Explainer | How Saw, James Wan’s 2004 horror movie, launched the torture porn subgenre

James Wan’s low-budget horror film Saw spawned a US$1 billion franchise and inspired numerous ultra-violent films

Reading Time:4 minutes

Why you can trust SCMP

Leigh Whannell as sleazy photographer Adam in a still from Saw (2004), the horror film that inspired a sub-genre of torture films. Photo: Lions Gate Films

Matt Glasby

Published: 4:15am, 24 Oct 2024Updated: 7:59am, 8 Nov 2024

When Saw was released on October 29, 2004, it did not seem primed to go down in cinema history.

However, like other horror genre game-changers such as Night of the Living Dead, Halloween and The Blair Witch Project, it was so influential – not to mention profitable – that it became the torch-bearer for an entire subgenre. And pretty soon torture porn was everywhere.

Over the years Saw has grown into a media franchise worth more than US$1 billion, encompassing 10 films, plus comics, video games, even theme park rides. But its origins were humble.

For their debut feature, Australian film school graduates James Wan and Leigh Whannell followed The Blair Witch Project playbook by keeping things simple, concentrating on two main characters locked in a room.

Saw – Unrated 4K (2004 Movie) Official Trailer – Cary Elwes, Leigh Whannell, Danny Glover

They are Adam (Whannell), a sleazy photographer, and Dr Lawrence Gordon (Cary Elwes, The Princess Bride), an oncologist with some dark secrets of his own.

We first meet them chained up in a grimy basement with a dead body on the floor between them and no memory of how they got there.