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Few franchises exemplify the grit of 2000s horror quite like the Saw franchise. In an era filled with titles as bleak as Wrong Turn (2003) and Hostel (2005), Saw reigned as king. The franchise released a sequel every year after the release of James Wan and Leigh Whannell’s original Saw in 2004.
Dismissed by many as “torture porn”, a term meant to chide ultra-violent horror films for going “too far,”1 the Saw franchise has acquired a notorious reputation, even among horror fans. Nevertheless, its popularity has earned it a following just as loyal to its complex plot as its many death traps.
The world of Saw follows the dark journey of John Kramer (Tobin Bell), the Jigsaw killer, and those caught in his web, from his apprentices to the test subjects of his deadly games. This world has found new life in the hands of fans. Its characters have been reimagined and even paired into romantic ships, sanitizing the blood of the oft-criticized franchise. That reimagining reveals the transformative power of Saw’s fandom and the desire in horror communities for catharsis in even the darkest of places.
Beyond “Torture Porn” — The Camp, Complexity, & Narrative Excess Of Saw
The September 11th terrorist attacks dramatically altered American cinema, the rise of ultra-violent horror films in their wake coining a new phrase, “torture porn,” to criticize them. The Saw franchise, which now totals ten films, has often been considered the most infamous example of “torture porn.”
It’s not difficult to see why, as each entry since Wan’s original contained increasing amounts of gore and increasingly complex traps. But there is a method to Jigsaw’s madness and a plot to the films. The bulk of that plot follows Jigsaw as he tries to teach his victims to appreciate their lives. This lesson is always taught with some manner of torture device or self-mutilation.
While Jigsaw’s identity was a mystery in the first Saw, its sequels reveal the origin of the man who would become the killer. Beginning in Saw II (2005; Darren Lynn Bousman), the series shows how John Kramer, a civil engineer and architect, had his life fall apart around him.
Following a series of tragedies, Kramer lost his unborn son, and was diagnosed with terminal cancer. After a failed suicide attempt, Kramer took his survival as a second chance and commenced his games against those he deemed ungrateful of life. These pieces of plot, which were often told through nonlinear flashbacks, became a staple of the series, up until Saw 3D (2010; Kevin Greutert).
These flashbacks fleshed out Kramer’s story and revealed surprising connections between the franchise’s characters. The plotline that took place in the films’ present was no less complicated. Films post-Saw III (2006; Darren Lynn Bousman) followed Jigsaw’s apprentices, namely Mark Hoffman (Costas Mandylor), as they continued his legacy, and the various law enforcement agents who tried to bring them down.
In one egregious example of the franchise’s complexity, the plots of Saw III and IV (2007; Darren Lynn Bousman) were revealed to have taken place simultaneously. Om Dighe, a writer for Trinitonian, writes:
“I’m also a big fan of the absolutely bizarre plot that each of these films has…. Whenever we are shown a big twist at the end of one film, the following ones have numerous flashbacks to recontextualize the series even further.”2
Later follow-ups, such as Jigsaw (2017; Peter Spierig and Michael Spierig) and Saw X (2023; Kevin Greutert), fill in gaps between and before the series’ entries. These films weave new threads in the series’ complicated plotline, such as the introduction of new accomplices to Jigsaw. The Saw franchise’s flashbacks and the new twists they reveal have created a timeline that is both convoluted and endearing to fans. Editor Liz Foster writes in The Trinity Tripod:
“Some of the storylines blend together and create a satisfying resolution, but often the audience is left wondering: where the fuck does this fit into the story? … One cannot help but laugh at the goofy effects, plot holes, and pulled-from-the-director’s-ass twists that only grow more absurd as the films continue.”3
Foster goes on to describe the series as mixing horror with camp, a word that may seem ill-fitting for such a gory franchise. However, this recognition of camp allows the series’ fandom to alter their perspective of the films. Fans do not dismiss the darkness of Saw, but they find shades of familiarity within it. The films’ combination of horror and camp allows fans room to reinterpret their story.
Queering The Trap — Shipping, Homoerotic Tension, & Fan Reinterpretation
The Saw franchise has no shortage of characters, from apprentices Amanda Young and Hoffman to Jigsaw’s many victims, each of whom has a fanbase. These characters serve as the heart of Saw fan media. While an exact number is difficult to estimate, romantic fanfiction serves as the vast majority of fan media, with shipping, or the pairing of two characters4, highly prevalent within these works. Much of that shipping is queer.
Statistics on recent trends in fanfiction indicate that Male/Male pairings make up almost half of all works on Archive of Our Own (AO3), a website that hosts fanfiction.5 Saw fanfiction follows suit. Chainshipping, the romantic pairing of Dr. Lawrence Gordon (Cary Elwes) and Adam Stanheight (Leigh Whannell) of the original Saw, is the fandom’s most popular ship.
Over 1,900 fanfics on AO3are about chainshipping. Lawrence and Adam were the first on-screen players of Jigsaw’s game when both men awoke chained up in a dirtied bathroom. Over the course of the film, the two were forced to work together. Gradually, they discovered their connection to each other and to Jigsaw’s grand plot.
The first film’s homoerotic undertones didn’t go unnoticed, earning Saw a large queer following.6 The climax of the film, in which Lawrence is forced to saw off his own foot, could be seen as the origin of chainshipping. With surprising tenderness, he crawled to Adam and promised he would return with help. Dread Central writer Kaiya Shunyata explains:
“When Lawrence saws his own foot off to escape his chains, he crawls to Adam’s side before he leaves. The two grip each other’s shirts like a lifeline, finally being able to touch after hours isolated on opposite sides of the room.”7
For many fans, this scene cemented Lawrence and Adam as having had a kind of tragic romance. Fan content regularly depicts the two as doomed lovers. Even the official social media accounts of Saw made a nod to this interpretation when they posted a photo of Adam and Lawrence in a bloody heart to Instagram and Twitter on Valentine’s Day of 2022.8
The ship has gone on to inspire SAW: The Musical: The Unauthorized Parody of Saw (2023), in which Stephanie Rosenberg brought Saw to the stage as a gay love story.9 The end of the play riffs on the finale of the first Saw movie. Lawrence, who is portrayed as a closeted bisexual, shares a kiss with Adam before leaving for help. James Wan and Leigh Whannell have expressed their appreciation for their film’s queer interpretation when they declared their love for the “fan fiction version of Saw” in a 2026 Sundance Q&A.10
Chainshipping has inspired other popular queer pairings, such as Amanda Young and Dr. Lynn Denlon (Bahar Soomekh) of Saw III and Mark Hoffman and Peter Strahm (Scott Patterson) of Saw IV and VI (2008; David Hackl). These relationships, which are largely antagonistic in the source material, become case studies in homoerotic tension. They build on the enemies-to-lovers trope that made Adam and Lawrence so compelling.
The prominence of queer ships within the Saw fandom speaks to the appeal of fanfiction itself. In a culture dominated by heterosexual pairings in media, fanfiction has offered queer fans a chance for representation since its onset. This representation demands reinterpretation. It provides a “what-if” fans can explore. This “what-if” can question what might happen if two characters were to become lovers, but on a deeper level, Saw fanfiction often asks another question: what would happen if a character didn’t die?
Catharsis In The Bathroom — Why Saw (2004-) Fans Rewrite Tragedy
The Saw franchise is often bleak. Characters, even key players, regularly die, as Jigsaw and Amanda do in Saw III. Chainshipping earns its reputation as a “doomed” romance because Adam is left to die at the end of the first Saw movie. There’s little time to develop a romance in these movies.
Wan, James, Dir. Saw, 2004.
The potential for catharsis within horror has long been studied. Many fans of the genre deem it an escape from real-world terrors. But what if that catharsis is needed as an escape from the horror? Saw’s fanbase has invested time in finding themselves in the franchises’ characters, so it makes sense that they would have a desire for those characters to find happiness. Fanfiction writers can imagine a reality in which Adam and Lawrence escape the bathroom together.
This reshaping of Saw doesn’t soften its source material. Fans recognize the violence of what they’re watching. The Saw fandom’s commitment to its characters shows their investment in it and reveals the series to be far more complex than most would give it credit for. Saw is a puzzle, and if it can be reinvented so dramatically, there must be a heart beneath all its gore.
Footnotes
- Graham-Dixon, Charles. “How ‘Torture Porn’ Captured the Violent Atmosphere of a Post-9/11 World.” VICE. 18 Sep. 2018. ↩︎
- Dighe, Om. “Why I Still Love the ‘Saw’ Franchise.” Trinitonian, 15 Sep. 2023.
↩︎ - Foster, Liz. “What Do We See in Saw?” Trinity Tripod, 31 May 2020.
↩︎ - “Fanfiction 101.” Seriously for Serious, 9 May 2018. ↩︎
- Cote, Eva Rose. 2022. “Trends in the Top 100 Fanfictions on AO3.” 16 Nov. 2022. ↩︎
- Opie, David. “The Saw Movies Are Torture Porn for Tortured Gays.” Yahoo Movies UK, 31 Oct. 2024. ↩︎
- Shunyata, Kaiya. “The ‘Saw’ Apprentices, Ranked by Their Queerness.” Dread Central, 21 Jun. 2023. ↩︎
- @Saw. “Happy Valentine’s Day from Saw!” 14 Feb. 2022. ↩︎
- “A Musical Parody of ‘Saw’ Teases out the Queer Love Story from a Cult Horror Hit.” NPR, 26 Nov. 2023. ↩︎
- @DiscussingFilm. “James Wan and Leigh Whannell admit they love homoerotic ‘SAW’ fan fiction.” 30 Jan. 2026. ↩︎