Saw X is the most recent addition to the well-known 'Saw' franchise, having been released on the 29th of September 2023.
its been out for under a week- heavy spoilers ahead yall.
Taking place between the events of the first and second Saw movies, Saw X sees the franchise's main antagonist 'Jigsaw' (or John Kramer) accept a place in an experimental treatment Centre in Mexico, undergoing a dual combination of a drug cocktail and a cranial surgery in order to cure his terminal brain tumour. jigsaw temporarily retires from his side job of torturing people, only to bring himself back into the fold with the revelation that the surgery was a fake, and his tumour actually hadn't been cured, he'd just been scammed. this sets Peepaw's redemption arc back by miles, and he returns to invite all the people involved in the scam to a game- jigsaw style. with the help of his apprentice Amanda Young, and the obvious star of the show- Billy the Puppet, jigsaw turns the tables on these con artists by subjecting them to brutal and horrifying traps made to reflect the sins they committed.
(isn't he the best)
the plot of the movie then goes on a rollercoaster of plot twists, from the other cancer patients not actually having cancer, to the head doctor Cecilia killing one of her subordinates after she survives her acid trap, murdering her boyfriend after he helps take jigsaw and a 10 year old hostage in order to bloodboard them (waterboarding but with blood). the biggest plot twist of all, the one deserving of the 'hello zep' theme, was the revelation that the taxi man who had survived his earlier trap confessed to everything, including the names of all those who were involved in the scam.
Roland Barthes says that texts communicate their meanings through a series of codes that connotate different meanings and expressions. signs function at the level of denotation-the literal meaning, and connotation- the symbolic/metaphorical meaning.
Codes that support this theory:
there are a variety of Barthes codes embedded within this film that denote and connote a variety of meanings.
Referential codes: codes that refer to other media texts:
Saw X contains a variety of referential codes that can be seen throughout the movie.
The Bathroom is the most major referential code within the movie- with it being the major setting of the first Saw movie- this code is used to not only generate nostalgia within the audience, but it also signifies the return to not just America, but also to the lifestyle of kidnapping and killing people if they don't revaluate their life choices.
The setting of the bathroom is also a symbolic code representing the entirety of the film franchise- its a series about redemption and absolution- and working toward it or dying. do you chose to live or die? and the bathroom is the biggest representation of jigsaw's ideology.
the eyeball vacuum trap- the one trap advertised that wasn't actually real lmao- this trap is a symbolic code- referring to Jigsaw's active ideology
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