Saw (2004)

Matt (00:00:00):

Hey, this is the Load Bearing Screams episode about Saw. Saw 1 from 2004, the very first saw movie, and we welcome our friends, HFK and Spooky T, great horror content creators and filmmakers to talk about the wider saw franchise, our histories, our relationships with the Saw franchise, the varying degrees to which we all love these movies or do not love these movies. And then really hone in on Saw One First, the history of Saw how James Wan and Leigh Whannell Met in Australia and film school and then on their own, came up with this movie, sold it to a Hollywood production company, and the rest was history. Well, and we talk about that history and how it launched a mega franchise. If none of that interests, you can skip right past that. Look in the episode description for movie discussion and jump right to the part in the episode where Laci, HFK, spooky T and I discuss saw from 2004 and do lots of impressions of Jigsaw. Do you want to play a game and talk about how bad we would be at playing that game? How much help Mr. Jigsaw? Can you please come help me? I need a little assistance. You can hear all of that goodness in the movie discussion. We hope you enjoy.

(00:01:27):

Hello and welcome to Load Bearing Screams. I’m Matt Chokes.

Laci (00:01:31):

And I’m Laci Goff.

Matt (00:01:32):

Joined on the line by, let’s see what Spooky T. The T stands for Terrifying.

Laci (00:01:38):

But it’s already spooky, Matt.

Matt (00:01:40):

Yeah, I know, but I need to spook it up even more.

Laci (00:01:42):

I’m fucking terrified.

Matt (00:01:43):

And H.F.Kill! Welcome.

Laci (00:01:47):

His name is horror film kid. It already has the who in it.

Matt (00:01:48):

We got to make it even more gruesome. Hey guys, welcome to the show.

Derek (00:01:53):

Hello. Hello. Thank you. We’re happy to be here.

Matt (00:01:56):

We’re happy to have you. Long time coming. Movie content creators, physical media collectors, follow them, links in the description. And you guys wanted to talk about Saw.

Laci (00:02:09):

Yeah, we did. We’re worried about your politics on this, but go ahead. Tell us

Matt (00:02:13):

The politics of Saw?

Laci (00:02:14):

Not the politics. You were worried about the morals.

Matt (00:02:18):

I’m not worried about anything.

Laci (00:02:19):

You were like, what did they think Jig saw is

Tiera (00:02:21):

The good Guy, the morals of Saw? I was like, no. So I mean there there’s a little bit of sympathy in there. Sure. Just like a hair because he’s a sweet old

Matt (00:02:31):

Man. Oh, he is very sweet.

Tiera (00:02:33):

That’s what I mean. He’s just a sick old man. Right. And he wants people to live better. Right.

Matt (00:02:39):

Well then I just got to say it right at the front.

Laci (00:02:42):

It’s through the

Matt (00:02:42):

Barbed

Laci (00:02:42):

Wire of love. Yeah.

Matt (00:02:44):

And yeah,

Laci (00:02:45):

Yeah, that’s all.

Matt (00:02:45):

There’s no chance she will ever listen to it. But Jigsaw is just my mother. If my mother were a serial killer, she’d be like the fucking mom. The Starbucks guy was so rude to me. It’s time to play a game. Is your mom a Jewish? No one shows any gratitude. You don’t need a house that big. It’s time to drown in debt. That since was happening to us, but tell us your relationships with the Saw franchise at large. So

Tiera (00:03:13):

Our first date was to saw three, and now we found out that we both liked the Saw movies and that’s why we went. We’re like, oh. He’s like, Hey, you want to go see Saw three Seesaw? How old were you? I want to go see Saw three. Oh my goodness. 16. So yeah, we’ve been together since, what was that 2006 that came out? 2006? Yeah. Yep. So that was our first date was a thaw movie. And then we’ve seen pretty much every single one in theaters except for what? Jigsaw and Spiral.

Derek (00:03:48):

And Jigsaw and Spiral,

Tiera (00:03:51):

Which you guys have a tricky theaters. Introduced it to our son and he thought it was amazing. So I brought it up to him and I was like, because he likes L-G-B-T-Q movies and now the saw Reddit and Fandom has made this very, has made this very Lawrence and Adam or have some sexual tension or whatever. So I brought it up to Felix and I was like, Hey man, you’re going to watch this. I think you’re going to love it. And he did. So then he had all of his friends watch it. They all went as different characters for Halloween last year. He went as Lawrence Gordon, one of his other friends won as Adam and then Hoffman and Strom who were in later movies.

Matt (00:04:31):

That’s

Speaker 5 (00:04:32):

Amazing.

Laci (00:04:34):

I can

Matt (00:04:34):

Actually see it because there is the sort of triumphant moment when they’re finally able to touch each other and you realize

Laci (00:04:41):

That they definitely have big chemistry be better for you or whatever.

Derek (00:04:45):

If you just go see saw the musical, you’ll understand.

Tiera (00:04:48):

Oh my God. Yeah. Saw the musical takes that and it was a great time. So yeah, of, because he saw the musical When it comes around,

Laci (00:04:55):

I’m low on blood, but I’m high on cu. That’s why his face was so white at the end just full of cum.

Matt (00:05:00):

That’s how it happens. That’s actually how the body works. Well, I mean, so this is a beloved franchise. What is it about Saw that you love so much? Why do you love it?

Laci (00:05:10):

Sounds like it’s sentimental.

Matt (00:05:12):

Well, I’m asking them. Shut up.

Derek (00:05:14):

Well, I mean, yeah, it’s sentimental, but it’s just a great movie. I mean, you sit down to watch this movie for the first time and if you have no idea,

Tiera (00:05:23):

Oh dude, you don’t see that.

Derek (00:05:25):

It’s such that mite shalon twist to it where you’re like, what

Tiera (00:05:29):

Fucker was it alive the whole time? And seriously. And then as they go on in the movies, you think I’m going to see saw six. How the hell are they going to be able to tie this in? And they do it. They do it somehow some way. The first six, seven saw movies successfully intertwine and it’s crazy. So that’s really why we kept going.

Laci (00:05:53):

I feel like I didn’t do my homework. I’m going to admit I’ve only seen one, two, and 10 and I’m sorry. I feel like you know what though, but I will watch them

Tiera (00:06:01):

Three. You know what those okay though? Those are my top 3, 1, 2, and 10, so that’s okay. Yay. Okay, good.

Matt (00:06:07):

Alright. And my history is I don’t like the Saw franchise. I do like this movie. I do saw one and I saw X, and for me, the perfect horror franchise is Friday the 13th because

Laci (00:06:22):

Because his formula, it’s

Matt (00:06:23):

Just consistent base hit just craft. It’s not aiming too high. Saw on the other hand, I feel like tries to tell a very intricate story is very into the mythology, whereas to compare it to Friday the 13th, Friday the 13th doesn’t give a shit. It’s just Jason’s back going to kill some campers. And I’m like, yes, great. Just keep giving it to me.

Laci (00:06:43):

Jason’s a warm blanket and saw his homework.

Matt (00:06:48):

It does feel like you’re doing homework while you’re watching. You don’t feel all the saw sequels. You’re like, okay, wait, which part of time are we in? Who knows what? What’s everybody’s relationships to each other?

Laci (00:06:57):

And if you’re going to have to do the work of figuring out how they’re connected, you can’t just sink into it and just be visiting old friends. You’re trying to figure out old friends past lives or something. It’s like watching Lost instead of

Tiera (00:07:11):

Instead set of friends. Yeah, it’s very, very convoluted. Absolutely not as convoluted though as we just watched all the Hell House movies. Oh, do you

Laci (00:07:20):

Recommend

Tiera (00:07:20):

Convoluted? The first one is a phenomenal found footage movie, but the rest of them you could pass.

Laci (00:07:26):

Does Derek even you like that because you don’t found footage, right?

Derek (00:07:31):

No, no, I don’t. But they are solid found footage movies, especially considering the budget for the first three before they really got funding to make movies.

Laci (00:07:42):

The other thing is like this man’s near death, but he’s able to make 11 movies. How many movies are there now?

Matt (00:07:47):

Oh, he just keeps going.

Laci (00:07:48):

He’s fine. Not only is he

Matt (00:07:49):

Dying, dying of brain cancer, he has the mental capacity to not only set up all these traps,

Laci (00:07:56):

He made a doll.

Matt (00:07:57):

He made a doll out of the mask. Not only be a puppeteer, but can make short films and edit them out of his puppets too.

Laci (00:08:03):

He does a lot. That man knows how to rent a warehouse.

Matt (00:08:07):

So I just get so stressed out watching

Laci (00:08:09):

Definitely on the

Tiera (00:08:10):

Spectrum I’d say. And

Derek (00:08:12):

There’s even YouTube video breakdowns of how much he would’ve spent per

Tiera (00:08:15):

Movie. Oh yeah, those are fun. He just watched all of those, how much each one would’ve cost him. It’s good.

Matt (00:08:21):

And to be clear, that stuff, I think that’s funny. I don’t care about that kind of

Laci (00:08:25):

Stuff. Love. Oh yeah. I’m the plot hole person. Yeah,

Matt (00:08:29):

I know. My issue with the series is that I just don’t, other than this first movie and I think the most recent movie, although to be fair, I’ve seen saws 1, 2, 3, 4, and five and saw X. I’ve not seen the intervening movies. I feel like because this one was directed by James Wan, who is a very talented filmmaker. The craft is there in this one that I think is missing from the sequels, which all feel very music video to me. And then also feel like they’re trying to copy James Wan’s style without having the sort of talent and patience and craft to pull it off. And the stuff that I really

Tiera (00:09:04):

Like, I want to say the fourth, fifth and sixth, or maybe fifth and sixth, the cinematographer was somebody who made music videos.

Matt (00:09:14):

So yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Matt

Laci (00:09:15):

Can always sniff it out. Don’t even eat tr Rener to give him the hey, hey.

Matt (00:09:23):

Yeah. And so the stuff that I really like in this first movie is almost none of it has to do with anything you associate with Saul. It’s Adam walking around his apartment and using the flash to it’s just standard horror movie stuff. And it makes sense that a couple years later, James Wan was like, here’s my pitch for a movie. It’s insidious. It’s what if a house was haunted? Great. Love it.

Laci (00:09:44):

Brilliant. Well, you know what? It’s the home alone too of it all. It’s like, oh man, I know why people saw all those tricky traps. I’m going to make the traps more. You can’t help yourself and you have to outdo yourself. But even, I can’t even imagine what six is like. I already saw 10 and it was gross, but I really liked the plot.

Derek (00:10:03):

Not even a lot of traps in the original movie.

Tiera (00:10:05):

I know it’s not people saws torture porn or whatever, and it’s like, I don’t know, man. I’ve seen many other movies that are far more grotesque when did hostile, but they definitely did get to a point. The first one is just a really good horror cop movie and then they do, they just get kind of trying to outdo themselves

Matt (00:10:30):

For sure. Yeah. It’s almost like the first Halloween, which has no blood in it. No gore in it at all. Eating people’s head. Oh, I’m

Laci (00:10:38):

Sorry. No, no, no, no, you’re okay. I sat down and eat dinner and I’m like, oh, this is stupid. I’ve done this before. I’m going to eat and then turn on the movie. And you’re like, no, no, this one’s fine. And I’m like, he’s digging in a shit

Matt (00:10:49):

Toilet. Yeah, that’s true. I was thinking, yeah, you’re not going to see anybody having to do surgery on themselves.

Laci (00:10:54):

That’s not what I, but there’s intestines and shit. There’s innards.

Matt (00:10:58):

It’s gross.

Laci (00:10:59):

I don’t like when people are dirty. Matt. I also don’t like when they step on glass, it was all bad

Matt (00:11:03):

To me, the worst part is putting your hand in the toilet and then just not being able to wash your hands. There’s a top of fucking water sitting right there. This just the whole time

Derek (00:11:13):

I’m thinking

Matt (00:11:13):

He can get to wash his hands.

Tiera (00:11:14):

Water drain the water drain, because the key went down the drain, remember?

Laci (00:11:17):

Yeah, now I

Tiera (00:11:17):

Remember.

Derek (00:11:18):

So the best he’s got is the shit water from the back of the toilet. Sure.

Laci (00:11:20):

Shit. Water the back of the toilet. But also the heart’s written on the tank. Man, look in the tank first. Not too smart, Adam.

Matt (00:11:26):

And then I think I never ever want to go to an escape room because I’m terrible at solving puzzles. Did

Laci (00:11:32):

This movie invent escape? Escape rooms? I’m like, it’s just an escape room. I

Matt (00:11:36):

Know I would go with Laci who would be very competitive and mean to me and yelling at me about not thinking fast enough. And if I was ever in a saw scenario, I’d be like, no, I’m not. Just kill me.

Tiera (00:11:45):

Just saw me.

Matt (00:11:46):

I can’t figure this out.

Tiera (00:11:48):

Yeah, honestly, same though. No, I always say that. What’d you say? I can’t, verbal instructions aren’t my jam.

Laci (00:11:54):

Sorry. Right. Can you act this out man on tape?

Matt (00:11:56):

Can you act this jigsaw would have to come in and really hold my hand and walk me through this to teach me the lesson he wants to teach me. Exactly.

Laci (00:12:03):

He’s telling you you’re a good boy. Please explain that you’re doing really trying real hard, real smart boy. Positive reinforcement.

Matt (00:12:11):

Thanks Jigsaw.

Laci (00:12:13):

Here’s a piece of the puzzle. Eat your

Matt (00:12:15):

Vegetables. Well, but what is your opinion about this movie as compared to the rest of the series?

Tiera (00:12:21):

You could definitely tell I love Lee one L. I love James one, the two of ’em. The things that they’ve done after this, you can tell a lot more heart went into this that they were fresh out of school, really wanting to shoot their shot with this was very thought through attention to detail really is in this. It is. It’s just a good the twist. Do the stuff with the Gordon’s wife and daughter. That stuff was intense too. Yeah, it’s really intense. Not super disgusting, but it’s intense.

Matt (00:13:03):

That’s the thing. There’s so many segments that are so effective on their own. That’s why I think I like this movie and I end up liking this movie a lot because of a simple thing like mother and daughter being held hostage in their house by a creepy man that’s captivating to watch.

Laci (00:13:21):

Especially if you watch Lost because that is the creepiest man. And then the reveal at the end that even he was being driven by a tape, that he was forced to do it. These are the rules. And you can just say that all of this is just a metaphor for capitalism, right? We’re all doing harm to each other. We’re all fucking each other over because we’ve got a little tape in our pocket from Uncle Sam saying, you got to pay your mortgage lazy. You want to play a fucking game? Did

Matt (00:13:46):

You have a gas? I didn’t think about that. Yeah,

Laci (00:13:48):

I know. And you’re my capitalist king. Capitalist. This is a king.

Matt (00:13:53):

But I know that so much of the power of the movie was people not knowing the twist. And I always knew that Tobin Bell was alive. I could still watch it and say This is so well done. The way that he sits up in the back of the frame. And I do wish I could go back in time and very Michael Myers not know that, but it’s still really effective.

Laci (00:14:12):

And it wasn’t ruined for me. I saw night one probably on a Thursday even, because it had so much. I feel like it has a buzz. I feel like everyone was talking about this movie.

Derek (00:14:22):

Yeah. So wait, so you saw it in S?

Laci (00:14:25):

Yeah. Oh, okay. Yeah. I’m old as fuck.

Derek (00:14:28):

Yeah, I saw it in the theater.

Laci (00:14:28):

I think when it came out you were living there. That’s not fair. You cheated. You were a little baby baby in Bassine.

Derek (00:14:33):

No, when this movie came out, my family, my brother was still part-time at the movie theater, but my family wasn’t really there anymore.

Laci (00:14:41):

Carrying you in a little case, like little mini me taking you all the movies, your brother and then you right here, like a little, that’s what I’m picturing.

Tiera (00:14:49):

Tiny, tiny there. He’s always, well not always, but from a very young age. Much taller than his brother.

Laci (00:14:57):

Oh. Oh no. I didn’t have that at all in my, okay, I’ll have to rearrange things in my head. Alright.

Matt (00:15:02):

I was a little film snob. I was like, oh. So no thank you. I fucking

Laci (00:15:05):

Came. So all horror movies, you were like,

Matt (00:15:08):

No, bro, no. Yeah, I was a very annoying, no, there’s serious horror like the Omen and then there’s garbage horror. Like saw. I had to get Deprogrammed from that.

Laci (00:15:18):

You would not have been friends.

Matt (00:15:20):

I’m glad I did, but it is, my film education was bad for that reason.

Laci (00:15:26):

Well at least you had your poster and your fucking Ebert and two thumbs up your ass. Great. Alright, should we get into history? I

Tiera (00:15:32):

Was barely allowed to watch these. So

Laci (00:15:36):

This was your rebellious?

Tiera (00:15:38):

It was. It was. You can’t watch

Laci (00:15:41):

Emo music in this.

Tiera (00:15:42):

Yeah, exactly. I was like, fuck you.

Laci (00:15:44):

Yeah, I’m going to be a hairdresser so that I can color my hair. All the shades of the devil. Yeah. Fuck. It’s this or a fucking piercer. And is this close?

Matt (00:15:55):

I’m going to have legally changed my name to Spooky.

Laci (00:15:58):

It’s right. It’s time to get some documents, make this

Matt (00:16:01):

Official, so you know. All right, let’s talk about the history of SA and we have to go to Australia.

Laci (00:16:32):

Oh mate,

Matt (00:16:33):

It’s 1979 guys. I’m going to be doing a lot of Australian accents. I’m sorry,

Laci (00:16:38):

It’s fucking

Speaker 5 (00:16:38):

Strapping. It never stops

Matt (00:16:40):

Yours. Alright, so in the documentary Not Quite Hollywood, which Laci and I have talked about before about the OS exploitation movement of films in the seventies when Australia was making a lot of movies, James Wan and Lee Wan l are interviewed in this documentary. Now I’ve watched a lot of interviews with these fellows over the past few days and if you ever watch interviews of the two of them together, you will notice James won Barely ever talks. It’s Lee one L, mostly talking, then turns and looks for affirmation at his friend James and then keeps Talking

Laci (00:17:10):

Spectrum.

Matt (00:17:12):

So they were talking about the first Mad Max movie, which ends with Mad Max getting his vengeance on all the members of the Baia gang who killed his wife and child. And to really torment one of the guys, he handcuffs him to a car, throws a hacksaw to him, and then lights like a kerosene lamp on fire. And here’s what Leigh Whannell says. Some guy just gets pushed too fast, his family goes down. That’s how the first and Mad Max is just to straight up seventies revenge movie. Alright, I’ll stop that. So at the end, he’s an anti-hero and he’s driving along and he just happens upon Johnny, the boy who’s recently killed. He makes him handcuff his ankle to the bottom of the car and then throws him the hacksaw. That’s the central conceit of the first saw is these guys with a hacksaw having to cut through a chain. So it was definitely a big direct influence end. And I not don’t think there’s any ripping off in an art. I think you should always just, if you love something from a movie, do it again. It’s fine.

Laci (00:18:13):

I think that’s often how you get a horror movie is you take a fear and then take it to its logical conclusion. He took the thing you couldn’t see and was like, what if it were for completely mundane reasons And that ended, I don’t even think it’s ripping off. I think that’s making

Matt (00:18:26):

It or that’s so cool. I’d love to see a whole movie about that. Or to have a movie where that’s a much bigger part of

Laci (00:18:33):

It. Well, and it’s a surgeon, not a man in a desolate digger. Do not everything’s a digger do there. Sometimes it’s just

Matt (00:18:41):

The

Laci (00:18:41):

Brush. I can never think of the words, but I love that he just makes it so low stakes of a guy almost cheating on his wife and the surgeon. That’s kind of a dick. And it could be any of us. So scary. That’s why horror is great. It’s just you’re chosen just because you were there.

Matt (00:19:00):

So many filmmakers say, I made this movie because I saw another movie and I wanted to make the movie that I saw in my head.

Tiera (00:19:07):

I

Matt (00:19:07):

Thought this movie would be this thing.

Tiera (00:19:09):

A lot of what he’s done, because he’s done a lot more than I have as far as making short films. But even the ones that we’ve done, it definitely has been like a, oh man, that’s really cool. How could the one that we’re working on currently is almost a little without a paddle, a little, the ritual, just little things that you see and you, oh, what if we went this direction with it though? Absolutely. It’s more of a more than just stealing. You know what I mean? I don’t know. Want to steal

Laci (00:19:42):

That and

Tiera (00:19:42):

Make it my

Derek (00:19:42):

Own. Yeah, it’s

Laci (00:19:43):

Hard imitating art. Yeah, exactly. Well, and at the end of the day it all becomes this big tapestry of horror. We’re all pulling inspiration from each. It’s like we’re working together. Yeah,

Matt (00:19:54):

Exactly. Yeah. And I think the first saw is very, very indebted to seven to David Fincher’s. Seven.

Laci (00:20:04):

Yes. The way it shot, the grime, the weird, the over exposure. Whenever they’re in the way back machine seeing things that already happened

Matt (00:20:12):

To even, it’s not set in a specific city. It seems to be set in all cities, but also kind of like

Laci (00:20:19):

A scary city.

Matt (00:20:20):

Just scary city. It’s like a grand theft auto city. If you go into a shitty motel,

Laci (00:20:26):

Will your

Matt (00:20:26):

Baby screaming in the next room.

Laci (00:20:28):

That’s the way I feel about Batman. It’s just full of jokers. How many villains can one town have?

Matt (00:20:33):

Right? But also maybe it’s all in a simulation. I feel like if you drove three blocks that way, you’d hit the wire frames and be like, oh God, the world ends here.

Laci (00:20:42):

I just have to go down one of those pipes and then pop up in a better town than Mario World.

Matt (00:20:46):

Right. So James Wan and Lee Wonell. James Wan is a Malaysian Chinese. He spent the first seven years of his life in Malaysia before moving to Australia. Went to Melbourne, Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology for film school where he met Lee Wonell, who grew up in Melbourne. So there’s using as my main source, a 2010 interview with these guys by Scott Tobias of the AV club. So Wanel said quote about their film school days on review days where everybody in the class would have to show their work. There was a lot of black and white and super eight films where we’d see a sheet of plastic with somebody’s vagina being projected onto it. And that was projected for 10 minutes. You were just sitting there watching this sort of artsy short film. And then James came along and they screened his film and I believe it was called Zombie Apocalypse or something like that. And I just loved it. I couldn’t believe that there was somebody in the class who was into that sort of stuff who loved horror films and so-called schlock. I grabbed James in the hallway and was like, did you make that film? And we became friends and that was our shared bond that we loved all this stuff that the rest of the school felt was beneath them.

Laci (00:21:47):

I grabbed him in the hallway, I asked him a loud question he didn’t answer. And then from then on we

Matt (00:21:54):

Allegedly we’re not actually diagnosed

Laci (00:21:56):

With a stranger. Every story of my fucking life, as I grab a person, we’re going to get married. And

Matt (00:22:02):

Matt’s like, that’s how we happened. James and I didn’t even think of Saul until a few years after film school because when we finished film school, we had that existential problem by facing all film school graduates, namely poverty. So we were like, how are we going to make a film when we have all these big ideas? Big ideas, cost money. So we basically were like, if we’re going to make a film, it’s going to have to cost about $5,000. And the solution to that was to have a movie with two people in a room,

Laci (00:22:26):

Which is all I remember. I thought the entire movie was in that room. And then I’m like, where are they going?

Matt (00:22:30):

Yeah.

Laci (00:22:31):

Holy shit.

Matt (00:22:31):

And you guys, as filmmakers I’m sure must think about this a lot.

Tiera (00:22:36):

Something I don’t, the bane of our existence and we’re like, where can we film outside? That’s the price.

Derek (00:22:42):

$5,000. We got five bucks if we’re lucky. Yeah,

Tiera (00:22:45):

Exactly. When we spend $5 on that little water pouch for the phone so we can get the underwater shot, whatever.

Laci (00:22:53):

But that gives you a whole other place to shoot underwater

Tiera (00:22:56):

Water. I’m like, now we can be underwater for five bucks.

Laci (00:22:58):

Now you’re fucking Avatar, which is Derek’s favorite movie. All the avatar

Derek (00:23:05):

I’m looking at the hate in James want eyes in this picture going, yeah, that’s how I feel. And then Tier is the one explaining everything and I’m just Deering headlights,

Matt (00:23:17):

You’re doing a good

Speaker 5 (00:23:18):

Job.

Matt (00:23:19):

Remember George R. Martin explaining why he wrote The Game of Thrones novels is he went and worked in Hollywood as a screenwriter for a long time and he’s just meeting after meeting of being told that’s way too expensive. These ideas you had. And he is like, well fuck it. I’m just going to go back to writing novels where no one can tell me that battles way too expensive to shoot. So yeah, you can just, whatever you think of, just put it down on the page.

Laci (00:23:44):

Luckily live in a really, I mean easy to say, I don’t live there and have to endure the fucking hills and snow and all this shit, but it’s a very pretty place to shoot. So at least they moved into some nice scenery, volunteered.

Derek (00:24:01):

We had a friend who questioned whether we green screened the leaves in the background of the Carnage collection because he was like, it’s too green. I’m like, motherfucker, you lived here for 30 years yourself. You know that it gets green in the fall.

Matt (00:24:14):

Now that’s too green.

Laci (00:24:16):

Yes, that blew the whole budget on leaves.

Matt (00:24:19):

No, you’re doing a good job. You’re raising people’s consciousness about the world around them. There’s people online posting. When I was a kid, there weren’t this many clouds and the sky used to be a different color. What even is reality anymore? Who knows?

Speaker 6 (00:24:33):

Birds aren’t real.

Matt (00:24:33):

Alright, so they were trading, they were trying to come up with what’s the coolest idea that you and I can raise money realistically by ourselves to film in Australia. And so they were trading pitches back and forth and James Wan said quote the third one, like the third pitch he had that luckily Lee really latched onto was a really simple concept about two guys in a room. And lying between them was a dead body on the floor. They have a gun and a tape player. And I said to Lee, I don’t know what happens from there, but I do know at the end, dah, dah, dah, happens, whatever that cool, I knew there was a twist at the end, but all that stuff in between, I had no idea what happened. And Lee goes, there might be something there. And then he went off and thought about it. The first thing he did was call me back and say, James, I haven’t fully worked anything out, but I thought of a title for it. It’s called Saw

Speaker 5 (00:25:21):

Wow.

Matt (00:25:23):

Lee one L wrote the script. He incorporated this idea he had when he was getting chronic migraines, was convinced he had a brain tumor and went to a

Laci (00:25:31):

Neurologist. That’s what I think our kid has because of all the migraines. Definitely a tumor. They won’t tell me though.

Matt (00:25:37):

Which rude,

Laci (00:25:38):

Just tell me.

Matt (00:25:39):

But when this happened to Lee Wael that gave him an idea for a movie if, or he asked, what if I found out I was going to die? That was his idea. Just sort of a strand of an idea. Oh, I can incorporate that into saw. I thought

Laci (00:25:51):

You were going to say that the head contraption that goes into the jawbone is to help with TMJ, which causes migraines.

Matt (00:25:56):

Maybe that’s actually what’s going on too.

Laci (00:25:58):

I thought that that was,

Tiera (00:25:59):

I mean end result is you’re dead. So you ain’t feeling the TMJ anymore, man. It’s all good.

Speaker 5 (00:26:04):

That’s so true. It would cure so

Laci (00:26:05):

Many things.

Matt (00:26:06):

It is technically a cure. That’s right.

Speaker 5 (00:26:08):

You should find print. We got to go on

Laci (00:26:11):

The road.

Matt (00:26:11):

So like I said, they assumed they would be raising money and shooting it themselves in Australia, but as they developed their script, they realized

Laci (00:26:18):

People hate Australians. Yeah, I was thinking that.

Matt (00:26:20):

Yeah, people hate Australians.

Laci (00:26:21):

You said they were doing the worst American accents you ever heard. And I said, I wonder why they just didn’t do Australian accents. And I thought, well, because that would be distracting to Americans.

Matt (00:26:31):

That’s the thing.

Laci (00:26:32):

Don’t distract us, man.

Matt (00:26:34):

We’ll get to the short film in a moment, which is all Australians doing the worst American accents you’ve ever heard

Laci (00:26:39):

Barbecue.

Matt (00:26:39):

Which is just why just speak. Just speak your accent.

Laci (00:26:43):

You’re just copying me, man.

Matt (00:26:44):

Yeah,

Laci (00:26:45):

You’re copying.

Matt (00:26:45):

So they realized our script is not something we can shoot for five. We’re going to need some real money. We’re going to need to actually get financing. But they really wanted to, James Wan was the director. Leon l was the actor. They wanted to shop it with themselves attached. And they say in retrospect, this was because they were dumb and naive and didn’t know how the industry worked. But they took a meeting, they were convinced to go to la, but before they did it, they wanted to have a proof of concept. So they self-finance a short film, just shooting a couple scenes from their script with Lee Wonell playing the character who becomes Amanda in the final movie with the Bear Trap. And they make the short film they call saw. Have you guys seen the Saw short film?

Speaker 6 (00:27:33):

Yes.

Matt (00:27:34):

Yeah. It’s very interesting. I think I want to play a minute from it just to show what they were able to do on a

Laci (00:27:41):

Please do.

Matt (00:27:42):

Yeah. Shooting. Shooting for two days for like $5,000. Yeah. So they said that without realizing it, this was a good idea because they started talking to producers in Hollywood and realized no producers like reading scripts. Everybody has a DD. But when they said, but we have this Dave ad, you can watch what we think they’re like, oh great. And so the very first meeting they had was with a company called Evolution Entertainment who were mostly a talent management company, but they were trying to get into production and they agreed to buy it from them, giving them creative control. They gave them 25% of the profits, let Wan direct let Lee one l be the star. And they had a roster of talent like Danny Glover and Elle was who could star in the movie.

Laci (00:28:32):

I was wondering where Danny Glover came from.

Matt (00:28:33):

So this is one of those cases where shooting a short film like a smile was the same way a few years ago

Laci (00:28:41):

Because it’s such a visual. You need the visual and then there’s the shit on their head and they’re like freaking out. Freaking out and they can’t get the thing. That’s why you can’t do it that way, Matt.

Matt (00:28:52):

You

Laci (00:28:52):

Wouldn’t buy that.

Matt (00:28:53):

Well, I agree. And the things that work for me about this movie, I don’t really like the script for this movie. I think it’s very, very overwritten. I think especially Levi’s character. He has so many one-liners that I embarrassing he can’t act. Well

Derek (00:29:08):

That’s also an issue.

Tiera (00:29:09):

Yeah, he needs to be behind the camera.

Derek (00:29:10):

He definitely needs to be behind the script, behind the camera. Although his character in Cuties, which I feel like is almost probably more like how he’s in real life. Oh,

Tiera (00:29:20):

Oh, cooties.

Derek (00:29:20):

He does good in that. But in this movie it’s very overacting.

Tiera (00:29:25):

Yeah. He was a science teacher in Coie, the weirdo science teacher. Have you seen Cooties?

Matt (00:29:30):

No. No.

Tiera (00:29:30):

Is that a kid’s movie? No, we remember we watched it for Popcorn Club. That was my, I watch it. Laci doesn’t remember things. Yeah, the kids that go feral with the chicken nuggets.

Matt (00:29:41):

Well that sounds good.

Tiera (00:29:42):

The tainted chicken nuggets make the kids turn into zombies and the teachers have to fight off the kids.

Laci (00:29:48):

Oh yes. That was one of the very first ones we watched and they fucking kick a kid across the beat. God, that was a good, that sounds

Tiera (00:29:56):

Good. Was the science teacher who was awkward and fucking weird as fuck a movie. He did a good job with that.

Laci (00:30:05):

Okay. No, well thank you for showing me the cover. But that was one that

Tiera (00:30:08):

He wrote also. He wrote ies. You could tell that it’s a while after Saw, like 15 years after saw

Matt (00:30:17):

This saw feels like a first film both in the way it’s directed, but especially the way

Laci (00:30:22):

It’s written, how serious it takes itself.

Matt (00:30:24):

But I think you can always tell with first films where a director’s trying every trick they’ve ever wanted to try all fancy transitions and weird morphs like a clock will morph into another circle. And then every clever one-liner you’ve ever come up with is going to make its way into a script and you’re going to jump around in time. I

Laci (00:30:41):

Think Adam is a believable guy. I feel like I know that guy. I feel like he seems sketchy and jumpy and weird in the beginning. And then once I understand why he’s acting that way,

Matt (00:30:54):

Yeah, maybe it’s

Laci (00:30:55):

Just Stockholm Syndrome, but I settle into him.

Matt (00:30:58):

He needs to carry the movie. I mean, I think just get a more experienced actor and the movie improves 30%. For me,

Laci (00:31:05):

It was just such a novel thing. I’d never seen anything like it. And the reveal at the end was like, well, it was mind blowing, which is perfect because that man’s mind was blown. You know what though? Wait, I’m sorry. Is there a reveal at the end of the second one? The third, did he mite Shamble on himself into a box? Do they go on with the reveals?

Tiera (00:31:26):

Hello? Zep usually starts playing and then that’s when it’s like they usually in some sort of quick Montagey way show you, but wait, this guy was here and then it goes into a hole with the song and I hate it. I always hate that part. That’s the best bar. I’m with you. Hello, Z. I’m like, oh, here we go. Connect. Because

Matt (00:31:51):

Usually it’s like, boy, this movie thinks I remember everything that happened a lot better than I actually did.

Laci (00:31:56):

I remember that boy that threw the paper.

Matt (00:31:59):

No,

Laci (00:31:59):

He was in the mafia.

Matt (00:32:00):

But it even happens in this movie. It even happens in Saw, it even happens in saw one where he is like The key was in the bathtub the whole time. And then he’s like, oh my God, I pulled the drain and the thing went down the thing. And I’m like, I don’t remember that. That happened in minute one of the movie.

Laci (00:32:16):

Isn’t there like a weird blue light too in the very beginning? Yes. That shows you he’s in a tub. What was he reading? Is Reading Light? I’m not sure what that was about. I’m not sure. It never comes.

Matt (00:32:26):

It’s a reading light. Yeah, just give him some reading material

Laci (00:32:28):

Just on his head. It’s a bathroom reader and he’s in a bathroom, so it’s perfect.

Matt (00:32:33):

So this company, evolution Entertainment, like I said, wanted to get into production and this is just perfect confluence of we want to make a movie just so that we own it. It doesn’t even have to get distribution, we just want to have it so we can show people what we’re capable of. But they do produce it for a million dollars. They shoot it over 18 days. There was very little time to do anything. Wow. I think if they’d had more time, Carrie ELs can go back and deify his accent for a lot of these line readings. Especially when he shouts

Laci (00:33:05):

Bastard and they don’t make him say as you wish. Even one time he could have from Princess. Yes. He could have done one little callback for the girlies in the crowd.

Matt (00:33:15):

Yeah. Laci, he Laci’s like he did as you wish. 90 minutes into the movie Laci’s like, this guy just reminds me so much of the Princess Bride guy.

Laci (00:33:21):

And I went into the kitchen thinking you were going to laugh at me. And you’re like, that’s him. And I went, fuck yes. Yes. Memory.

Matt (00:33:29):

But I mean, just being able to have so many good actors in it, like Danny Glover and Carrie Elis and Michael Emerson and even Dina Meyer. I think it really elevates the movie.

Laci (00:33:44):

The Girl that ends up going on to the next one.

Matt (00:33:46):

Shawnee Smith. Yeah, she’s really good.

Laci (00:33:48):

But did this movie franchise make her, because I feel like I

Matt (00:33:51):

From,

Laci (00:33:51):

She was familiar with her from Teen Stuff.

Matt (00:33:53):

Maybe she was in teen movies, she was on television. Becker. You remember

Laci (00:33:56):

Becker? I do remember Becker. That was one of the random sitcoms I did watch.

Matt (00:34:00):

But she becomes the co-lead of the franchise.

Laci (00:34:02):

Right? That’s what I remember.

Matt (00:34:04):

Yeah. So if she does nothing else, she’ll make a comfortable living at Cons for the rest of her life.

Laci (00:34:10):

The horror community takes care of its own.

Matt (00:34:12):

They shoot the movie over 18 days, tiny budget, but they go to Sundance and Lionsgate buys it right away and they put it out in theaters in October and it is a massive hit, hundred million dollars. And they’re like, alright, franchise. We’re pumping these out, baby. Every October new saw James Wan leaves the franchise. After the first movie, Lee won Outstate on, he wrote Saw two and three, and then he left. But they made, let’s see, there was a saw movie every year through 2010. Then they took seven years off. They made Jigsaw and then they put out Spiral. The book of saw in 2021.

Laci (00:34:48):

Did Tobin person stay the whole time?

Matt (00:34:50):

Yeah. Even though his character dies and saw three, he’s just always there now. He’s

Tiera (00:34:55):

Still, he’s been in everyone. Yeah.

Matt (00:34:58):

Yeah. He thought of everything. He’s permanently Jamie Kennedy from Scream three. Like, oh, I found another tape of Jigsaw.

Speaker 5 (00:35:06):

Okay. He just got to have a camera.

Matt (00:35:09):

I think this is another thing that annoys me about Jigsaw. Laci and I have talked about this on the podcast that we’re both sick of masterminds in movies that I find it just kind of boring. The character who’s thought of all the angles and anticipated your every

Laci (00:35:21):

Move. It depends on how it’s pulled off. Sometimes it really, really works for me. And then when the reason why everything works in a sloppy way or a lazy way, then it’s very, it depends.

Matt (00:35:33):

It depends.

Laci (00:35:33):

I’m kind of nuanced on

Matt (00:35:35):

It. Oh, okay. Yeah, I guess so.

Tiera (00:35:36):

No, it is. We do definitely prefer, like you were saying earlier about the Friday of the 13th, it’s like, this is mindless shit, man. I just want to watch you fuck some people up. Man, I don’t like having to think about a movie first. That’s why Hell House was disappointing. I’ll say that. We just watched the newest one. I didn’t remember that shit.

Laci (00:35:54):

What the fuck? Right? Why do I need to study for this before watching it? What is this? Yeah.

Matt (00:36:00):

Will we get into anything like, well, but why does he do what he does and who may don’t care? Don’t want to know.

Laci (00:36:06):

Unless it’s like Mindhunter where that’s the point.

Matt (00:36:09):

Well then we’re talking about a different thing. Yeah, whatever. I think that the Saw series, I think that’s another thing because it’s sort of aiming to also be kind of a David Fincher cop thriller. That’s kind of the part that doesn’t appeal. Just give me a straightforward, spooky horror movie. Go. He’s

Laci (00:36:27):

Fucked up. He likes dolls. He makes traps. I don’t care that they belong in him or not. At the end of the day, that’s judgment call. Who’s got here? Exactly.

Matt (00:36:35):

Oh, I forgot to say this about James Wan. He said in an interview that after Lee Wonell gave him the script foresaw, he’s like, but where’s the doll? And he’s like, huh. James Wan’s obsessed with dolls and puppets. So it’s like you got to put a doll in everything. Insidious Annabel.

Tiera (00:36:50):

Dead silence.

Matt (00:36:51):

Dead silence.

Tiera (00:36:51):

Yeah.

Matt (00:36:52):

Yeah. Loves puppets.

Tiera (00:36:54):

Because Billy the Puppet makes an appearance in dead silence as well. Who’s

Matt (00:36:59):

Billy?

Tiera (00:36:59):

Billy’s the little guy in this tricycle with the little shiny shoes

Matt (00:37:03):

Like that. I dunno. He has a name that Billy.

Tiera (00:37:04):

Yeah, his name’s Billy. I didn’t know he

Matt (00:37:05):

Has a name.

Laci (00:37:06):

I wouldn’t guess Billy

Matt (00:37:07):

The, I just think of him as Jigsaw.

Laci (00:37:09):

I thought he was jigsaw.

Matt (00:37:10):

Yeah, everybody does.

Laci (00:37:11):

Yeah. It’s okay. I’m alright. Oh, okay. I guess we’re just a couple of fucking normies. We should, Hey. Well now you know Billy. Billy. It’s just so innocent.

Matt (00:37:21):

Alright, so James, so here’s what happened to these guys after they made saw. Well, they made dead silence, which we just talked about. You guys like dead silence.

Tiera (00:37:29):

Fucking love dead silence.

Matt (00:37:31):

I saw it in theaters and hated it. I think I just didn’t understand what I was watching. I didn’t understand. There can also be horror comedies. I’d never seen The Evil Dead Laci. And I watched it a few years ago and I liked it a lot more.

Laci (00:37:47):

I remember liking it.

Matt (00:37:48):

But they said that this was trial by combat or trial by Fire in Hollywood because they had such a great experience with Saw. Then they go make a movie for a big studio for Universal who buy their pitch and they’re like, great, this is going to be great once again. But then Universal’s like, well, we have lots of notes and we want you to change everything. And so they realized that your vision can get Futzed with, so they said this is a product of studio interference.

Laci (00:38:15):

Oh, yuck.

Matt (00:38:16):

And it got bad reviews and performed badly at the box office the same year. James Wan directed death sentence with Kevin Bacon,

Derek (00:38:23):

Which fucking

Matt (00:38:25):

Was

Derek (00:38:25):

Based on that movie was awesome.

Matt (00:38:26):

Really?

Derek (00:38:27):

Yeah. Oh, movie’s fucking incredible.

Matt (00:38:30):

I’ve never seen it. I’ve actually never seen any of the Death Wish movies. It’s like a complete blind spot for me.

Speaker 5 (00:38:35):

I want to watch it if you watch it.

Matt (00:38:37):

Alright.

Tiera (00:38:37):

Death sentence is awesome. It’s like a revenge film. But John Goodman’s in it.

Laci (00:38:46):

Who is

Tiera (00:38:46):

John Goodman?

Laci (00:38:48):

Oh, we both love John Goodman. That’s

Matt (00:38:50):

A good man.

Laci (00:38:50):

That’s a good man.

Matt (00:38:53):

But it did badly too. So they just go back to basics and they’re like, we’re going to go make a low budget horror movie for an independent studio. And they make Insidious, which is an enormous hit. Spawns a major franchise, and then they make the No, no, Wan without one L makes the Conjuring also a major hit. Spawns a massive franchise.

Laci (00:39:12):

I might be misremembering this, but I remember Insidious coming out at a time where I feel like I kept going to the movies for horror and not being scared. It was like after the ring scared the fuck out of me. Shut up Derek Closet. Bitch. He randomly sends me closet Bitch just to me on a random day just to fuck with me. Now after

Matt (00:39:32):

We said that on the podcast, I did hear from people who said, that’s the scariest shit I’ve

Laci (00:39:35):

Ever seen this

Tiera (00:39:36):

Closet bitch. Scary

Laci (00:39:37):

Fuck. Thank

Tiera (00:39:37):

You. Same. I walked out of the theater, I was almost crying and my friend was like, it’ll be okay. I

Laci (00:39:41):

Put my head down. I got up and I was like, if they can do that with a closet, what are they going to do to me? Exactly. And I don’t know if my memory is correct, but I remember I saw Insidious. I was like, okay, horror is back. And I just remember being truly scared.

Matt (00:39:55):

You and I watched it in my apartment in New Orleans, and I remember both of us being like, why are we doing this? This is so scary, so dumb. I watched it last week. I did not find it scary. But it is like he’s just, look at him, he’s insidious. James won is just great at building tension with the camera, just at the nuts and bolts of filmings using the camera to generate tension using sound to generate tension. He’s got that M Night Shalon thing of it doesn’t matter what the movie’s about because Insidious in the Conj movies are just like, some people are haunted.

Laci (00:40:27):

You’re like, I know some shit’s going to come out of a corner, but which corner? And I know when they close the door, it’s going to be a thing, but not every single time. So which door? Yeah, I can’t drink wine and watch these movies.

Matt (00:40:37):

No, you’ll throw it.

Laci (00:40:38):

And I’ve done it many times.

Matt (00:40:40):

Insidious Two is a major hit. And so James Wan gets caught up to the Big Leaves, which means Franchise Town. Oh no. Baby Directs Furious Seven, the seventh Fast and Furious movie, the biggest hit in the franchise. Good for you. And you then go make Aquaman one of the best reviewed superhero movies of the era also in international Blockbuster. The Conjuring two is huge. Lee won Al. Meanwhile directed, made his directorial debut within Insidious three directed upgrade, which was,

Laci (00:41:08):

I’ve been hearing people talk about Upgrade just recently, is that,

Matt (00:41:11):

I think it’s a well liked movie. I haven’t seen it, but it was a nice little hit. And he directed The Invisible Man with Elizabeth Moss,

Laci (00:41:20):

Who we love,

Matt (00:41:20):

Which was very good. And then this year he directed Wolfman, which was a disappointment like commercially. I don’t know if, did you guys see it?

Tiera (00:41:27):

See, we really liked it. Yeah. It was

Matt (00:41:29):

Okay. Yeah, I should see it.

Tiera (00:41:30):

It wasn’t what people were, it probably shouldn’t have had the Wolfman moniker. If you take that out of it though and just watch it, it’s really good. It’s existential. It’s like Laci. It’ll hit you in a weird way if you were to watch it. It made me really emotional, just so you know.

Matt (00:41:53):

I love that. You know these things about Laci. I need to, so few, everybody’s always telling Laci to watch movies and I think she’s not. No. She watch.

Tiera (00:42:00):

No. So if you watch Wolfman Yeah, it might wreck you for a couple of days, dude. Right in the fields.

Laci (00:42:05):

Okay then I will. Thank you. I appreciate that. No, thank you.

Tiera (00:42:08):

Yeah, it’s heavy.

Matt (00:42:09):

But yeah, for Universal, there’s like, but we own the Wolf man. What’s the point of owning the wolf Man? If we can’t call a movie Wolf Man, put the So you got to put the wolf man on it.

Tiera (00:42:18):

Yeah. And it should have looked more like everybody’s Wolfman that we know and love and it didn’t. And that was mostly the downer. It was the look of it. It was feral. Yeah, it was feral, but it wasn’t Sounds very Ron Cheney, Jr. Wolf Man or American Werewolf in London. Wolf Man.

Laci (00:42:39):

What are the other options? What the fuck is it Standing Dog it? Yeah. Wet Rat. Oh, oh no, it’s ours. Our tired brain hamster. It’s our brain hamster that fell off the wheel. That’s what it looks like. That’s what we describe when we’ve had a long day. We just post a picture of the most tired gerbil. That’s what he

Matt (00:42:59):

Looked like. Long day at the Gerbil Factory.

Laci (00:43:01):

That’s how it feels. Our jobs are this important. Look what it’s done to my gerbil.

Matt (00:43:07):

It’s interesting. He really seemed like he was most interested in being an actor, and instead he became very, very successful writer and a very successful director too.

Laci (00:43:15):

Do you think he saw himself in the saw movie and was like, oh,

Matt (00:43:18):

I don’t know.

Laci (00:43:19):

I shouldn’t be doing that.

Tiera (00:43:20):

I think he was proud. Didn’t want to. He didn’t want to act. He didn’t want to act. What he most wants to do is something original. They talked to him after Wolfman. He got to do Invisible Man. He got to do Wolfman. But he said he really, really wants the opportunity to do something original again. Like saw

Matt (00:43:37):

They did a Saw XA few years ago. It was like the best received movie since the first one made a lot of money. And you figure, well, they’re going to start cranking out saw movies again, weirdly. No, there’s been weird. I don’t know. But then in June of this year, Blumhouse bought out Twisted Pictures, ownership of Saw, brought, saw into Blumhouse, which I think Blumhouse needed. They’ve been struggling.

Speaker 5 (00:43:59):

Needed. Yes.

Matt (00:43:59):

And they made a deal with James W to bring him back to the franchise in some sort of unspecified creative capacity for the first time since Saw won. Which does this mean they’re just going to pay him money to say James won producer.

Laci (00:44:11):

I don’t think he’d let that happen. I think he cares about what he makes.

Matt (00:44:15):

So that’s the history of Saw. And now we’ll talk about the movie. The movie, which opens in pain and it’s Lee one l underneath the water with a frigging locket or something floating above him. I

Tiera (00:45:04):

Know he looks like the heart of the ocean as some shit, dude.

Matt (00:45:11):

Yeah, we can put that.

Laci (00:45:13):

It’s one of those fish that shouldn’t be alive with the little light on it. A lamp fish.

Matt (00:45:18):

Yeah. Or from Mario. From the underwater levels.

Laci (00:45:20):

She’s got one piranha, one lamb fish. And one man in that time

Matt (00:45:23):

Pan flew his playing, but he jumps out of the bathtub and he is like, oh, what am I doing here? Oh, soaking what

Speaker 5 (00:45:28):

I’m,

Matt (00:45:30):

And he says, oh shit, I’m probably dead. And then he hears a response. Go Look. He’s just the worst American. You are not dead. There’s no point in yelling. I already tried that and it sounds so disembodied because I don’t know how much of this is adr.

Laci (00:45:47):

It’s so hard to watch this movie now and not remember how effective all of this was because the movie is shot like a who done it. And so there’s the big reveal that no, it wasn’t this other scary man. I forgot the whole time. The movie’s trying to make you doubt every single person.

Matt (00:46:04):

Yeah, it is like an incredible conceit for a movie. It’s just I wake up in a room. I mean there’s been movies that have done this like a cube, but I wake up in the bathroom. What kind of bathroom is this by the way? It’s probably had, yeah,

Tiera (00:46:20):

It’s gnarly, dude. It’s where mannequins

Laci (00:46:22):

Bathe. It’s,

Tiera (00:46:22):

It’s huge.

Laci (00:46:26):

And it’s got a fucking freezer door that opens warehouse access it. Why the fuck is

Tiera (00:46:31):

It a freezer

Laci (00:46:31):

Door? Why is there a two-way mirror in your bathroom? Everyone? What the fuck? A lot of pipes. And also put me in wet jeans for three hours. I’m already in a horror movie.

Matt (00:46:43):

That’s the thing. Yes.

Laci (00:46:44):

Fuck that. The wet

Matt (00:46:44):

Jeans. Wet socks. I

Laci (00:46:45):

Feel the wetness. He’s

Matt (00:46:47):

Just hand

Laci (00:46:48):

Flopping around.

Matt (00:46:50):

I’d kill myself right there just for that. Use the plug. Oh yeah. But I can imagine just selling the script just based on that conceit. As you wake up in a bathroom with a strange man, you’re chain to a thing. What’s going on?

Laci (00:47:03):

Neither of you can reach each other. Neither of you can reach the dead man in the middle. Your leg hurts.

Matt (00:47:08):

So we got Dr. Lawrence Gordon is played by Carrie Elwes and we’ve got Adam played by Lee Wonell and a lot of the movies, just the two of them in a room. I mean, do we want to, there’s so much just escape room shit that my brain kind of shuts off. I’m just so bad at solving puzzles and all follow the X to the heart, to the toilet, to the,

Tiera (00:47:32):

Yeah. A lot of the stuff with the two of them is silly. And that’s why if you do have an opportunity, if the saw the musical comes around, the whole thing is a parity of Saw. It is just his makeup. Fricking Lawrence, Carrie El West here, his makeup is just awful.

Laci (00:47:56):

He’s got a powdered wig. He looks like a, he’s Marie Antoinette. They

Tiera (00:48:01):

Only did his face. They’re like, fuck his arms, his neck. Anything else is fine. We don’t have time for that because 18 days or whatever. Yeah, exactly. Enough powder.

Matt (00:48:12):

Men

Laci (00:48:12):

Are wet and dusty somehow

Matt (00:48:13):

Considering all of that, I think he’s actually very, very good in this movie, despite his accent of going in and out.

Laci (00:48:20):

Believable asshole surgeon that’s realizing he can’t just be a professional man. And that’s all he is got to do. He’s also got to be a good husband and a good person. It turns

Matt (00:48:30):

Out well because that’s how he’s carrying himself is like I’m used to always being the smartest guy in the room who’s like, I’m leading this meeting

Laci (00:48:36):

And in charge. Right?

Matt (00:48:38):

And he’s like, even here acting with authorities. Listen, all we have to do is assess the situation and try to understand what are we doing here? And he’s being so calm. I would be so fucking aggravated with him.

Laci (00:48:50):

Well, and it gave me a new understanding of it when I realized that I knew that Adam had a connection to him. I didn’t realize Adam knew his connection to him. So the reason why he seems so dodgy and weird, he seems like he’s on drugs to me. But it’s just that he’s scared for the other guy to realize he knows who he is and that it’s not for good stuff. Anyway, it makes me want to watch the beginning again.

Matt (00:49:16):

There’s a dead body in the room and James Bond on the floor. I just credit him as a director, first time filmmaker for knowing just how to show this body just enough so you don’t forget about it, but you’re just not thinking about it that

Laci (00:49:30):

Much. Yeah, it’s the pool of blood that reminds you it’s there but not the body. Otherwise you’d be looking at it for breathing the whole time, which is all I ever do.

Matt (00:49:37):

And presumably John Kramer, I mean he’s on some sedatives or something

Laci (00:49:42):

Has to be

Matt (00:49:43):

So he can stay laying motionless on the floor for 18 hours. He must have

Tiera (00:49:48):

Practiced. Yeah, I was going to say, I think that was referenced in a later film, some sort of drug he took to be, yeah. Oh,

Matt (00:49:56):

He was using drugs,

Tiera (00:49:57):

Slowing

Laci (00:49:57):

His

Tiera (00:49:57):

Breathing. You

Matt (00:49:58):

Should have to play a game if he’s using drugs.

Tiera (00:50:01):

Wife, chemical. His wife works for a methadone clinic, so she had some sort of medication because she was in on this.

Laci (00:50:07):

Oh, okay. That solves a lot for me.

Matt (00:50:10):

That’s how he gets lots of his victims. He’s like, oh, you are using heroin. You were like using heroin. Do you

Laci (00:50:15):

Most people use it, dude. They’re like people. I’m trying to get off of it. I know a clinic ask for Cheryl.

Matt (00:50:25):

So yeah, they’re trying to figure it out. Lee L’s like, do I have any scars? They kidnap you and they sell you kidneys on eBay.

Laci (00:50:31):

What a stupid question.

Matt (00:50:33):

He just has so many of these lines. But yeah, Lawrence, Kara West, he’s a surgeon. I’m a surgeon. I’m a very serious man and we need to take this seriously. They both have cassette tapes in their pockets that say, play me. And there’s a cassette player in the middle of the room and they have to do some fancy lasso stuff to get it and they get it. I mean, jigsaw just must have so much confidence in these people to even do simple things like get the tape player. I wouldn’t have been able to get the tape player,

Laci (00:50:59):

But at the end of the day, don’t you think he wants him to fail? He just wants to kill ’em.

Matt (00:51:03):

I mean, win-win for him,

Laci (00:51:06):

But tying the kid and wife into it does make this a much more sticky situation. He’s got to be rooting for this one. He’s like, oh, don’t make me kill the kid and wife. I didn’t want to kill the kid and wife. Well

Matt (00:51:18):

Guys let me know. He seems more straightforwardly villainous in this movie doing things that I don’t think later movies want him to do.

Laci (00:51:27):

Yes. I feel like he becomes a more,

Derek (00:51:30):

Don’t forget

Laci (00:51:30):

Helper Godlike.

Derek (00:51:31):

He doesn’t kill anyone. I don’t kill anyone.

Laci (00:51:34):

Oh, but it’s brutal. I mean, just to put a child through that situation the whole time. I’m thinking harm already done. Harm already done. That kid’s going to be wetting the bed that kid’s going to need to redo this year of school. The kind of trauma, I mean, we just learned that our friend Stitch got stuck in an elevator when they were five years old alone. And the jaws of life had be used to get them out and that’s their first memory. And that was just an elevator.

Matt (00:52:01):

No, he’s a boomer. He is like, oh, psychology. That just toughens you up. That gives you a, do you feel grateful for life now?

Tiera (00:52:10):

Little girl. He’s a hundred percent fricking Charlie Manson, dude. Well, I didn’t do orchestrated all this shit. I didn’t do anything. What do you mean?

Matt (00:52:18):

Yeah, but he slices Danny Glover’s neck open. Okay, well that was, that’s that’s true. But he

Derek (00:52:23):

Survived that. So he didn’t kill anybody

Matt (00:52:25):

And he didn’t hit

Tiera (00:52:25):

An artery.

Matt (00:52:26):

Yeah, but

Derek (00:52:26):

He was trying to kill him.

Tiera (00:52:27):

Wait, we dunno that him wasn’t that zep.

Derek (00:52:30):

No, no. It never in the warehouse.

Matt (00:52:32):

When they find the dude screws. Yeah, because he’s wearing his trademark like Muhammad Ali cloak

Laci (00:52:38):

And Wait, your Muhammad Ali. And if he set up that little fishing line thing that then shoots the guy in the head, is that not killing him? What? Does it matter how the track is? It’s like saying

Matt (00:52:55):

No, it’s like saying, if I shoot you, I didn’t kill you. The bullet killed you. I didn’t do that. Why are you’re hitting

Speaker 5 (00:52:58):

Yourself?

Matt (00:52:59):

Why are exactly, why are people, it’s why are you hitting yourself the movie?

Laci (00:53:05):

God, they should make that. Write that down. After we make the Johnny Appleseed movie together, we’re doing, why are you hitting yourself? Why you hitting yourself. Yes.

Matt (00:53:15):

It is a true nightmare for me.

Laci (00:53:16):

I love it. I dunno. I dunno. Why? Well, and not believing your kid when they’re like, there’s this, if I were sleeping in my fucking 50 shades of gray sex dungeon house mansion, which is what that is, it’s a weird house. It’s a weird fucking house. I like it, but it’s not normal. And my kid walked up to me and was like, there’s a man in my room. I wouldn’t go, Hey baby, how you doing? I’d like, what?

Tiera (00:53:41):

Same. We’re moving get your shit. I did not even give a flying fucking shit. My bitch ass would’ve been going and checking that closet and under the bed. I’m not messing with that. We’re moving.

Matt (00:53:54):

Yeah. So I don’t deal a bunch of, I listen to the tape, it tells me I’m on a mission because I got to don’t appreciate life every day. This surgeon, he’s telling people they’re going to die. Well now, today you are going to die or something. I think because all of this is like,

Laci (00:54:11):

I’m not impressed with the motives for these, I remember this being a more, this is more just like this guy has no bedside manner. He is a fucking dick. So put him in a room where is, but the orderly was nice to you. Why are you doing this to that man?

Matt (00:54:25):

Yeah. They never say what Michael Emerson’s crime is.

Laci (00:54:27):

Right. And then Adam, he takes pictures. I’m sorry, people got to have a fucking living. A private eye is a perfectly legitimate living.

Matt (00:54:36):

No, that’s why I say he’s my mom. The Starbucks person didn’t write, spell my name correctly.

Tiera (00:54:40):

Two. That was a

Matt (00:54:41):

Hundred percent. You take pictures for a living.

Tiera (00:54:43):

Oh, hey, I’m going to ask this guy to take pictures of this guy, but then I’m going to come get you for doing what I asked you and paid you to do. You set me up, man.

Laci (00:54:52):

No, no. Glover. Glover asked him to take pictures.

Matt (00:54:56):

Yeah, but he did that because Jigsaw is pulling everybody. If you ever do anything in your life, John Kramer made you do it.

Laci (00:55:01):

I’m going to say that

Matt (00:55:02):

It’s, yeah. Jigsaw made me do it. He saw this. He saw that I would do this.

Speaker 5 (00:55:06):

He saw

Matt (00:55:07):

It. He saw. That’s why it’s called Saw.

Speaker 5 (00:55:09):

Got it.

Matt (00:55:10):

So isn’t this whole thing though, Adam is just an accessory. This is all to teach Carrie Elwes his lesson that he’s too,

Tiera (00:55:20):

Yeah. Then this is where these movies all get convoluted is because technically Lawrence ends up, he’s an apprentice and Adam’s a fucking,

Matt (00:55:32):

Oh God. What? The bathroom?

Tiera (00:55:34):

Yeah, yeah.

Matt (00:55:37):

Wait, Lawrence returns to the movies and becomes a junior jigsaw.

Laci (00:55:41):

Yes. This is the problem

Matt (00:55:43):

With us. When does that happen?

Laci (00:55:44):

Which movie is that? So we can skip it.

Tiera (00:55:47):

So literally by the time you get to, I think it’s the fourth one is when they tie him into it.

Derek (00:55:52):

Yeah, because I’ve seen the fourth one. This

Tiera (00:55:54):

Is the Charlie Manson of it all must six. Then it’s when he locks Hoffman into the bathroom.

Derek (00:56:01):

Yeah.

Tiera (00:56:01):

So it must be six

Derek (00:56:02):

Because they do the whole and you see him crawling out of the hallway and he uses a hot pipe.

Tiera (00:56:08):

It’s the 3D one. The 3D

Derek (00:56:09):

One.

Matt (00:56:10):

Oh, that’s saw seven.

Tiera (00:56:11):

Okay. Saw seven 3d. Yeah, 3D is when he comes back and he game overs Hoffman.

Matt (00:56:19):

It’s the rare entry in a franchise where the third one is 3D. So saw seven, ironically saw three.

Laci (00:56:27):

Well, and someone brought up Charles Manson. And this is brilliant because this killer does encourage devotees. He does end up indoctrinating people going, you

Matt (00:56:37):

Know what? Life

Laci (00:56:39):

Is better because of that guy.

Matt (00:56:42):

And the reason we find out about that is because Carrie Ellis and Lee Elle have been talking for 30 minutes and he’s like,

Laci (00:56:48):

And then I’m like, now you fucking make a connection. There was this, I was a murder suspect for a guy that does stuff like this. You know what? Maybe it’s connected.

Matt (00:56:58):

And so we now we start the jumping around in time and shifting perspectives. We get to now follow Danny Glover and Ken Lung and Dina Meyer as these detectives surveying a very gruesome, they’re literally like Danny Glover. This is a lot like David Fincher’s seven. If you think about it. This very large man ate himself to death with or whatever in some razor wire for the crime of this guy’s crime. Is that

Laci (00:57:25):

He Depression?

Matt (00:57:26):

No. His crime is that he faked sick.

Laci (00:57:28):

No, this guy’s crime is that he put a razor blade to his.

Matt (00:57:32):

Oh yes.

Laci (00:57:33):

Was it a cry for help? I guess. We’ll never fucking know. But aren’t people allowed to cry for help? You jerk.

Matt (00:57:38):

You only wanted attention. That’s why you didn’t actually want to kill yourself, buddy. So now he’s caught in razor wire forever.

Speaker 5 (00:57:46):

Forever. You’re right.

Matt (00:57:48):

And the newspapers are calling him the jigsaw killer because he always cuts out a piece of jigsaw from

Laci (00:57:55):

The skin. Perfect little jigsaw.

Matt (00:57:56):

Now, I got to be honest, I don’t remember this at all in the series, him doing the jigsaw pieces for skin,

Laci (00:58:01):

Do they carry on with that motif with the jigsaw to their skin?

Tiera (00:58:04):

I think it was also in six or seven because the Hoffman character again took out a puzzle piece, but he was so bad at it and they make a comment to him about, oh, it’s got to be an imitation. Because the way they got that puzzle piece out was shit. Basically, I’m not surgeon. What do you mean? It was great. What the fuck? So they do, they got infected in later ones. Bring it up. I do think that they weren’t super awesome about remembering to do it in each of them, but

Laci (00:58:36):

They were forgetting their own. They needed a string board with

Tiera (00:58:39):

Cork. Yeah. Seriously. Right?

Laci (00:58:43):

Sort of tree.

Matt (00:58:43):

This first movie has so many visual motifs and they don’t know which ones are going to stick. They don’t know that it’s going to be the puppet that’s going to be so iconic. Or even that Tobin Bell himself is going to be so iconic in his voice, so little of this movie,

Laci (00:58:57):

But that voice.

Matt (00:58:58):

Yeah,

Laci (00:58:58):

You almost can’t not have it.

Matt (00:59:00):

But I mean, you see him on screen constantly for the rest of the series. You don’t just hear

Laci (00:59:05):

Him. He has a haunting face. They pick the right person when they pick that guy from lost as well. What is his name?

Matt (00:59:10):

Michael Emerson.

Laci (00:59:11):

He can only be a haunted man. His eyes don’t blink.

Matt (00:59:14):

Tobin Bell. Tobin Bell is a guy who’s been in movies and TV for 30 years before this movie as just scary guy. Like the scary guy in Seinfeld who owns the record store. And it’s what’s great about horror movies. This is like, what if we bump this guy up and let him really carry this thing and show what he can do? So that’s one of the reasons that to recommend both this movie and this franchise.

Laci (00:59:40):

Danny Glover’s career just shot right up. No. No, it didn’t.

Matt (00:59:44):

He’s always been going great. Danny Glover loved Danny Glover like a top five actor for me. Maybe.

Laci (00:59:50):

What? Come on. Your top five is full of

Matt (00:59:53):

It’s true

Laci (00:59:53):

Money. Guys,

Matt (00:59:54):

My list is very long.

Laci (00:59:55):

He loves a cranky man. Matt loves.

Matt (00:59:58):

Well, yes I am. Danny Glover is the thing I always say. Danny Glover and Lethal Weapon, when he gets home and his kids have friends over and he’s like, God damn it.

Speaker 6 (01:00:07):

That’s

Matt (01:00:07):

It. Every kid who I don’t own, get out of my house. Please.

Speaker 6 (01:00:11):

Yeah,

Matt (01:00:12):

I know. So there’s the other crime scene with the guy whose crime is that. He told people he was sick, but he wasn’t. He wanted attention. Got Jigsaw would hate TikTok.

Laci (01:00:22):

He

Tiera (01:00:22):

Would hate, there’d be everyone would be deaf. People would be getting fucking pig abducted left. And

Matt (01:00:30):

You thought that people cared about your movie opinion on Letterboxed and how many stars you gave weapons.

Laci (01:00:37):

Now take all these Chinese, Asian throwing stars until you’re dead.

Matt (01:00:41):

Right? That’s what he

Laci (01:00:42):

Would do. That’s what he would do.

Matt (01:00:44):

You gave Jaws less than five stars.

Laci (01:00:47):

Well, can you make a masterpiece? Make a masterpiece in under $10,000? Or you’re dead

Matt (01:00:52):

At this crime scene. Jigsaw has left a pen light, which belongs to Carrie Elwes. So now Carrie Elwes is getting interviewed by Danny Glover, who right away is like, I fucking hate this guy. I love you and I agree, man. But we get the scene with Michael Emerson as Zep the Orderly. And Carrie Elwes is giving a lecture to his residents or his medical students or whatever, and he’s using a sleeping Tobin Bell or a comatose Tobin Bell or whatever. And he’s like, this man has brain cancer. And Michael Emerson butts in and he’s like, excuse me, he has a name is Johnny. He’s really interesting. He’s my best friend here. And Lawrence Gordon is like, okay, thanks a lot weirdo.

Speaker 5 (01:01:34):

Even our orderlies get in on the action.

Matt (01:01:37):

And this continues to be a grievance for Jigsaw is like, you were so cold to me when you gave me my prognosis. Yes. It’s like, what do you want them to do, man? You think he’s not going to be treating your cancer seriously if he doesn’t fucking have a personal relationship with you.

Laci (01:01:54):

You got to be a little detached if you’re going to be taking people apart and putting ’em back together again. Don’t make me apologize for surgeons. They’re assholes.

Matt (01:02:01):

That’s true. But yeah, it was hints, pen lights. So you got to come down to the station and they’re like, well, I have an alibi, had an affair, or I’m going to make it seem like I had an affair, but actually it’s not an affair. I’m a good guy. So the alibi clears him, but Danny Glover thinks he’s still the one who did it. So he is like, Hey, hey, why don’t you stick around, watch this next victim. Okay,

Laci (01:02:21):

We all get these pets, Matt. We all get these pet people in our head that are just bad and we’re going to figure out why we don’t like them. And we’re going to figure out why. Sooner or later I’m going to follow you around until you do something gross.

Matt (01:02:33):

Yeah. Yeah. So I’ll be right in the end, even if I’m not right now. I was like spiritually, right? But we meet Amanda Shawnee Smith who got caught in a bear trap.

Speaker 5 (01:02:44):

She went on a bear hunt.

Matt (01:02:45):

She went on a bear hunt. They found her. And we jump flashback within a flashback within a flashback. We see her in the bear trap and she manages to get out of it because she’s got to cut open this guy’s stomach and get a key out. She thinks the guy’s dead. But no, he just had chemicals or

Laci (01:03:03):

Drugs. No wait, but they implied that she knew he was alive. Right. We see his eyes open,

Matt (01:03:09):

We see, but she doesnt see it.

Derek (01:03:12):

It’s implied that the body is dead until she sees the eyes open. And then in that fit rage, I’m not going to die. You’re going to die.

Laci (01:03:18):

She, exactly. Exactly. She makes the choice. That’s why she’s so fucked up about it, Matt. I mean, it was already fucked up, but

Matt (01:03:25):

She knows that she, I thought it was the cop who told her afterward.

Laci (01:03:28):

Either way. No, no, she looked, no, we’re right.

Matt (01:03:33):

Okay.

Laci (01:03:34):

You’re wrong.

Matt (01:03:35):

Yeah, she was not dead. Just drugged. So she killed him. O-M-G-O-M-G. What am I going to do? I feel so bad, but not really. I feel like, see Danny Glover’s like, here’s the thing about you Amanda, or can I call you Mandy? You’re a no good drug addict, right? Is that correct? She’s like, yes, it’s true. I’m addicted to drugs. He’s like, but now you feel like you have a second chance at life. It’s true. Jigsaw saved me now. I’m not going to be addicted to drugs anymore. And indeed she becomes his most important disciple, but we don’t know that yet.

Laci (01:04:05):

But it’s interesting that he feels the need to show that to the surgeon thinking that’s how he’s going to catch ’em, which is kind of an interesting little psychological thing to do. Kind of smart. He’s going to be so proud of himself. He’s going to show his cards. He’s going to be like, haha, I got a disciple. But then he doesn’t have much of a reaction to it all. And the guy’s like, but you gave you compliment.

Matt (01:04:25):

He’s

Laci (01:04:25):

Like, but that’s not me. I’m not the guy.

Matt (01:04:27):

He’s also so handsome and he sounds so American.

Laci (01:04:30):

I wish he wasn’t married.

Matt (01:04:32):

A thing that annoys me about jigsaw’s philosophy, and I know that this movie didn’t think it would have a billion sequels that would flesh out his philosophy. It’s just like, do you feel grateful? Yes, I do. Okay, great. But he continues to do this, but he never, there’s never any explanation. Alright, how do people show gratitude in their lives? What does this practically look like to you at Jigsaw? Do they show more kindness and understanding to the people in their lives? Do they become better tippers? What does this actually mean?

Laci (01:05:03):

That’s an interesting question. Do they ever address, does he follow them afterward to make sure, or do they just have to escape one of his traps and then he is like, all right, that’s enough with

Matt (01:05:13):

You. Yeah, I get it. If you were following them, what would look for?

Laci (01:05:17):

Has he ever trapped someone twice? Because fucked up. I

Matt (01:05:21):

Think so, right?

Tiera (01:05:22):

Yes. Yeah. Well, yeah. So technically Amanda had to a couple times because in the next movie, she’s technically being tested again.

Laci (01:05:33):

He is an exhausting friend. Like, oh, you didn’t answer my text message.

Matt (01:05:37):

You want to play a game? Oh my God. Just constant.

Laci (01:05:40):

You didn’t come to my birthday party,

Matt (01:05:42):

So I set up a fake birthday party that you’re going to go to.

Laci (01:05:45):

Right? You’re going to blow out all the candles, all of ’em.

Matt (01:05:49):

But do you see what I mean? Does literally just my heart has changed now. Now I feel gratitude for being alive. And if that’s the case, who cares? Why does that matter to you? Jigsaw? Yeah, seriously doesn’t he’s born,

Laci (01:06:03):

Everyone needs a hobby. That man made a whole doll. He made a mask. He’s a doer. He’s like my stepdad, Rick. He’s always fucking around in the backyard building something.

Matt (01:06:12):

You just got to keep busy. That’s the thing.

Laci (01:06:13):

Yeah. Retirement’s a bitch if you don’t have a hobby.

Matt (01:06:17):

So start a start like a class,

Laci (01:06:19):

Matt. There’s a million things he could do.

Matt (01:06:21):

He

Laci (01:06:21):

Picked one and now we have these movies. No, you need to be grateful or you’re going to end up playing a game

Tiera (01:06:27):

Saying End up in saw trap, man, you’re

Speaker 5 (01:06:30):

Going to get enough Me. Shut up, Matt. You’re going to make me get in a trap too.

Matt (01:06:34):

Alright. So at a certain point they figure out that they’re on camera, they throw a thing in the mirror and they’re like, wait a minute, a camera. Oh no. And then we see Michael Emerson is watching them, Michael Emerson as Zep, and Adam throws rocks at the camera and he is like, I’m on tv. This is the most fun I’ve ever had without lubricant. Oh God. It’s just like that Joss Whedon and Kevin Williamson runoff. That was so popular at the time. You got to have these most fun I’ve ever had. Without lubricant, you

Laci (01:07:04):

Just didn’t go to enough bars. This is how men talk to me.

Matt (01:07:07):

It is

Laci (01:07:08):

Little,

Matt (01:07:09):

Hey honey, want some lubricant?

Laci (01:07:11):

Exactly. And those were the gentlemen.

Matt (01:07:12):

Does it work?

Laci (01:07:13):

No.

Matt (01:07:14):

Oh, right. So we flash back again, Gordon’s daughter wakes up. She’s like, there’s a scary man in my room. And Laci said, the mom’s like, oh, honey Pine. No, there’s no man. You were just dreaming. She’s like, let’s go tell Daddy. So they go talk to the dad, to Carrie, who’s in his study, typing on his laptop, and they’re like, dad, can you come check my room? And he’s like, honey, I’m working on my screenplay. Just let me finish. Tap, tap, tap, tap. Okay, I’m coming here. I come and he goes into the daughter’s room and he’s like, Hey, I’m a good dad Here, let me show you how good I

Laci (01:07:45):

Am. This fucking nursery rhyme from when you were three years younger than now, that I’m going to do half ass. And then she even faked laughs. She’s like, that’s the best I’m going to get from this fucking ass. I know. Haha. Dad, can you stay and not leave

Matt (01:07:58):

This little picky? He’s like, nah, I got paged. I got to get out of here babe. Alright, see you. We’ll continue this tomorrow. I’ll tell you what the fourth picky did

Laci (01:08:05):

Fucking, he played a game

Matt (01:08:09):

And then his wife’s like, just tell me you hate your life. And I

Laci (01:08:13):

You don’t even play the piggy right anymore. I heard you. It was halfhearted at best. Why don’t you go fuck something.

Matt (01:08:20):

I know. It becomes like a John Cave’s kitchen sink drama. Just tell me you hate me. Like, huh? I don’t hate you at all. No, babe. But he gets paged away. So back in the present, Adam is looking through Lawrence’s photos and sees a Polaroid of his daughter and wife who have been kidnapped, but he will not tell Lawrence about it. And what do we think of this? Of not telling him, Hey shit, did you see this? It seems important.

Tiera (01:08:52):

Yeah, dude, that always rubbed me the wrong way, dude. Why would you not just be like, oh my God.

Matt (01:08:57):

Yeah,

Tiera (01:08:59):

You’re already tracking stuff. You’re already fucked. Right? So

Matt (01:09:02):

It’s something new to talk about,

Tiera (01:09:04):

Right? Yeah.

Matt (01:09:04):

It’s a new development

Tiera (01:09:05):

Icebreaker. It’s an icebreaker. Is this, oh my goodness, what’s the word I’m thinking of? Feeding into the fact that he cares about him so much. He doesn’t want him to be upset because there is nothing he could do about it.

Matt (01:09:24):

That I get not wanting to give somebody unpleasant news.

Laci (01:09:27):

Well, and then what his answer was, I just couldn’t do it. And I believe him. I believe him. And your success in getting out of this room is tied to that guy. So if that guy flies off the handle starts doing things that he wouldn’t have been doing if he’d had a clear head. I also understand not wanting to tell him for that reason, but you’re going to have to have an awkward conversation a little bit later in your relationship.

Matt (01:09:50):

He’s not a good long-term planner. Just want to put off all the unpleasantness.

Laci (01:09:54):

You can’t even pay his life Bill. You saw his fucking apartment.

Matt (01:09:56):

Yeah, that’s true. Well, we get another flashback. Again, this movie is just jumping all over the place in time to find out how the wife and daughter got kidnapped. They’re kidnapped by Zep just being so creepy as Michael Emerson always is this, I think it was two years before he was on

Speaker 5 (01:10:16):

Lost

Matt (01:10:17):

Or maybe lost starts in oh four, but he doesn’t join until season two. But I think this is right before he becomes super iconic for that

Laci (01:10:25):

Role. They kept his fucking haircut

Matt (01:10:27):

And he’d always been like, he’ll show up in an episode of your TV show to be creepy for an episode. I’m like, I think it’s that guy. I think that’s the monster. I think that’s the killer, including this movie. This movie does make you think this is the actual killer for the whole movie.

Laci (01:10:41):

Oh, they knew right away who would be the best red herring. And then they do a good job of showing Danny Glover slowly getting into this obsessive mode. As soon as you start putting shit on the walls that immediately red flag, red flag. This guy’s obsessed. I’m almost a little bit, I wonder what this movie would’ve been if they would’ve just been cool with us already knowing who the killer was. What would they have done then? Because the who done it part is, I’m kind of like, I already know who done it, guys.

Matt (01:11:07):

Yeah, Michael Emerson kidnaps the wife and daughter at Carrie Ellis’s house. And then we find out that Danny Glover is spying on that house. So now we bump on over to Danny Glover and we’re following him around. He’s become obsessed. He’s like Jig, Joan Hall and Zodiac. He’s got the corkboard and the rope and the string and all that stuff. Obsessed with J Jigsaw, obsessed with Dr. Gordon. And I think that my frustration with the way this is constantly jumping around in time and character perspective is also a thing that I struggled with weapons. The movie Weapons is whenever this movie starts to generate tension or any sort of propulsive momentum, I feel like it just, the air comes out of the balloon because no, now we got to figure out what’s up with Danny Glover. How did he get like this? How did he become so paranoid? Now let’s find this out.

Laci (01:11:58):

I like it.

Matt (01:11:59):

He got paranoid because earlier he had been eating Krispy Kreme donuts at work and Kim Long came up. Well, I just want these Krispy Kreme donuts. And his partner Ken Lung is like, Hey buddy, want to come out to drinks? And he’s like, no. Instead I’m always obsessing over the jigsaw killer. Oh shit, I found out something. Look at this photo. You can see the gang symbol and if we can triangulate that to the signal with the fire alarm, then we’ll know where the thing is. And they’re like, oh my God. You’re right. So

Laci (01:12:27):

He did it.

Matt (01:12:27):

They did it,

Laci (01:12:28):

But he did it the wrong way. He didn’t do it with the warrant. He didn’t do it with backup. He killed his partner.

Matt (01:12:33):

Yeah,

Laci (01:12:33):

I get it.

Matt (01:12:34):

Yeah.

Laci (01:12:35):

You want to go around the bureaucracy and then you kill somebody and then what are you going to do? You’re right. Okay.

Matt (01:12:43):

It’s an old mannequin factor,

Laci (01:12:44):

Which is the best. That is the creepiest shit I’ve ever heard. But I feel like I didn’t see one mannequin,

Matt (01:12:50):

A decommissioned mannequin factory.

Laci (01:12:52):

Well, we don’t need ’em anymore, Matt.

Matt (01:12:54):

And we see the little diorama of where the main story of the movie is taking place and Danny Glover’s like, what the fuck? This guy’s twisted. But it’s also, when I watched the movie for the first time, I watched this movie twice yesterday when I watched it for the first time when Danny Glover says, what the fuck to that? I thought, but you knew about the bathroom, right? Aren’t you following this? Oh no,

Speaker 5 (01:13:15):

No.

Matt (01:13:15):

And this always happens to me in sas. I always forget which characters know what and which timeline or temporality there on.

Laci (01:13:23):

Yeah, I wasn’t struggling the way you were.

Matt (01:13:26):

I struggle.

Laci (01:13:27):

Guess you were drunk.

Matt (01:13:29):

There’s a man underneath a cloth in a weird ass drill trap.

Laci (01:13:34):

Right, right. Which I wasn’t sure was that trap set for the cops he knew were coming. Did you just walk into your trap? Why isn’t your diorama of that? Because that’d be fun.

Matt (01:13:46):

They’re all inside of a giant diorama. I think he did know this would happen.

Laci (01:13:54):

I feel like it is implied that this is in case people come in here. This is my escape plan. I just keep giving this guy fucking Suboxone or whatever it is. They give people coming off heroin. So he goes to sleep, I feed him, he goes to sleep, I feed him and then look, you found him. So now he’s here. He’s been here five days and I finally get to use him.

Matt (01:14:13):

I think you’re right because Danny Glover holds the you’re under arrest. And he’s like, oh yeah, what’s more important to you arresting me or saving this man? They’re like, oh gosh, what a moral dilemma. Oh no. And then the guy dies and then they chase him, and then Ken Lung gets shot with a trap shotgun and Danny Glover gets his next slice and jigsaw gets away,

Tiera (01:14:34):

Which always, I know that the shotgun thing is coming, but it is just so abrupt when it happens that I’m like, oh shit. Every time, every time bro gets shot,

Matt (01:14:47):

It’s a good death. And I don’t usually love gun deaths in horror movies, but this is a good one.

Laci (01:14:53):

Same. It’s a very close range. Very brutal gun death. And it’s probably the best this movie does it. If there’s any kind of sympathy happening in here, except for the daughter and the mom, I feel bad for them the whole time.

Matt (01:15:06):

Yeah, you’re saying for Danny Glover?

Laci (01:15:08):

Yeah.

Matt (01:15:08):

Yeah.

Laci (01:15:09):

I mean, yeah, he killed his partner. It seemed to truly fuck him up after that.

Matt (01:15:13):

Then when we see him at some point, when he is going nuts, getting obsessed, he’s talking to us, we’re going to solve this. Right. He’s

Speaker 5 (01:15:20):

Talking to his partner. Right.

Matt (01:15:23):

Alright, back in the present they find an X on the wall that was written in glow in the dark pain or something. And if they punch a hole in the wall, there’s a box with some cigarettes and a cell phone. And Carrie Ellis is like, this is one of those cell phones that only receives calls. It does not make outgoing

Laci (01:15:41):

Calls. Oh yes. One of those a useless cell phone. What the

Matt (01:15:44):

Fuck? But there’s also some cigarettes and Lee NE’s like, I want the cigarette. Give me that sweet cancer.

Laci (01:15:51):

But yeah, the whole cigarette thing, I feel like that’s supposed to go somewhere a little more elaborate and then just kind of falls short. But I don’t whatever.

Tiera (01:15:59):

No, there’s a lot going on. I felt the same way about the cigarette thing because I poison. Right? There’s two folks and then he takes the other one and he dips it in the thing in the blood, and then the cigarette thing just doesn’t, like nothing comes of the cigarette thing.

Laci (01:16:14):

Right? He’s like, I think that this riddle that’s inside this cigarette box is telling me that I’m not going to shoot you with this gun. I’m going to poison you with the shit I see in front of me. You’re going to die of this poison, pretend. But it seems like this one feels like the most half-assed of all the moments. I think there’s just a lot of ideas

Matt (01:16:33):

Here. I know because he says this phone that only makes outgoing call or no, only receives incoming calls. I’ve seen this before.

Laci (01:16:41):

I’ve seen this. He didn’t have to have seen that before for them to figure that out. It could just ring.

Matt (01:16:47):

That’s why I say it feels like a first time screenplay. Everything has to be connected.

Laci (01:16:52):

Let me go back.

Matt (01:16:52):

This now morphs to the flashback where he is in the CD building. Why is he at the CD building? Oh, because he’s going to mean his mistress. Oh, she’s not his mistress. She was going to be his mistress, but then he called it off before he could do anything really wrong. But then in the motel he had to make a phone call, but the phone call was on. I don’t even know

Laci (01:17:12):

Why. It’s not even a cell phone. It’s a fucking landline. That’s very confusing.

Tiera (01:17:15):

Yeah, it sounds for you even mean then I’ve seen this before. Goes to fucking phone in the hotel room. I remember that time I couldn’t make a call. Seen telephones before. Have you seen a rotary phones, sir? Have you seen those? Those are fun.

Derek (01:17:29):

Well, cell phones were actively new. Maybe he was just like, oh, I’ve seen one of these fucking things before.

Matt (01:17:35):

It’s a pager That talks true. I

Derek (01:17:37):

Know. Like my car

Matt (01:17:38):

Phone. You know what? I bet there were, they probably made ’em for kids. There’s a phone, a cricket can only receive calls from your parents

Laci (01:17:47):

Or you can hit a button and it calls them right. A cricket.

Matt (01:17:51):

Alright. This movie’s airtight.

Laci (01:17:53):

Yeah. We just didn’t need a moment where he is like, oh, I get it. But anyway, the X is important because that’s, although it’s a little insulting. I mean, Adam’s allowed to have one good fucking idea. The doctor’s like, no, how did you know? You got to tell me how you knew. And that’s how he finally shows him. It was on the back of this picture of your tortured wife and daughter. My wife and daughter, not my wife and daughter. I like,

Matt (01:18:19):

And then he’s like, how did you did this? Because there’s lots of different parts. They’re turning on each other. You did this, you are killing my wife probably. How did you know about the X? You want to know how I knew about the X? I’ll tell you. I take pictures. And so now we follow,

Laci (01:18:35):

This is a Polaroid. I take pictures, so I know this is a spoiler ride. I’ve seen

Matt (01:18:39):

This before. It’s filmed. It’s a film moment here we

Laci (01:18:45):

Follow to flash back to the dark room. Photos, photos, photos

Matt (01:18:48):

To this apartment that he says is a shithole apartment, which is a huge palatial thing with a dark room.

Tiera (01:18:54):

Just pay the electric bill and we’ll get to see it. Me and my shitty apartment. You have a fucking red room in your apartment, bro. What do you mean?

Laci (01:19:01):

Right? Right. You have a kitchen. Wasn’t supposed a kitchen that just a kitchen

Derek (01:19:04):

Room created. And his bathroom, his dark room was his bathroom because he went to sleep in a shithole and woke up in an actual shithole.

Laci (01:19:14):

Right? It’s a big place. So this movie has a several moments of people being really okay with knowing there’s someone else watching them, but they can’t find them. I feel like there’s three different times where someone’s too calm about it.

Matt (01:19:27):

Yeah, he wakes up, his lights are off and he’s like, someone’s in here. I know they are.

Laci (01:19:31):

Quit doing that guys. Okay, stop that. Now. Is it a pig mask? Man, I hate

Matt (01:19:36):

Those. But this is my favorite moment in the movie where he goes through the dark apartment taking pictures to make it light up and it’s just so effective. And he sees the dummy, he sees Billy the puppet on the chair, and he’s just like, ah, puppet. This is stupid. Oh, that can’t hurt me. Surely is. And I think he beats the puppet up with a baseball bat.

Laci (01:19:59):

I don’t remember the no grownup. Put this here. This is clearly a child’s prank,

Matt (01:20:06):

But then goes into the closet, opens it up, takes a picture, and it’s the pig mask thing. And this is the scariest moment in the movie. I think this is where you see he’s very talented as a filmmaker. And that what’s missing also from this movie series is it’s not scary at all, but moments, these are scary, at least to me. Do you guys find these movies scary? Not

Tiera (01:20:27):

Scary.

Derek (01:20:28):

No,

Matt (01:20:28):

No, no,

Derek (01:20:29):

No, no. There was little, they’re not trying for scares. They’re not trying for jump scares.

Tiera (01:20:34):

Right.

Derek (01:20:35):

It’s gross out scares.

Tiera (01:20:38):

And that’s not even, yeah, they’re not even scary. I guess that’s not, I dunno.

Laci (01:20:43):

And these aren’t even big guys. The two people who actually abduct anyone in these are guys you could definitely overpower. It is just that we’re all average people and really anyone that wanted to inconvenience me on any given day could do it. I mean, our door dasher could just absolutely push me over in my driveway and I’d be like,

Matt (01:21:01):

No. Oh, that ruined my day. That’s why the scariest.

Laci (01:21:05):

That’s why it’s scary.

Matt (01:21:06):

The scariest thing to me is the premise of the strangers is just, what if some strangers were standing in my yard?

Laci (01:21:13):

Right? That’s

Matt (01:21:14):

It.

Laci (01:21:15):

None of us, the end us have a John Wick hole in our fucking basement. We’re not prepared for this shit. Yeah, exactly.

Matt (01:21:19):

There’s nothing I could do. And also I’d still be like, well, I can’t be rude.

Laci (01:21:23):

Right. They look thirsty. You guys want

Speaker 5 (01:21:27):

A water or something? Okay.

Matt (01:21:30):

You know what a detail I like between the two of them, between Adam and Lawrence is whenever they have to throw something to the other, throw me the tape, throw me the key.

Laci (01:21:39):

They always get

Matt (01:21:40):

It. It’s always a bad throw. And they always miss.

Laci (01:21:42):

Yeah. But the worst throw would be a short throw. They can’t fix a short throw. So they’re all overthrowing. And that’s smart. You can get the shit behind you. You can’t get Well, you’re

Matt (01:21:51):

Making it worse. Thanks

Laci (01:21:51):

A lot. No, I’m telling you that I like the way they handle the throwing. It’s always a little hesitant, but I just don’t need a plot about a bad throw. Like, alright,

Matt (01:22:00):

Well yes, it’s bad throws, but it’s not devastating. This is just how I think real people in this situation would not have precise aim here, toss to me.

Laci (01:22:08):

Thanks. And I don’t think they’re aiming for each other to catch it. I think it’s just we know if we get short, we’re fucked. Not

Matt (01:22:13):

Going to. We made it worse. Thanks Laci. So then they finally get a call on the little cell phone on the Cricut Wireless phone, and it’s his daughter Diana. And he’s like, Diana, hey babe, what’s going on? This Daddy’s at work. She’s like, I’ve been kidnapped by the mean man. And he’s like, put that mean man on the phone or no, put my wife on the phone. And she’s like,

Laci (01:22:37):

What’s your name? I’m tied up. I don’t have a lot of agency.

Matt (01:22:41):

My husband,

Laci (01:22:42):

Dr. Gordon, my own father didn’t believe me when I told him there was a man in my room. You think I can get this kidnapped or to hand the phone to the wife daddy?

Matt (01:22:49):

She says to her husband, are you with Adam? And he’s like, how did you know that name? And she’s like, don’t believe his lies.

Laci (01:22:59):

I mean, I get it, but who cares?

Matt (01:23:01):

Well, you just got to continue to push them

Laci (01:23:05):

Each other. Well, and she wants him to win. She needs him to go ahead and kill Adam so they can get their life going on again.

Matt (01:23:11):

But she’s being fed this line.

Laci (01:23:13):

Oh, right. I was thinking the wife hired Adam, but no, it’s Danny Glover. God. But you would have every reason to believe that the wife hired, because she knows her husband’s unhappy and he leaves any hour of the night if he wants to because he can blame it on his fucking pager. So I was like, oh yeah, no, she thinks you’re having an affair. Dude, that’s Adam.

Matt (01:23:34):

Yeah, that didn’t happen. No, don’t believe his lies.

Laci (01:23:37):

Okay. Sorry. Have

Matt (01:23:37):

You seen Memento? I haven’t. It’s like Joey Pantano. Don’t believe his lies written on a Polaroid.

Speaker 5 (01:23:43):

Okay. Okay.

Matt (01:23:44):

Alright wife, I’ll talk to you later.

Speaker 5 (01:23:47):

Good chat.

Matt (01:23:48):

He says to Adam, they told me not to believe you’re lies. And he’s like, well, I’m not lying. He’s like, yes you are. You’re a lawyer. And he’s like, no, I’m not. I’m not a liar. I’ll tell you the whole truth. Here’s the thing, I was hired to take pictures of you because you went to a shitty motel. What were you doing in that motel, Adam or Lawrence? What were you doing there? You were cheating on your wife. And he’s like, I wasn’t trainer. And you were really

Tiera (01:24:11):

Fast. So he was drooling. It was very intense.

Laci (01:24:17):

You weren’t even good at it. You didn’t last long. You were in there for three minutes and you came out perfectly dressed. You didn’t even take your jacket off, I think.

Matt (01:24:25):

Yeah. And we get to see the motel encounter with the woman who he works with who calls him Dr. Gordon. Is there a problem? Dr. Gordon, may I take my shirt off now? And he’s like, no, I want to call off this whole thing. Okay, bye. Goes down to the fucking parking lot and then the pig man is chasing him or something. It’s pretty creepy. And this is where he

Laci (01:24:48):

Gets, he’s remembering he is kidnapped.

Matt (01:24:49):

Kidnapped.

Laci (01:24:50):

Right. And we’re only learning these parts now because their memories are slowly returning to them. So there

Matt (01:24:55):

We

Speaker 6 (01:24:55):

Go.

Laci (01:24:55):

So at least it makes sense why they’re sharing this late into the experience and something interesting that I didn’t, anyway, they make a big deal about the new clock at the beginning. So you think them worrying about the time is going to be this whole thing. They completely forget they’re being timed. And only notice at the very end like, oh, fuck the fucking class.

Matt (01:25:16):

That’s true. Laci.

Laci (01:25:17):

Oh shit. For a countdown movie. They sure don’t count down at all.

Tiera (01:25:20):

Exactly. They got the most amount of time out of anyone in a trap ever. Y all guys, A lot of fucking time guys got eight fucking hours, bro. Had 60 seconds to get the bear trap off and pull a key out of some dude’s stomach.

Matt (01:25:35):

And if jigsaw weren’t there pretending to be dead on the floor, he’d come over the announcer and he’d be like, I’m granting an extension. I never do this.

Laci (01:25:41):

Or an escape room is like, did you need a clue? If you push the red button when you’re in escape room and you’re worried you’re not going to make your time, there’s a button. They’d be like, okay, are you sure that you looked at the ceiling all the way? You notice there’s letters up there. That’s how they do

Matt (01:25:57):

It. The pictures that Adam took of Lawrence. Well, they’re in there in the room with, he’s like, I don’t know how they got there, but here they are. And oh my God, look, there’s someone else in the house with your wife and kid. It is this creepy guy. And he is like, I know that guy. He’s zap. He’s a freaking psycho because he likes our patients and thinks they’re human beings. He’s a real freak. So we cut to Michael Emerson watching this and he’s like, oh no, things are going bad for his old Zep. I think I got to shut things down.

Laci (01:26:24):

Why did I give him a picture of myself? I thought he’d just think it was Nate. What the fuck? You put it in the fucking saw bag, man, what is happening? You could have curated that collection. One lamp light, one piana, all these photos. One of me

Matt (01:26:46):

And yet, and yet I won. I wonder. He’s like, oh fuck. Okay. Time’s up. It’s now six o’clock. So he goes to get the wife, but the wife is able to untie herself and I like that the wife and daughter are able to escape fairly easily, which does track with this is not a professional hit man. It’s

Speaker 5 (01:27:08):

Just a guy.

Matt (01:27:10):

I tied you up. I too would be bad at tying someone up. I wouldn’t know what I’m doing. They get out, she steals the gun from him and just holds it up to him. And then Danny Glover arrives. They start shooting each other. It’s all going haywire. Things are happening.

Laci (01:27:25):

And that man’s on a schedule. He’s going to be late. He has a little tape recorder went ding, and he needs to go. I don’t know what his trap is. What’s going to happen to him.

Matt (01:27:35):

He has a poison in his

Tiera (01:27:37):

Vein or something. Oh right. Poison. Yeah. He was waiting for an antidote or whatever that he was going to get.

Laci (01:27:42):

Poor fucking man. All he did was befriend your ass. I don’t get it. Why him?

Matt (01:27:48):

He’s just a janitor. No orderlies aren’t supposed to befriend patients. That’s

Laci (01:27:52):

Why that’ll put you in your place, teach you to change the toilet. It

Tiera (01:27:55):

Was like some HIPAA shit. He’s like, bro, you’re No,

Matt (01:27:59):

You’re not supposed Take that. Take that very seriously.

Laci (01:28:01):

Don’t tell them I’m interesting. What does that mean that I have cancer?

Matt (01:28:06):

Car always gets the phone call, hears gunshots going off. Does not know that his wife and daughter saved themselves. So he is just like, I got to get out of here and finally realizes I just have to do it. I just have to cut my foot off. I remember hearing the premise of this movie. It’s a guy who has to cut his foot off to get out of handcuffs. And I was thinking, that’s so fucked up. I could never see that. That would be too gruesome. The movie does a great job of showing a little bit of it and then just making you think about it.

Tiera (01:28:34):

Yeah. And then in sequels you see the foot, right? Sitting over there like the skeleton foot or whatever,

Laci (01:28:43):

And they resist. They keep mentioning what kind of saw or that’s a saw. The saw is a shit saw saw. And he never says bone saw. And he’s a surgeon. So I keep waiting for him to say it like this is a saw to saw your foot. I don’t know. I just kept waiting to hear bone saw in my head that’s like, holy shit, he’s going to want me to solve my bones.

Matt (01:29:03):

That’s because he is a surgeon. He knows how to make a tourniquet with his mouth and stuff. It looks very, I’m very impressive with him. I think he does it with

Speaker 5 (01:29:09):

His mouth.

Matt (01:29:10):

He can pull for,

Laci (01:29:12):

He can really pull,

Matt (01:29:13):

Get torque by pulling with his mouth. It’s pretty impressive. I mean 127 hours. It’s way more excruciating When James Franco has to cut off his arm. He has to go through a nerve. And that’s, I still think about that. Oh, the nerve that you have to cut through, if anybody’s seen that.

Speaker 5 (01:29:30):

I

Laci (01:29:30):

Haven’t

Matt (01:29:31):

Seen it, no. Okay. But he cuts off. He cuts off his foot and now he’s able to move about the room.

Laci (01:29:36):

Okay, but does he cut above the shackle or below it? You could have saved some of your fucking leg if he’d gone. It’s just interesting. He cuts a butt. Whatever. Maybe there’s less tendons. I don’t fucking know.

Derek (01:29:47):

Cut your heel off.

Laci (01:29:48):

Yeah, exactly. Just cut the heel off. The rest of that shit

Derek (01:29:50):

Out of there, man.

Laci (01:29:51):

There you go.

Derek (01:29:53):

Dumb ass.

Laci (01:29:53):

At least you can dance.

Derek (01:29:56):

You can tiptoe the rest of your life. You’re good

Laci (01:29:58):

Fun. You got real long legs.

Matt (01:30:02):

When he leaves, does he grab the foot? We should see him grab the foot just in case that

Tiera (01:30:07):

Would be put. I wish he did put that on ice. I can put it back on. I’m a surgeon. I can put it back on

Matt (01:30:16):

Accessory. But he just grabs a gun and shoots at him. We’re like, oh, he did it. And he is like, I’ve done it. I’ve completed the game. Is the game over now? Can I go home? And then Michael Emerson runs into the room and he’s like, now you’re too late, motherfucker. But then Adam Springs back up, I’m alive and shoots him dead. And then Carrie Elis and Lee Wanel unite finally, they finally get to touch and embrace on the floor. It’s actually really good.

Laci (01:30:43):

I think so.

Matt (01:30:44):

Yeah. And he’s like, you’ll be okay. I shot you in the shoulder. I knew I’m a very good man. I knew that that you, you’d survive.

Laci (01:30:53):

I only almost cheat. I only almost kill. I’m going to go almost make it to my wife and daughter.

Matt (01:30:59):

You’re going to be all right. All I’m going to leave you. I swear I’m going to get help. And he’s like, no, please don’t leave. Like, no, no, no. I got to, I’m going to go get help. I’d been,

Laci (01:31:08):

He’s like, I already cut my foot off and everything. It’d be a waste if I did. What a shot, Matt. Look at this. Yeah, it’s a good one. Him throwing it

Tiera (01:31:14):

Back. He’s about to, excuse

Laci (01:31:15):

Me, Tobin Bell packed enough fucking ham for the whole class. Yow again,

Tiera (01:31:22):

Whop came on and he got a little excited.

Speaker 6 (01:31:26):

I have that wet ass pussy apart.

Matt (01:31:37):

I hear you like listening to wet ass Pussy. Do you think that’s appropriate? So yep. Dramatically sits up and it’s in the back of the frame and then you’re like, the music is just going fucking nuts. And yeah, I can’t imagine how exciting this would be in the theaters in 2004 to see this happen. That’s right

Tiera (01:31:53):

There.

Matt (01:31:54):

Unfortunately, it’s totally ruined for me.

Tiera (01:31:56):

They did a re-release last year and we went and saw it and we were

Speaker 6 (01:32:01):

Like, yeah,

Tiera (01:32:03):

No, no, she was sweet. No. Yeah, to not know would be excellent. But to see it in the theater and the song started playing and it was like, yeah, look at me.

Matt (01:32:12):

I think that the flashbacks to explain everything are a little annoying, but they will become. So I think they become overbearing as the series goes on where every little

Speaker 6 (01:32:20):

Thing

Matt (01:32:20):

In the entire movie is explained by a reference to another thing. But this is the first time it’s happened, so we got to show how this all works. And I love that he just, Tobin Bell says to Leo, he’s just like, oh, by the way, the key was in the bathtub the whole time, idiot. But you wash it down the drain. Sorry.

Speaker 5 (01:32:36):

Just like you threw your life around down the drain. See metaphor

Matt (01:32:40):

And yeah, you’ve lived a shitty life. You don’t talk to your family enough. You never call.

Laci (01:32:47):

Theresa Stokes sent

Matt (01:32:48):

Me, I text you and it takes you eight hours to text me back. Why?

Laci (01:32:52):

So my son leaves me on, can you please dear Mr. Saul, my son? That’s what he should be. He should be like an Ann Landers kind of Mr. Sa right in.

Matt (01:33:04):

He needs to be an advice columnist or even better a TV judge.

Speaker 5 (01:33:08):

Theresa, I don’t know that I would jigsaw your son per se, but maybe try to spend some quality time.

Matt (01:33:14):

He needs to be Dear Prudence. Yeah, yeah. Perfect. Perfect. And that’s the movie. He’s like Game over and slams the door. Sorry, fucko, you’re dead, but I didn’t kill you. I don’t kill anybody. I’m a good man.

Laci (01:33:25):

I still don’t understand what, wait, what was Adam’s job to do? Was he also just whoever saw as their foot first wins? I don’t.

Tiera (01:33:33):

So Adam was supposed to just be able to take that key and unlock his thing and fuck off. That’s what he was supposed to be able to do.

Laci (01:33:42):

But he was given a saw. Also Mixed Signals Jigsaw. But the

Tiera (01:33:47):

Lesson is later on, and this is again a sequel, but Amanda gets in trouble for leaving the key in there like that. She’s the reason why that key went down the drain or whatever he was supposed to be able to get out.

Laci (01:34:02):

That actually sounds really familiar. Was she also not supposed to give him a saw? She wanted to just kind of see what it would be like if both of them had one. I think that I think in the third one,

Tiera (01:34:13):

Does he address

Laci (01:34:14):

That? I think that sounds, yeah, because actually as soon as you said that, I’m like, oh Amanda, you’re messing it up. But also if your fucking protege messed this up, then why do you leave him? He didn’t do it. He got shot. What the fuck? Jigsaw

Matt (01:34:29):

Also, the message is just like, Hey, make sure that before you start playing a game, read all the rules and check all the things before you get going. Check your bathtub. If you wake up in a bathtub,

Laci (01:34:38):

This is a guy that goes and buys Monopoly at a fucking garage sale. And he gets real mad when he gets home and not all the pieces are in there. People, you put it in a fucking Ziploc bag, how hard is it? That’s what he is.

Matt (01:34:51):

He just has the jigsaw the whole time because he dunno who did it. He also schools,

Tiera (01:34:55):

It’s not in the instructions the

Matt (01:34:57):

It’s not in the instructions. It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t count. Yeah. We don’t do that shit in John Kramer’s house. So that’s it. That’s the movie. We are going to go around the room and give our final thoughts and star ratings for Saw 2004 starting with our esteemed guests.

Tiera (01:35:28):

So I really enjoy this movie, and I won’t say that I really enjoy all this sequels, but this one I do really enjoy. And I would give it a four out of five stars for myself because I can still pop it on and enjoy it, even if I’m making fun of it. I like to rewatch movies to also make fun of the parts that I don’t like.

Matt (01:35:56):

Oh, that’s the best. And even the parts that I do, it’s just fun to do a jigsaw voice and think how he would respond to me in the real world.

Tiera (01:36:04):

Yeah, exactly.

Derek (01:36:06):

Yeah, I absolutely love this movie. I have since I saw it in theaters. And if you look at it as a standalone movie that you like you mentioned way long ago that they had no idea that this was going to become a franchise. It really does work out as just a single movie, the key going down the drain. Yeah, sure. In a later movie, you find out that Amanda fucked them over and you could wonder why Jigsaw wouldn’t have let him out of the trap. But that’s convoluted when it comes to the fact that that is said in a sequel and their way of just tying shit together and whatnot. But as a standalone movie, this is absolutely a four for me. Okay,

Laci (01:36:50):

Agreed. That’s where I am too.

Matt (01:36:52):

You’re at Four Stars.

Laci (01:36:53):

I think I’m at a four. It was a three and a half before we had this conversation, but I just have more appreciation for always knowing how things start helped me, where the creators were, how much were they given to work with, and that they didn’t know this wasn’t some master plan to make a franchise out of. I think it’s cool to have that many ideas and I just remember I gave it points for being wildly original and shocking the hell out of me in the theater.

Matt (01:37:20):

Yeah, I think based on the limitations they had, they did a great job. I think that this is a very well-directed movie with a script that I don’t really like, that I think is way too overwritten. Both the dialogue is way too overwritten. All the connections and the jumping around in time is just way too much. And I just never thought Jigsaw was a very interesting character, but there’s so much. Wan is so great at generating tension, at building suspense with the most simple of scenarios. Is there somebody in my house, a strange man in my child’s bedroom, and this movie has those scenes where the future movies, they always are confined to the place where all the saw traps are going on. So I give this three stars and it’s definitely my favorite of the series, but I know that people I respect like You two and so many horror fans really, really love this series. So I feel like I should see the movies I haven’t seen and just try to see, am I missing something? Is there something that isn’t connecting with me about this series that everybody seems to love so much?

Laci (01:38:30):

I think whenever you’re horror fan and so many of the great franchises happen before you were born, it’s like our opportunity to jump in on the ground floor of something. So you sort of just adopt it as like, no, no, these movies watch me grow up and that’s how I feel about Scream, even though they’re great, but it’s like, no, that’s my franchise right there. I was there for all of it. So there’s something that feels personal.

Derek (01:38:55):

Oh, I was just going to say, the thing with this franchise is when you say why the horror community loves it so much, I think one of the big factors is watching the way people die and seeing it, how they tie it to the previous movies.

Tiera (01:39:08):

Well, yeah. And so is it six, that’s the model four? Yeah, I believe it’s six where they dive so far in on these, but I think it’s six is the one where they go after the insurance executive there. William Easton. Yeah. Is that the sixth one?

Derek (01:39:26):

I believe so

Tiera (01:39:27):

Who denied jigsaws whatever to

Laci (01:39:32):

Treatment or whatever.

Tiera (01:39:33):

We’re going to

Laci (01:39:34):

Manji the shit.

Tiera (01:39:35):

So that whole one is just based on American insurance being shit. And of course it ties into the previous movies, we get flashbacks or things or added story. And it is just watching it grow into, and some of the movies are not totally awesome, but I feel like for the most part, at the end of each of them it’s like, okay, yeah, I can see how you, maybe it’s a razor thin whatever, but you did tie it in and I’m curious now because it’s left on a cliffhanger again, what happens to this guy or what happens to that guy

Derek (01:40:16):

Jigsaw, the original Mario,

Tiera (01:40:19):

Because then it gets to a point to where most all of these traps, so the engineers behind the scenes, all of these traps, most of them in the movies are working and they have to use extreme caution when filming these things.

Laci (01:40:38):

That’s actually really interesting, I think. I’d love to see that.

Tiera (01:40:41):

Yeah. So when you see watch the behind the scenes stuff too, for a lot of this it what makes the appreciation deeper? Just how much really went into it. And I think like were saying with this first movie, knowing it was their first movie and being aspiring filmmakers just it’s fun to see this happen for them.

Matt (01:41:08):

Whereas I think the second, third and fourth movies were all directed by the same guy. And maybe for me it’s just the basic, it’s very rare to get a James one at the beginning of his career who’s going to go on to be a major director and just the basic craft is missing from the sequels or at least the sequels that I’ve seen. But then the saw XI thought was really good, was really well directed. And I think that director has also made a few other saws, so I should

Tiera (01:41:35):

Keep going with this series. And he did. And he made ones that I didn’t really enjoy that much, some of the weaker ones also. So it was interesting to see this b as good as it was. Fuck

Derek (01:41:46):

Josh, he was the writer, not the director, but,

Laci (01:41:53):

Well, I guess, I mean, I’ll watch some more with you.

Matt (01:41:55):

Yeah. Is

Laci (01:41:56):

A big blind spot for me.

Matt (01:41:58):

Is there a person or a people who

Tiera (01:42:00):

That jigsaw is, you don’t have to worry about that one. And also though you might, so people who’ve appreciated, I like Spiral and I like all the other saws too, but people who liked Spiral, a lot of them were people who weren’t a huge fan of the Saw franchise, but they liked this

Laci (01:42:20):

Off

Tiera (01:42:21):

Shoot. Okay, that’s interesting. Yeah. Yeah.

Matt (01:42:25):

So thus ends our discussion of Saul and I want to thank the two of you, HFK, spooky T. Please tell everybody all about what you guys do, where people can find you online.

Derek (01:42:38):

I make tiktoks and you can find me on TikTok at HFK 48 I halfass of my Instagram. I am also HFK on there. And then I have letterbox under, I believe just my full birth name of Derek Ferrera. T,

Laci (01:42:58):

Sorry,

Tiera (01:42:58):

Yeah, for Rera. That’s a fun name. Also on TikTok, spooky T Instagram Spooky T 1408. And the letter Spooky T 1408.

Matt (01:43:11):

The scariest number there is.

Tiera (01:43:13):

Yeah, there was a reason I went with that number. Yeah, we’re working on a new project, a new probably be a short film.

Derek (01:43:25):

It’ll definitely be a short film.

Tiera (01:43:26):

But yeah, like I was saying earlier, the pair of brothers go on a trip and shit gets crazy on this trip.

Derek (01:43:36):

We’re going to fucking Lee Wonell this shit. We’re going to make a short film and then just shop it around.

Matt (01:43:40):

Yep. Hell yeah. And I mean this, you two are both very good actors I

Derek (01:43:47):

Think. Thank you. Appreciate it.

Matt (01:43:50):

And that’s hard as hell to do. The handful of times I’ve tried to do it, it’s just tried to do stupid scripted bits for our podcast. It’s impossible, but you guys are very good at it. As for us, next week, we are talking about the cabin, the woods from 2012 with returning guest cinematic Joshua. This is a fun movie that I’m excited to revisit. It’s been a little while. I love

Speaker 5 (01:44:10):

This movie.

Matt (01:44:12):

Since we’ve seen this movie, Joshua wanted us to talk about this.

Speaker 5 (01:44:15):

This movie goes all the fucking way.

Laci (01:44:17):

Yes, this movie is awesome. Movie’s fucking awesome. Yeah. Yes, it’s so good. It’s so good and it ends so crazy and I love it.

Matt (01:44:24):

All movies should have a giant hand just coming up and just like Porky Pig and that’s it. The world is destroyed.

Laci (01:44:31):

Yes.

Matt (01:44:31):

Reality. Broken. Check out load, bring beams on Patreon, we have an episode about Nickelodeon’s. Doug, we have

Laci (01:44:37):

Episode

Matt (01:44:37):

Really good. Good. Thank you.

Laci (01:44:38):

Oh, wasn’t it

Matt (01:44:39):

About Mulholland Drive available on the Patreon and more Patreon stuff coming in October.

Laci (01:44:45):

Hey, and thank y’all for being Patreon subscribers.

Matt (01:44:47):

Yes, thank you so much.

Laci (01:44:48):

Thank you very much. Yes, we got into royalty here.

Matt (01:44:52):

I’m on letterbox at Match six nine. Laci’s on letterbox at Load. Bring Laci. My band does the music for the show. We are called Rural Route Nine and our album is called The Joy of Averages. Check it out wherever you get music.