10 Horror Movie Backstories That Get Worse The More You Think About It
7. John Kramer - Saw (2004)
In the first Saw film, the Jigsaw killer - aka John Kramer (Tobin Bell) - is largely a mystery. He revels in enacting a sense of poetic justice through sadistic means of torture, and that's all we're told about him. It’s only as the series progressed over its numerous sequels where we learned more about who this killer was and the series of events that turned him into a monster.
Before Kramer took up the Jigsaw persona, he was an engineer about to start a family with his pregnant wife Jill. However, tragedy struck when she lost the baby during a robbery at her work. The couple soon grew apart and split, and Kramer’s life would continue to spiral out of control.
John was diagnosed with cancer shortly after, but his diagnosis came too late due to his x-rays being wrongly labelled. The disease was inoperable, and with nowhere else to turn to for help, Kramer descended into depression until he tried to take his own life by driving off a cliff.
It was surviving this near-death experience that gave him his new appreciation for life and inspired him to test others’ own will to live through his series of twisted traps.