Jigsaw is a 2017 horror film directed by Michael Spierig and Peter Spierig, and it is the eighth installment in the Saw series. It runs 91 minutes and carries the tagline “The game continues.”
Tobin Bell returns as John Kramer, a man dead for over a decade. The rest of the cast is new blood: Matt Passmore as Logan Nelson, Callum Keith Rennie as Detective Halloran, Hannah Emily Anderson as Eleanor Bonneville, and Clé Bennett as Keith Hunt.
Trailer, via Lionsgate Movies.
Five Strangers in a Barn
The plot follows five people who wake up in a barn with buckets on their heads and chains around their necks. A tape from Kramer tells them to sacrifice blood before the chains drag them into a wall of buzzsaws.
Most of the group cuts themselves free. The unconscious man wakes too late.
The next test targets Carly, a purse snatcher who caused an asthmatic woman’s death. Three needles sit before her: one antidote, one saline, one acid. She refuses to choose, so Ryan injects her with all three. She dies. The others live.
Ryan’s own test costs him a leg. He severs it with a lever to free Anna and Mitch from a silo.
Halloran and Hunt Follow the Bodies
Detectives Halloran and Hunt chase Edgar Munsen, who claims he must start a game to survive. He triggers a remote and is shot.
Corpses turn up that match Kramer’s methods. Halloran grows suspicious of pathologists Logan Nelson and Eleanor Bonneville. Eleanor admits she is a Jigsaw fangirl and now fears the admission incriminates her. Hunt spies on the pair and reports back.
Edgar is later abducted from the hospital. Mitch, meanwhile, is revealed to have sold a faulty motorcycle to Kramer’s nephew.
A Soft Reboot on a $10 Million Budget
Lionsgate commissioned Jigsaw from a pitch by writers Josh Stolberg and Peter Goldfinger. Development began in 2013; production started in 2016 on a $10 million budget.
Principal photography ran from early October into November 2016 in Toronto under the working title Saw Legacy. Lionsgate confirmed the title Jigsaw in June 2017.
Laura Vandervoort took the role of Anna for the character’s flaws and for her first thriller or horror film. Anderson signed for three films as Eleanor; the later two never happened, as neither 2021’s Spiral: From the Book of Saw nor 2023’s Saw X continued this storyline. Bell was confirmed in March 2017 to return “in some capacity.”
The film opened in the United States on October 27, 2017.
What the Film Gets Wrong
Jigsaw is a soft reboot that behaves like a rerun. The barn games restate the series’ oldest mechanic — cut, choose, survive — without adding a rule worth remembering. Carly’s needles and Ryan’s leg are the whole engine, and 91 minutes is a long time to spend on two traps.
Bell’s return is the draw, and the film knows it. But a dead man’s ghost can only carry so much. The police thread with Halloran and Hunt plays as filler between games, and Eleanor’s fandom is a note the film never turns into anything.
The Toronto shoot and the modest $10 million budget show on screen. That is not a flaw by itself; the first Saw was cheaper and sharper. The problem is that Jigsaw has no new idea about what a game should cost a person.
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| 2013 | Early development begins |
| 2016 | Production starts; $10 million budget |
| October–November 2016 | Principal photography in Toronto |
| January 2017 | Vandervoort, Anderson, Van Peebles cast |
| March 2017 | Bell confirmed to return |
| June 2017 | Lionsgate confirms the title Jigsaw |
| October 27, 2017 | U.S. release |
Jigsaw grossed $104.2 million worldwide and drew negative reviews. The money says the brand still sells; the film says nothing else. A reboot should restart something. This one just resets the clock on a dead man.
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