Two decades ago, the audience at the Sundance Festival was left glued to their seats after the screening of a film that not many expected would become a horror phenomenon. Saw, the debut work of a young Australian director named James Wan, not only revitalized the horror genre at a time when it seemed stagnant, but also introduced a new subgenre: torture porn.
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Subscribe (it's FREE) ►Twenty years later, the Saw saga remains one of the longest-running, most brutal, and iconic in cinema, and its impact on pop culture still resonates in every new horror title that seeks to push the limits of what is bearable. Today we celebrate the twentieth anniversary of a phenomenon that started with the bloodiest torture to embed itself in the eyes of all kinds of viewers.
Saw celebrates two decades
When Saw hit theaters, it did so with a simple yet ingenious premise: two men, Adam (Leigh Whannell) and Dr. Lawrence Gordon (Cary Elwes), wake up chained in a filthy, dark room. Between them, a corpse lies in a pool of blood. Gradually, they discover that they are the latest victims of a macabre killer known as Jigsaw, who does not kill his victims directly but subjects them to sadistic games where they must decide whether to mutilate themselves, torture themselves, or face their worst fears to survive.
Jigsaw, whose real name is John Kramer —played by Tobin Bell in a performance that is already cinema history—, was revealed as one of the most complex and philosophical villains of the genre. Unlike other serial killers in film, Kramer did not see his traps as mere acts of cruelty; his twisted morality led him to believe that he was offering a second chance to people who did not value their lives.
This original approach soon set him apart from iconic monsters like Freddy Krueger or Jason Voorhees, who killed for pleasure or revenge, and placed him in a psychological territory, where his victims were forced to confront their failures and regrets through the most extreme violence.
Shot with a modest budget of $1.2 million, Saw quickly became a box office phenomenon, grossing over 100 million worldwide. But its success was not only a reflection of an audience eager for darker and more disturbing stories, but also of an intriguing narrative and surprising twists that kept viewers on the edge of their seats until the end.
From that first phenomenon that came to impact pop culture in a way that not even James Wan expected, sequels and all kinds of spin-off fictions of the franchise began to be produced. Today, it is one of the most influential sagas in recent cinema, and it is already a unique milestone in the history of horror.
