Nearly a full decade has come to pass since James Wan's little horror film Saw arrived in theaters, shattering financial expectations and immediately carving out a place in horror film history. Across seven films, the series effortlessly transcended into pop culture, cementing actor Tobin Bell's Jigsaw Killer as a horror icon worthy of standing alongside such genre stalwarts as Jason Voorhees, Freddy Krueger and Michael Myers. Having crossed into other media from comics to video games and represented at theme parks through rides and mazes, the series continues to retain a cult following. It seems inevitable that the series is poised at any moment to return from its self-imposed 2010 exile, The Final Chapter, through either another direct sequel or by heading down the ever-popular reboot route. With the original film set for a re-release this Halloween -- surely a move by Lionsgate to celebrate the film as much as it is an attempt to gauge whether audiences are still interested in the series -- Jigsaw's games are about to pull fans old and new back into theaters. Love it or hate it, the series has left an undeniably indelible mark on the horror genre. So in honor of the original film's ten-year anniversary, what better time to take a cue from Jigsaw and play a game to stack up the series and see which entries have managed to hold up better than the rest?
Writer, film enthusiast, part-time gamer and watcher of (mostly) good television located on the fringe of Los Angeles, who now has his own website at www.highdefgeoff.com!
