SFX's 2023 in review: Saw X filmmakers on John Kramer’s emotional return to the franchise

The following feature first appeared in the October 2023 issue of SFX magazine. You can purchase a hard copy here.

When Saw 3D, the seventh Saw, was released in cinemas, the tagline promised “The Final Chapter” in the ongoing saga. But the game was far from over. Despite having died in Saw III, John Kramer aka Jigsaw returns in Saw X, and his comeback shouldn’t surprise: he’s been in every Saw since his demise (barring the Chris Rock-led ninth installment, Spiral). However this time, rather than appearing through flashbacks or pre-recorded tapes, John Kramer’s back for real. 

Saw X takes place between the events of the first two Saw films and sees Kramer and his protégé, the former trap victim Amanda, wreak havoc on a group of scientists in Mexico who promised Kramer an experimental cure for his cancer but actually swindled him. As a result, the scientists soon find themselves unwittingly playing a game of survival, and, well, you probably know the rest; traps, blood, gore, and creepy ventriloquist dolls fill the runtime, which also happens to make this the longest Saw yet.

Jigsaw puzzle

“It was always the intention to go back to basics,” Kevin Greutert, the director of Saw X, Saw VI, and Saw 3D, tells SFX. The key to unlocking the film, he explains, was understanding how to optimize everything audiences love about the series. By setting the film between the first two Saw films, Greutert could tell a story less beholden to convoluted lore and instead focus on having Jigsaw do what he does best: exacting (twisted) justice on those (mostly) deserving.

“We’ve learned, one way or another, that John Kramer as played by Tobin Bell is what it’s all about,” Greutert says. “This was an opportunity to really focus on him and his story and a really key incident that happens in his life. So it led us to a story that is, surprisingly, pretty emotional compared to the other Saw movies. “Not that there isn’t emotion in the other ones, but it’s mostly the emotion of fear. There’s other stuff in this one. There’s hope and there’s hope destroyed. People will really be surprised because, as good as the trailer is, it doesn’t convey a lot of what the actual film is.”

Greutert has previously said the film has an “epic” quality to it, which aligns with the extended runtime but not necessarily the subject matter – after all, the word epic evokes The Lord Of The Rings, Dune, and Blade Runner, not Jigsaw’s killing sprees. “It has to do with tone, more than length,” Greutert explains. “The arc John goes through is more grandiose in a way, and emotionally deeper, than what we’re used to. There are extended sequences that are not the normal kind of thing you see in a Saw movie. Really, it’s more of an emotion-driven epic than anything else.”

Saw X is, at times, so unlike a normal Saw film that upon reading the script, members of the production crew who were not previously part of the Saw family kept saying they didn’t realize the series was this emotional. “And I’m like, ‘Well, normally, it’s not!’” says Greutert. “It really is a good story. And Tobin’s character, John, is more empathetic. It sounds crazy because he does some pretty horrendous things, but that’s the magic of Saw, that we can have a protagonist that’s that out there.”

Setting traps

That doesn’t mean John Kramer’s not as terrifying as ever. After all, Saw X takes place just months after the original bathroom game seen in the first Saw, in which Cary Elwes’s Dr. Lawrence Gordon was forced to remove his own leg to escape. “A lot of really, really bad, dark shit goes down in this story,” Greutert says. Much of that “dark shit” comes by the way of traps. 

The trailer alone features fingers being bent out of place, large mechanical collars, a man trying to remove his own brain’s cerebral tissue, rats seemingly running down tubes toward someone’s eyes, and much, much more. Perhaps unsurprisingly, coming up with new

twisted ways to torture victims remains a difficult task for the filmmakers. “It’s really, really hard,” Greutert says. “Every year when I’ve been told we’re doing another shoot I’m like, ‘How do we do it?’ Because a lot of it starts with the script, but sometimes the traps and cells are very shorthand. In the script, sometimes they are just as they appear, but usually, there are a lot of long meetings between assorted people – the writers, the production designer, the actors – where you just sit and hash through it.”

“I have lots of books on medieval torture machines and other dark stuff, and sometimes we just pore through it and shoot ideas off each other. Some of the traps have evolved quite a lot from how they started. And then you have to think about how to actually pull it off. I was very nervous about some of the things that we did; nervous on a safety level and nervous thinking it was just going to look ridiculous. Far more so than in the other Saw movies, we had to do a lot of testing. Mostly in pre-production, but we wound up having to split the shoot into two parts – three weeks in November and three weeks in January – because it was so complicated. We had to make so many prosthetics and machines, and over Christmas, we spent the entirety of it figuring this stuff out.” 

The time off led to more testing as the crew, including the stunt coordinators and those in charge of fire and explosions, gathered together to figure out how the deadliest traps would work. “Frankly, if we hadn’t done every single one of those tests, we probably wouldn’t have a movie because it just gets harder and harder as you get deeper into the story,” Greutert says. “By the last week, when we were shooting the climactic scenes, stuff went wrong even despite the tests. Halfway through every day, I was in a state of near panic thinking, ‘Wow, this is the day we fail.’ There’s so much coordination where you’re shouting out cues and there are lights and blood machines. It’s just really hard.”

The results speak for themselves: the majority of the work was done practically, and the result is a visceral killing experience. CG was used for touch-ups, with Greutert emphasizing the brilliant work done by the CG artists, but for the film’s blood and guts, the majority was done on set, helping Saw X feel like an early Saw film.

Of course, what really grounds Saw X in that world is the presence of Tobin Bell. “His commitment to the character is the reason for our success,” Greutert says. “Because he makes sure that we’re not messing with his mythology or psychology. He’s an extremely creative and serious person when it comes to this role. His performance in this film is an extension of everything that he’s done before. He had a really big role in the development of the script and even brought a lot of that into the film after it was shot, adding some additional lines [through ADR] that were really helpful to us. Ultimately, he’s the gatekeeper who makes sure we’re doing things right when it comes to Kramer. He’s the center of the franchise, there’s no doubt.” 

Kramer’s not the only returning face; his accomplice, Amanda, played by Shawnee Smith, is very much alive during this time period. We know very little about Amanda between Saw and Saw II, only really that she quickly turns from being a diehard Kramer follower to, by Saw III, being jaded by the John Kramer experience.

For Greutert, Saw X explores the question of: how did she go from this person who would do anything for John, who would jump off a cliff for him, to turning against him as much as she does? “That’s, dramatically, the material we were working with,” he says.

Up to eleven

The director won’t go into whether other characters from the series will appear, though he teases “surprises” to come. It’s also clear that Saw X is something of a storytelling cul-de-sac, building “more on what’s in the past,” as Greutert puts it, than planting seeds for the future. “There’s no obvious new direction to go after this film,” he continues, “but I think there probably will be more Saw movies, particularly if this one is successful.” 

One possibility is a sequel to Spiral which ended with a Jigsaw copycat, played by Max Minghella, getting away with murder. The film was not as successful as the producers had hoped. “I wasn’t really part of that decision [to not make a Spiral sequel next],” Greutert says. “All I know is that they wish that they had included Tobin in Spiral. They had this script [for Saw X] before Spiral, but a lot of development happened on the script between the first time they read it and then post-Spiral. They said, ‘We need to go back to our roots.’ It was the right decision. They may still do another Spiral, too, but this is what they did this year.”

How the franchise continues depends on the reception to Saw X. And if you’re on the fence about seeing this one, Greutert wants to make clear that you don’t have to be a Jigsaw disciple to enjoy his latest killing spree. “I truly believe that this is the most standalone Saw film since the first one,” he says. “It’s not about knowing or remembering anything about the previous films. It’s a richer experience if you know about Saw because otherwise, you won’t necessarily know who Amanda is when she appears, but it’s very clear from the beginning what’s happening.”

Indeed, one of the producers summed up Saw X quite nicely: “He watched a cut and said, ‘I can’t believe we’ve made our first grown-up movie.’ I guess that’s an endorsement.”

Saw X is available for purchase on Prime Video right now.  For more see our guide on how to watch the Saw movies in order, or check out all of the upcoming horror movies heading your way in 2023 and beyond.