Horrorology: Punishment in The Saw Franchise

“I WANT TO PLAY A GAME”

CW: death, gore, violence, needles, murder.

Crime is a popular theme throughout media, whether through docuseries on Netflix, Unsolved Mysteries, or crime procedurals like Law & Order, there is an undeniable truth that we as humans are intrigued by crime and the criminal process. Horror films have not neglected this topic and have showed criminal theories and processes through some of our most loved horror movies, including the well-received horror movie series Saw.  

The Saw franchise is arguably one of the most successful horror movie franchises created in the last 20 years. It is an incredibly callous series that explores judgement, morality and the choices that people make. The Saw series works hard to highlight John Kramer’s punishment schema that those who do horrible things deserve the consequences of their actions. We observe Kramer deciding who is deemed “criminal” based on their incapacity to value their lives, they based this on Kramer’s subjectivity of “what valuing life is” (a whole other article that could be written).

Amanda Young ‘The Reverse Bear Trap’

What exactly is punishment? Sociologist Durkheim suggests that punishment functions in society to restore equilibrium to a community (Durkheim, 1958). Perhaps Kramer is attempting to restore this equilibrium by putting his victims through a variety of traps that put them through the different mechanisms of punishment, some of which examines the processes of rehabilitation or retribution. Let’s not neglect the fact that John Kramer sees himself as the arbiter of punishment and establishing a baseline for morality, even though that is subjective in reality. Looking at the films through a criminological lens, it is arguable that John Kramer represents theories of punishment, including retribution, incapacitation, and rehabilitation (Olesan & MacKinnon, 2015). Throughout the series, we can see theories of punishment showed through how the characters are placed in traps, escape their traps, and those who turn around and continue Kramer’s work through rehabilitation. 

Kramer incapacitates his victims through complex traps that reflect the crime that he perceives that they have committed against their lives and/or society. The theory of incapacitation sits in crime and criminology, serving punishment as a tool to control and monitor criminals. Either separate the criminal from society or removing them altogether (as we see with the death sentence). This prevents the criminal from committing other criminal acts. In Saw, Kramer uses incapacitation as a mechanism to enact his punishment on his victims. Kramer facilitates the reductivist approach of incapacitation through kidnapping and trapping his victims, and then killing those who do not show the drive to survive the trap. 

There are a multitude of different and complex traps that are utilised throughout the series. Each one reflecting the “crime” perpetrated by the victim trapped. For example, in Saw II we are confronted by victim Michael Marks, who is incapacitated by the trap known as ‘The Death Mask’. On his tape, we hear the voice of Jigsaw saying to Marks: 

 “So far in what could loosely be called your life, you've made a living watching others. Society would call you an informant, a rat, a snitch. I call you unworthy of the body you possess, of the life that you've been given.”

Marks was determined to not value his life because of the job that he has taken up as an informant, making him dishonest in the eyes of Jigsaw. This is where the concept of Kramer’s morality and ‘criminal behaviour’ is incredibly subjective, as some victims have not broken the law, this being objective about law and criminal justice. Kramer sees this lack of desire to live and unworthiness as a violation of his morals and beliefs. Kramer believes people should consider themselves lucky to be alive and do something meaningful with the time that they have left. Even though Kramer sees killing as a disgusting act that is below him, he suffers from the cognitive dissonance that affords him the ability to kill those he doesn’t deem as worthy. 

Michael Marks ‘Death Mask’

The theory of rehabilitation argues that punishment for crimes committed should influence an offender to return to the state that they were in before they committed their crimes. Kramer utilises his deadly traps as a way of victims, proving that they are ready to be rehabilitated for their crimes. Completing the traps means they have been rehabilitated. Through the character of Amanda Young, who we see in Saw II dive into a pool of needles, is one character that we observe essentially rehabilitate through Kramer’s acts of punishment. Although in Saw III, we see Amanda return to her crimes and break the social contract that Kramer has established between the two of them. Kramer sees this rehabilitation as a rebirth, not a return to their pre-crime state, which differs from the theory of rehabilitation. 

The Saw series has many criminological elements to be explored. However, I thought that the first step would determine the criminology behind Kramer’s acts of violence and how they operate as modes of punishment. The next step would be to ask, do these traps and death offer an element of deterrence? Hypothetically, say we are in the Saw universe this very minute. Would you value your life more if Jigsaw had the potential to snatch you off the street and punish you? One thing I know is, value is also subjective, in the same way, that punishment is.