I Want To Play A Game Trivia Quiz

Before starting work on the film that would become "Saw" (2004), James Wan and Leigh Whannell made the short film "Saw" (2003) which starred Whannell as David, a hospital orderly who survives a deadly game. Amanda's testimony (shown as her flashback within Dr. Gordon's flashback, in which he recounts to Adam his connection to the Jigsaw case) is nearly identical to the short film, except with a different cast and a different model of Billy, the creepy puppet and de facto mascot of the franchise.

The Jigsaw killer targets Amanda because he sees her drug abuse as a sign that she fails to appreciate her life; per her own testimony, the experience was actually beneficial to her, though she still seems a little haunted. Shawnee Smith, who shot all her scenes in one day, was director James Wan's first choice to play Amanda because he'd had a crush on her as a teenager.

While his alibi clears him of wrongdoing, one of Dr. Gordon's penlights is found at the scene of a "game," which brings him to investigative attention. Cary Elwes, who might be the most famous actor in the film's cast, agreed to star as Dr. Gordon after viewing the 2003 short film. Producer Oren Koules, who was featured as Amanda's "cellmate," was also his manager at the time.

It's during Dr. Gordon's interview that he's presented with Amanda's testimony, possibly because the detectives aren't totally sold on his innocence. The interview occurs five months prior to the day the film is set (which may, per the date shown on a cell phone, be September 10, 2001).

They can't keep him there, though - Tapp is seriously wounded with a hidden blade, and Sing is killed by a tripwire-activated shotgun. They don't get a look at the killer's face, thanks to his cloak - between his style, his agility, and the knife up his sleeve, it looks like the man they're after is a 12th century Syrian assassin. Not that they would know - "Assassin's Creed" wasn't released until 2007.

Danny Glover was attracted to the role of Det. Tapp thanks to the character's complexity, finding interest in his obsessive pursuit of the Jigsaw killer and his unshakable belief that the man he's after is Dr. Gordon. His obsession gets him fired, but that hardly ends his investigation...

It's not clear exactly when Adam's employer, "Bob" (who he doesn't know is the disgraced Det. Tapp), starts paying him to tail his favorite oncologist, but it's certainly between the time Sing is killed and the "bathroom game" is put into motion. Tapp hopes that Adam will discover that Dr. Gordon is the killer he's after, but all he uncovers is what looks to him like an affair.

Adam, whose last name differs in different materials (the script says Radford, the producers said Faulkner, and Saw V shows Stanheight), was played by Leigh Whannell, who wrote the script for both the short and the feature film. He starred as David in the short film, and he and director Wan allowed Twisted Pictures (a label formed by Gregg Hoffman and Oren Koules of Evolution Entertainment specifically to produce "Saw!") to produce, even though they received more generous offers from other companies, specifically because they would allow Wan to direct and Whannell to star.

Here we get into real spoiler territory (not that it matters, right?) - Zep's tape, which Adam finds after killing him, details that he's been poisoned and asks if he's willing to kill to survive. His job is to kidnap Alison and Diana Gordon, to observe the "Bathroom Game," and to apparently ensure the deaths of all three of the Gordons if Lawrence doesn't kill Adam and escape; if he fails, he will not receive the antidote to the slow-acting poison he's been administered. Adam tells Dr. Gordon in the bathroom that he's been following him around for "a few days;" while Zep does have an impressive surveillance spread in the Gordons' home, it's similar in style and function to other supplies associated with the Jigsaw Killer in the sequels, so I think it's fair to assume it was provided to him, meaning he wouldn't have needed to take the time to get it himself. It's very, very likely that he kidnapped Alison and Diana shortly after his own game began.

Zep Hindle, an orderly in the same hospital as Dr. Gordon, was played by Michael Emerson; two years after the release of "Saw," he starred as Benjamin Linus on "Lost." He signed on to play Zep after reading the script and being greatly impressed by the twist ending. Charlie Clouser's composition "Hello Zepp," which plays through the film's ending, recurs throughout the franchise (and, yes, spells his name a little differently).

Item number six, and we finally reach the cold open! The idea of two men waking up in a room with a body between them came from James Wan, who shared it with Leigh Whannell, who then came up with the title "Saw." The rest of the plot came later, inspired by their own fears and a health scare that led Whannell to get an MRI.

The entire bathroom sequence was shot in direct sequence over the course of 12 days in the interest of preserving continuity and helping the actors to keep up with emotional beats and developments. By the time they filmed the ending, they had already begun to strike the set, which limited what they were allowed to show. (I've heard it said - and this is somewhere between "urban legend" and "common misconception" - that Tobin Bell stayed on the floor the entire time to surprise Elwes and Whannell, who didn't know he'd get up, but that story falls apart if you know who wrote the movie!)

It's 6:00 pm, and the bathroom game is over; Dr. Gordon hasn't killed Adam or left the room, so he loses, and so do Alison and Diana. Ali gets the jump on Zep, though, and gets his gun away from him - the shots fired in the scuffle alert Tapp, asleep across the street. He fights Zep in the Gordons' home, but can't keep him down and chases him almost all the way to the bathroom. Zep gets the upper hand, and Tapp never gets his answers.

While we're here: Alison Gordon was played by Monica Potter (who had previously appeared in "Con Air" and would later appear in the 2009 remake of "The Last House on the Left") and Diana was played by Makenzie Vega (sister to Alexa PenaVega of "Spy Kids" fame; she herself was also in "Sin City" and all seven seasons of "The Good Wife"). As of the release of "Saw X", neither of them has appeared in any sequels.

Lawrence's emergency surgery is shown intercut alongside Tapp and Zep's chase - assuming they're simultaneous, the sequence has Lawrence taking off his shirt (an infamous moment - it seems like he might use it to extend his reach and grab the ringing phone, just like Adam did with his shirt earlier, and then he fashions a tourniquet...), Tapp and Zep reaching the building, Lawrence... working on what he's doing for a little bit, Tapp getting shot, and then Lawrence, delirious, either not knowing or not caring that the game is over, crawling to the gun to shoot Adam. By the time he's done that, his wife and daughter are already safe, which he would've known if he'd reached the ringing phone. Man!

Adam's fine, by the way. Lawrence just gets him in the shoulder. Obviously, that's still a devastating wound, but this is a movie, so he's just stunned for a moment.

It's John Kramer, the cancer patient shown in Dr. Gordon's very first flashback! He's apparently napping while Dr. Gordon is about to explain his case to his students before he is interrupted by Zep and then the police. John is played by Tobin Bell, who the producers liked for the role because of his voice - Bell was drawn to the script and to the opportunity to work with Danny Glover.

He spends the runtime of the film laying on the bathroom floor; thanks to what we in the business would call "movie magic," he didn't actually have to lay there for twelve days.

The sequels explained that his impressive performance was thanks to a drug cocktail used to knock him out - and to the help of an associate...

John shuts the door on him for good, and the movie ends. One of the more confusing pieces of information in this movie, which even the metanarrative-addicted sequels can't quite adequately explain, is that the key to Adam's shackle was in the bathtub with him until he woke up and drained the water. The sequels do explain how and why that unfair decision was made, but cannot explain how it would make a well-designed game for Dr. Gordon (all Adam has to do to win is leave, and if he'd had the key from the beginning, as was apparently the plan, how would Dr. Gordon have ever had any chance to kill Adam free himself? And why did they have six hours to work on it?) or how he held his breath underwater while unconscious. I guess you can't win them all.

A final, personal note: for a feature film debut, I think Leigh Whannell gives a really solid performance in this movie, and it's fun as an actor to watch him keep up with Cary Elwes, who's comparatively an old pro. It's also really obvious, especially when Elwes yells, that he's British (for more fun with his accent, see "Twister" or the English dub of "Porco Rosso"), but Whannell excellently masks his Australian background.