Saw VI: Mixing Political Commentary & Horror

Background

For this assignment - from an American Horror course, I was instructed to pick a horror film and analyze how it approaches a political or social topic. That was the core idea of the assignment, though I was largely limited to analyzing the film according to references in notes and material covered in course discussions.

I lacked a wide array of horror films with an explicit focus in politics. The few films I noted with a subject matter that involved politics or social topics basically consisted of The Omen (original series and remake) and Day of the Dead (original, 1985). However, with healthcare being a major subject in recent months, I decided on Saw VI, which uses healthcare as a plot point

The following is my written analysis, albeit highly edited and, in my mind, improved based on my own feelings and feedback after I submitted it*.

The Write-Up

Most horror films tend to have a mixed relationship when it comes to approaching political subjects. For the most part, some “standard” horror films don’t tend to make an effort to tackle politics. Other films decide to go for it, which I find usually results in an extremely heavy-handed political message.

The Saw films, however, in my opinion, have a plot that puts them in a position to approach a political topic and do so in a novel, orginal way. Although each individual film focuses on something different – resulting in a disjointed and inconsistent tone at times – the overarching focus of the series is of the Jigsaw Killer – alternately Jigsaw – and the peripheral characters surrounding his machinations. The key difference between Saw and most horror franchises is that the Saw franchise actually has a unique angle with which to approach a major political topic – health care, an approach I will explain shortly.

This sounds strange, considering the series’ gore-heavy reputation (which isn’t unearned) and plot points largely consisting of and revolving around placing people in horrific death traps. Where Saw is unique, though, is that Jigsaw’s aim is for his victims (or “test subjects”) to survive, albeit at the cost of making an awful choice, sometimes involving self-mutilation. Thus, unlike standard serial killers in film and TV, Jigsaw wants his victims to live with a renewed appreciation for being alive. “Those who don’t appreciate life do not deserve life,” he says in Saw II.

Jigsaw’s motivation draws from being John Kramer (Tobin Bell), a man who made it his mission to force people he considered ungrateful or unworthy of living to appreciate their lives after being diagnosed with an incurable form of cancer**. Although John plays key, central roles in the first three films, he is ultimately killed at the conclusion of Saw III. Despite his death, his “mission” is carried on by accomplices and apprentices – generally survivors of his traps – who each have their own designs on the Jigsaw legacy.

The American Healthcare System ultimately is shown to be a key factor in John’s transformation into the Jigsaw figure. While the first five films left most aspects and specific details to the imagination, 2009’s Saw VI explicitly depicts the healthcare as an important aspect to John's development. Thus with a health insurance executive in John/Jigsaw's crosshairs, it can be seen as judging the American Healthcare system as flawed and in need of dire change.

Before I describe how these two aspects are related, I want to describe the film for context.

Within the A-plot - and the aspect of the film relevant to this reflection - William Easton (Peter Outerbridge), an executive at Umbrella Health, is sent through various traps designed to put his policies to the test. In the film, this is generally portrayed to be a confrontation both personal and on principle as John takes offense to William’s ideas of who should receive healthcare. William justifies his selection method (or "formula," as he explains to John in flashbacks) as deciding who has the potential to live long, healthy lives, while John sees this as a cold, clinical and unfair method of deciding who is allowed to live.

The second, and main plot of the film, concerns Detective Mark Hoffman (Costas Mandylor), John’s current surviving accomplice. Picking up after the previous film, Hoffman has framed agent Peter Strahm (Scott Patterson) as an accomplice and killed him. Despite being largely successful, Strahm’s associates Dan Erickson (Mark Rolston) and Lindsey Perez (Athena Karkanis) find inconsistencies between Hoffman and John’s methods that threaten to expose him, leaving him striving to stay ahead of the police as they come closer to uncovering him.

Saw VI occupies a number of different spots as both its own film and as a sequel. Within the horror genre, Saw VI likely classifies as a splatter film, given some extreme depictions of violence and gore throughout the film. The opening scene, for instance, features Simone (Tanedra Howard) amputating her arm while her associate Eddie (Marty Moreau) cuts off pieces of fat from his abdomen, both aiming to escape a death trap that embeds screws in the victim’s head. Shortly after, the film recaps Strahm’s death – being crushed by closing walls – from the ending of Saw V. While the recap only re-uses footage from the scene (which never actually shows the walls completely closing on Strahm), the scene depicts Strahm's left arm snapping violently between the walls and a significant amount of blood, after which the film itself follows the immediate aftermath and shows Hoffman inspecting Strahm’s pulverized remains.

I say likely classifies as a splatter film because the impact of most of the gore in the film is diminished by little being actually shown at times. In some scenes, lighting and color grading make blood and other gore difficult to see. Some occasions – such as a character’s ribs being crushed in a vice, another hanging by razor wire and a throat slashing – are shown happening fast, obscured by camera angles, or feature some but not excessive amounts of blood. Others, such as characters being shot, are not really shocking since they don’t show any more detail than most crime drama TV series or even films normally would.

When it comes to the gore, I would say the most violent death in the film is William's. In the concluding moments of the film, the family of a man William dropped from insurance opts to kill him, activating a device that injects him with a vat of acid. Although this death scene follows the “obscured gore” example I mentioned – as William is shown melting through quick camera shots (generally only showing his shirt turning red) and partly obscured by a caged wall – it does ultimately show William’s body split apart and spill viscera.

What I find interesting is that the violence in Saw VI relies less on the shock value of gore and more on emotional intensity. Two of William’s tests rely on this heavily. The first involves William being forced to choose which of his two employees will hang: his young and healthy file clerk Allen with no family, or his elderly diabetic secretary Addy, who has a family. As Jigsaw notes, William’s selection method favors Allen. When faced with the choice, though, William chooses to save Addy.

By far the most intense scene putting William’s (and by extension, most insurance companies’) principles to the test is the Carousel trap. In the scene, six of William’s key associates – the “dog pit,” who find errors and inconsistencies in applications that warrant termination – are placed on a spinning carousel that routinely stops, leaving one to be shot at a time. Since their actions result in two-thirds of all applications being terminated, William is tasked to apply the same ratio to his workers and decide which two live. To save the two, William has to let a rod fire into his hand, which will cause the shotgun aimed at the carousel to fire upward.

As I said, this scene is the most intense and vicious application of how John sees the American healthcare system: by essentially, in his mind, removing the bureaucratic process entirely and forcing William to literally decide who lives while his inaction kills someone in front of him. The scene steadily features William slowly breaking down with each time he is forced to do nothing. The breakdown is depicted by William becoming limp and dazed, the film visually becoming diffused and cloudy, and the audio becoming progressively more distorted. In an addition to the Director’s Cut DVD, carnival music is added over Charlie Clouser’s score for the scene, adding another layer of disorientation to the moment.

Relatedly, Saw VI also at times functions similarly to a slasher film, but doesn’t quite cross the line. The film features most typical conventions of the slasher film genre (observed by Carol J. Clover), mostly related to the plot regarding Hoffman as a Jigsaw accomplice:

• A plot - Hoffman aiming to avoid being caught
• A killer - Hoffman
• A terrible place - the locations where the traps play out
• Victims - anyone killed in a trap
• Weapons - Hoffman is shown using a scalpel and knife at various points

Although these are depicted somewhat in spirit of a slasher film, they don’t quite fully embrace the slasher film mentality (although the following film Saw 3D would do so enthusiastically). For example, the film features a number of women who could be considered “final girls,” but the one who probably most fits the general definition is Jill Tuck (Betsy Russell), John’s ex-wife.

In the film, Jill’s relationship with Hoffman mirrors the relationship between the final girl and the killer in spirit more than in execution. While she is never directly threatened or harmed by Hoffman, he is depicted as seeing her as an obstacle to fully taking over as Jigsaw, intimidating and pressuring her to stay out of his business. Jill ultimately attempts to orchestrate Hoffman’s downfall by placing him in a revised “Reverse Beartrap” - a head-mounted device meant to rip open the wearer's jaws, essentially destroying the victim's head - in an effort to kill him. Although this breaks with John’s beliefs, she shows a desire to end it entirely, and sees killing Hoffman as justified to this end. Despite this, Hoffman manages to escape, semi-defying slasher film norms, although he is left mutilated and injured in his escape.

In the aspects set by other Saw films, Saw VI operates similarly to a crime drama procedural more than it does as a horror film. While this aspect is common to all of the films in the series, VI follows the precedent set by the previous two films by heavily involving the police and investigations and making them more central to the main plot. This is largely relegated to Hoffman discussing the case with Erickson and Perez.

As I said before, Saw VI is the series’ first major foray into a major political discussion, but I find one could argue that it was almost only a matter of time before it came up. A key major aspect of the first three films is the fact that John/Jigsaw is dying of cancer, his presence in the later films established through flashbacks. Given that a definitive timeline is never really established between John’s origins, flashbacks and the first film, I find there is enough time in that unexplained period that it is a reasonable enough theory that John attempted at some point to receive health care, only to be denied.

With that in mind, despite not exploring the American healthcare system in detail, the film does show aspects of it that people have criticized over the years. Other aspects are discussed or hinted at when or if not shown directly.

One key aspect the film depicts is the pre-existing conditions clause. Within the context of the film, William uses the pre-existing condition clause to drop Harold Abbott (George Newbern) from coverage in a flashback. Specifically, William notes Harold failed to disclose a surgery from years earlier – removal of a cyst from his jaw – that likely contributed to Harold’s heart disease, which served as the reason he sought coverage. Harold's death as a result of the lack of coverage serves as the reason his family - imprisoned to judge William - ultimately reject William's character development and kill him when faced with the choice.

In a most basic description, the pre-existing conditions clause is viewed by critics essentially as an “escape route” insurance companies use to deny coverage to an individual based on an ailment or other condition the prospective insurance recipient has before they sought coverage [HowStuffWorks]. This was considered highly controversial for a number of reasons, mainly because it was considered denying critical funding for patient’s treatment - if not the treatment itself - in the name of protecting company profits [Grim]. Another criticism is the largely open-ended question of what specifically qualifies as a pre-existing condition. This can and has included pregnancy and injuries from domestic abuse [Grim, Haberkorn]. As of May 2017, this has grown to also include sexual assault.

I can relate to the anger and frustration directed toward this because I have experience with it. My father has Type II Diabetes. Because of this, he was denied health insurance by a number of different insurance companies because it qualified as a pre-existing condition. Until 2010, he was only insured through employer-granted insurance. Following the passage of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (alternately Obamacare) in 2010, my father was allowed to receive insurance individually.

The pre-existing conditions clause served as one of the most criticized aspects of the American healthcare system. With the passing of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act/Obamacare in 2010, this was largely no longer an issue as one of its prime goals was universal and affordable health care. However, with Trump’s election in 2016, people have become worried that the Republicans’ long-sought repeal will result in the reinstatement of the pre-existing conditions clause. Although Trump himself has stated he would likely keep it, and it was one of a few holdovers into the otherwise highly controversial American Health Care Act [Kliff & Nelson], this has not eased most Americans’ doubts. Further muddying the issue is many of the Obamacare replacement plans aim to drop the pre-existing conditions coverage requirement.

Another aspect hinted at is the presence and influence of HMOs (health maintenance organizations). In the most basic, general description I was able to come up with, HMOs dictate and decide whether a condition and a treatment is worth being covered under the insurance plan. This is implied during a flashback scene between William and John, when John tries to appeal to William to approve a prospective experimental treatment involving suicide genes. John’s denial leads him to comment on deliver a speech on the unfairness of the American healthcare system, ultimately concluding that decisions are not made by doctors, patients or politicians, but by insurance companies.

Saw VI served as the franchise’s first and only foray into a political arena. Like its predecessors, Saw VI earned an extremely mixed reception by critics and audiences alike. The film received 36% and 55% approval from critics and audiences on Rotten Tomatoes, respectively and 6.0 rating on IMDB. Some considered the film to be standard for the series barely above or subpar in general. Others considered the film a better film than Saw IV and V and a return to the tone of the first three.

The approach to healthcare, though, was mixed and largely derided. Some people thought it was a new, interesting approach while others considered it overly topical and its execution heavy handed. The film also ran into controversy for allegedly favoring letting women survive over men. The accusation is mainly leveled at the Carousel scene, in which the only two survivors are women while all of the men on it are killed. Likewise, of all of the characters shown to die in the film (excluding Strahm), the fatalities of men outnumber the fatalities of women almost 2 to 1***.

In the end, Saw VI occupies an odd but unique place in its portrayal of its story and its commentary on American Healthcare. It plays around with typical slasher and splatter film concepts but never really employs them to the full extent. At the same time, it offers interesting (if sometimes heavy handed) commentary on a healthcare system that was widely agreed to be flawed and in extreme need of fixing at the time of its release. While I liked the approach for being unique and its meta-aspects, this approach is largely subjective depending on how the viewer feels and their experiences with the films and their concepts.

Notes

* I had a good deal of research and work completed for an early draft of the assignment, but events that week, both personal and courses-related forced me to work fast to submit an extremely rough finalized draft. The draft itself at times is scant and lacks details at certain points. This revised version is more detailed and on point.

** This was derived from Leigh Whannell’s (actor and writer of the first three Saw films) experience after being concerned about head pains while observing other people in worse condition during a doctor’s visit.

*** Body count: Includes the characters and how they are killed. I've included Strahm in this list because, while he is technically killed at the end of Saw V, the story of Saw VI begins with Strahm's death.

1. Peter Strahm: crushed
2. Eddy: screws embedded in head
3. Hank: ribcage crushed
4. Allen: hanged by razor-wire noose
5. Debbie: harpooned through head
6. Aaron: shot on the Carousel
7. Gena: shot on the Carousel
8. Dave: shot on the Carousel
9. Josh: shot on the Carousel
10. Dan Erickson: throat slashed by Hoffman, later burned alive
11. Sachi: shot by Perez, used as a human shield by Hoffman
12. Lindsey Perez: stabbed by Hoffman
13. William Easton: dissolved by acid

Works Cited

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2. Cook, Linda. "Review: Jigsaw Creates His Own Health-care Death Panel in 'Saw VI'." The Quad-City Times. N.p., 27 Oct. 2009. Web. 31 Mar. 2017.
3. Dunstan, Marcus, and Patrick Melton. "Saw VI (2009)." Rotten Tomatoes. N.p., 12 Mar. 2017. Web. 04 Apr. 2017.
4. Grim, Ryan. "When Getting Beaten By Your Husband Is A Pre-Existing Condition." The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 14 Sept. 2009. Web. 30 Mar. 2017.
5. Haberkorn, Jennifer. "Fears over Pre-existing Conditions Haunt Obamacare Debate." POLITICO. N.p., 02 Feb. 2017. Web. 03 Apr. 2017.
6. Jacobson, Louis. "Pregnancy a 'pre-existing Condition'? Yes, for Some." PolitiFact. N.p., 18 Aug. 2009. Web. 29 Mar. 2017.
7. Kliff, Sarah, and Libby Nelson. "The American Health Care Act: The Republicans' Bill to Replace Obamacare, Explained." Vox. Vox, 06 Mar. 2017. Web. 05 Apr. 2017. 
8. Morris, Wesley. "It’s a Horror Sequel and a Health-care Initiative." Boston.com. The Boston Globe, 26 Oct. 2009. Web. 31 Mar. 2017.
9. "Pre-existing Conditions." HowStuffWorks. N.p., 05 Nov. 2007. Web. 02 Apr. 2017. 
10. Sarlin, Benjy. "Health Deal Could Weaken Protections for Pre-existing Conditions." NBCNews.com. NBCUniversal News Group, 04 Apr. 2017. Web. 05 Apr. 2017. 
11. "Saw VI (2009)." IMDb. IMDb.com, n.d. Web. 07 Apr. 2017. 
12. Saw VI. Dir. Kevin Greutert. By Patrick Melton and Marcus Dunstan. Lionsgate, 2009. Film.
13. Sheppard, Noel. "'Saw VI': Horror Movie Villain Kills For ObamaCare." NewsBusters. Media Research Center, 24 Oct. 2009. Web. 30 Mar. 2017.
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