - [clip] Hey, the prints just came in from Officer Rigg.
- [YMS] Yeah, the audience really cares about the prints right now. So we get back to this scene, again,
and it turns out Jigsaw blackmailed her. "Ha ha! You tried to save her! And I'm trying to teach you that
saving people is dangerous." It's a self-fulfilling prophecy! So Jigsaw give him the location of the next trap,
meaning he's free to just leave at any time, and he wants to save his buddies, so he doesn't, like, stop
and call for backup, or anything. That would be smart. And Jigsaw tells him that he needs to kidnap this guy. [clip] Be careful, there are cameras
watching. And you must hide your identity. [YMS] Why would that even matter with the cameras
already seeing him coming into the building? Like, you'd think that this guy would piece it
together, you know, with him being a cop. He straps this dude up to his trap, and if he doesn't stab
his eyes within 60 seconds, all of his limbs get torn off. And he fails miserably. Why when you just do both at the same time? "Yeah, I'm just gonna test one out and see if I like it first." Meanwhile, they try to develop the
origin story of why Jigsaw's such a jerk. Gotta love those scene transitions! It's not, like,
really distracting and unnecessary or anything. - As per usual, more people die.
- [clip] I'm sorry! [YMS] And shortly after Rigg leaves each crime
scenes, Strahm shows up to investigate it. [clip] Look out! [YMS] And then the movie just continues wasting
time developing the character of a dead guy. So he uses this guy for his first trap, and he actually passes the test. [clip] You're fucking dead! [YMS] "Well, that was successful." Yeah, you can really
tell how much this guy appreciates life right now. I think it's safe to say this experimental method
of therapy has a really low success rate Well, as least you've convinced yourself it works. So Rigg's made it to the building where Donnie
Wahlberg is. "Oh, man! How do we get out of this one?" [clip] Two people are placed in a fiendishly clever giant set of scales. One might be electrocuted by melting ice, the other one might
have a massive cube of ice dropped on his head to kill him. - Which film?
- Er... - Big block of ice.
- Sssssss... Five - Close, it was four.
- Four. - It was four.
- Four, four. [YMS] And even though Strahm has been investigating
each crime scene after Rigg has already visited it, not to mention all the time he spent interrogating Jigsaw's wife, he's only a few minutes behind Rigg. Not even. They're, like, in
the same building at the same time, but they don't see each other. [clip] - Better hope he doesn't come through that door.
- Who? Who's coming through the door? [YMS] So even through Rigg doesn't know it, all he
has to do to save them is not go through the door. Thus battling his obsession with going
though doors? Where's the morality lesson? This guy's in a trap too, but, I mean, what's
stopping him from just writing on the door, "Just wait, like, 10 minutes, and don't go through here."? Or even blocking the door? And right in the
middle of this important climax, we see this guy. So everyone in the theater that hasn't
seen Saw III goes "Who the fuck is that?" Oh man, what a twist. It turns out that everything
that happened after the opening credits of Saw IV actually happened before the ending of Saw III, so
technically Jigsaw was still alive during all of this. Even though he was busy having a seizure. I think it's safe to say that Jigsaw's no
longer the troll of the film, it's the script. Never have I seen such a cop out, just for the sake of having a twist. [clip] Don't open it! [YMS] And you failed miserably. All you
had to do was wait, like, one second. Sure hope you learned your lesson about
wanting to save people by going through doors. [clip] - You were warned.
- It's Kerry. - Do not go through that door.
- You know never to go through an unsecured door, ever. [YMS] Oh, wait, one more twist. It turns out that
Hoffman was actually helping the whole time. You know, that guy that was gagged on a chair, who we barely
know? Yeah, he's Jigsaw's accomplice. That explains everything. [clip] Game over. [YMS] So Saw V comes out, and after that last twist, anyone who legitimately cared about the story is now just
watching to see what ridiculous twist they come up with next. [clip] - Are you excited about Saw V, or not your thing?
- Um, I'm curious. [YMS] Even the fans of the movie know that it's a clusterfuck by now. [clip] I go up to the directors everyday, and say "What
we doing? What happened? You know, what's going on?" [YMS] But what else are you gonna do on Halloween? You're too old for trick or treating, where else
do you get junk food? You go to the movies. And if you go to the movies on Halloween,
you have to see a horror movie, right? Anyway, I guess everybody got sick those ridiculous scene
transitions, cuz now this one is directed by David Hackl. I guess Darren Lynn Bousman was also making Repo... The movie starts out with the typical Saw
formula by showing somebody in a trap. He has put his hands in a machine that will crush
his bones to dust, or else he'll get cut in half. And this guy actually makes the sacrifice, but he gets cut
in half anyway. Well, that's inconsistent with Jigsaw's morals. But don't worry. It'll all make sense later, I promise. It's the intro, remember, it's probably nowhere near the time line
of the actual movie (if we learned anything from the last one). Speaking at the last movie, now we get
to figure out what happened to Strahm. So he finds Jigsaw's dead body, and then he finds a tape and it's like
"Don't keep snooping around, or you'll probably die", and he's like: - [clip] Fuck you
- [YMS] So he snoops around, and then... It's kinda a pet peeve of mine in movies where
they show someone wearing a mask of something, and then they create, like, a monster sound, even
though the person in the mask is just a human being. No time to think about that, though. Strahm's stuck in a trap. [clip] A box is filled with water, locked
on a man's head. It's filling with water. In order to stop himself drowning, he has to give
himself a tracheotomy with a pen. Which film? Dude, you're asking... the point of this is to, is to,
is to show I have no clue about the whole series. [YMS] So Hoffman gets to walk out of this, and play the
hero, even though he's the one that started all of this. [clip] No way, man.
[YMS] But uh-oh! Strahm made it out alive. Ahhhh! And just in case you can't remember that Hoffman's actually
Jigsaw, it transitions the scene on top of Tobin Bell's face. So Hoffman gets promoted, but he gets
a note that's like "I know who you are", and Strahm seems to be the only one
that's not buying his bullshit story. So after work, he goes and looks on his new game
that he's made, cuz, you know, he's Jigsaw now. He's continuing the legacy, even though
it's not really clear what his motives are. And now there's five people in the
main trap. Cuz it's Saw V? Ha ha ha ha. [clip] Today, five will become one. [YMS] So they each gotta get the keys at the other side of the room
before they get decapitated, but they can only go one at a time. And for some reason, the people that get their
keys first have the most trouble with the locks. So it's, like, super dramatic when they
all pull them off at the same time. Oops, sorry. Meanwhile, even though Strahm's been kicked off the
case, he keeps investigating, and he also keeps talking to himself. [clip] There you are.
[YMS] But he digs up some dirt on Hoffman, and finds out that, Oh my God! He was the
one that killed the guy in the opening scene. [clip] You killed him. Made it look like a Jigsaw trap. [YMS] Gotta say it out loud, just in
case the audience doesn't understand. We get to the next trap, and they've got one minutes
to get cover from nail grenades that are about go off. There's three places to hide, but there's four people. Oh no! So
they just start beating each other up. And one of them dies again. But how is it not really, really, really obvious that more
than one of them could've fit in one of those places. It's the most obvious thing in the world. - Really? Really.
- [clip] It challenges your intelligence. I mean, you really wanna try to start figuring out how these
people can save their own lives, and what's going on, and it's... to me, it's, um... it's just very intelligent. [YMS] So we're back to Hoffman, and by this point, he's
fucking paranoid. That note has really rustled his jimmies. Even the slightest noises are setting him off. [clip] Heel! Heel, I said! No more barking. Asshole!
Jesus Christ! Come on, Peewee. Come on! [YMS] And this woman was completely unfazed by the fact
that this guy just had his gun pointed at her and her dog. This was kind of a weird scene all together. [clip] Do you mind?
- [YMS] [chuckles] So now is in the elevator, but so is Jigsaw... Oh wait. So
this scene actually isn't taking place after he got the note? Even though you transitioned a scene with him
going through a door right after reading the note, and then going in through another door, implying that
was his destination. He's even got the same clothes on. [clip] Viewers now can, can tell the difference
between the past, the present, the future, and, and know where they are with just a
few images, just a few visual references. [YMS] I guess what happens by this point in the writing process, is that they're trying to figure out how to give Tobin Bell
screen time despite that the fact that his character's dead. "Let's just make half of the movie flashbacks." I mean, it's
not like they can pull a Friday the 13th Part VI or anything. "Yeah, we'll just confuse the fuck out of
everybody. That means this movie's smart." Jigsaw's still omniscient, though. I mean, what would happen if
Hoffman took the stairs? Everything just happens to work out. So if you're wondering when this scene actually takes place,
it's after the opening scene of this movie, but before Saw I. Scratch that. It's even before the flashbacks in Saw I. What the fuck? [clip] The audience is gonna, gonna see more pieces to a puzzle
that hopefully, one day, will all come together and make sense. [YMS] Jigsaw's a little mad at this guy for trying to imitate his work, but instead of killing him, he's like "Why don't
you just help me kill a bunch of people?" and he's like "OK, then" "Oh wait, I forgot. It's not
actually killing people, it's making them kill themselves." [clip] Killing is distasteful! [YMS] Is there really a moral dilemma here? Can we
stop pretending like he's not actually killing people? When you set it up so that one person has
to live, while the other person has to die, and you're not really sure which one will be
which, it'll still kill one person. That's murder. Not to mention the fact that you're omniscient,
and you already know the outcome. And it's not like Jigsaw is the only person that pretends it's
not murder, all of the movies pretend like it's not murder. [clip] Jigsaw, although there's some
confusion about it, is actually not a killer. He provides choices for people and there
are consequences for those choices. [YMS] It's trying to be philosophical and make you think about it,
but there's really not much to think about. He's killing people. [clip] If a subject survives my method,
he or she is instantly rehabilitated. You're fucking dead! [YMS] But apparently, it's not even just
him any more. I mean him and Amanda. Yeah, that's right, they recycled the twist, and now it turns
out another person has been helping this whole time. So yeah, in the previous movies, maybe if
the camera just panned a little bit to the left, you would have seen Hoffman just chilling and
eating a sandwich, taking a break, or something. They're not even wearing gloves, so why does everybody
in the first movie think that it's just one person? You'd think they'd find two sets of fingerprints. Or three. Oh wait, I guess I'm not allowed to criticize it,
cuz this is one of the rooms that they never found. - And Jigsaw knew for a fact that no one would ever find it.
- [clip] That leaves a lot to chance. If you're good at anticipating the human
mind, it leaves nothing to chance. [YMS] At best, this is all horribly convenient. A bunch of stupid shit happens that nobody cares about,
and then Strahm just keeps talking to himself, like usual. - [clip] We were all supposed to die.
- [YMS] So what happens to the people in the traps? Well, there's only two of them left, and
they're in the last room, and they realize "Oh my God! We could have all survived
each of the games." That's the twist. You only needed one key to escape the first trap, but it's a good thing
they didn't do that, cuz remember the guy that had the first key? He took, like, all the time that they had to actually get it off. Maybe this twist would have worked if
the second trap wasn't so fucking obvious. Whatever. The point is that now they're fucked. You need to
fill the beaker up with 10 pints of blood to get the door open. Would have been a lot easier with five people. You know what I
would do? I'd stick my hand in just a little bit to open up the trap, then I'd whip my dick out and fill it up with piss. Take that, Jigsaw. Whatever, they make it out alive anyway.
Kind of. Now it's gonna be really hard to fap. Strahm manages to track down Hoffman all the way to some random
place where there is a trap, but this traps for him, apparently. [clip] The only way to survive this room,
is by entering the glass box before you. [YMS] So, did Hoffman just build this trap really quickly
after he found out that Strahm escaped the other thing? Maybe they just had it lying around and
didn't know when to use it up until now. But based on these films, I'd say it's more
likely that Jigsaw just knew everything. They probably built a while ago and was like, "Ahh, Strahm
will probably just, you know, escape out of this one, yer ner..." You know what I would do? I would run out the fucking door with the
tape, and be like "This fucking idiot gave me all the evidence I need." But then Hoffman comes in to check out the room, and Strahm
tries to get the jump on him, and pushes him into the glass box. As soon as that happens, the doors lock,
and now Strahm's trapped in the room. - [clip] Tell me how to open it. How do I open it?
- [YMS] And so now apparently Strahm's gonna die in this room. [clip] However, if you choose not to, you will never
be heard from again. Your body will never be found. [YMS] "Maybe I shouldn't have stopped the tape
halfway through." This is all pretty convenient. Like, did you also know that when you went in that room that Strahm
was gonna push you into a box, or did that just work out for you? He's even rigged it so that Strahm gets set up for all these murders. I guess he's pretty good at anticipating the human mind, especially
considering that he wasn't really trapped in that room in the first place. He could have just left. Well you didn't, and
now you're gonna get crushed Half Life 1 style. Those are some pretty sick hydraulics that they got. Eww! Blood! Gross! Game over! [clip] I guarantee you, you're gonna, at the
end of Saw V, you're gonna be like, "Aw, fuck!" Subtitles by JorWat
I dunno, but Adam said there's a playlist for it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2sw_ExaVsoM
Just checked and it's totally in my playlist too :P