A new Spiral image reveals the Saw reboot's incredibly gory train station crime scene. Twenty years after James Wan’s original Saw changed the horror game forever, the long-running franchise is getting a reboot with Chris Rock and Samuel L. Jackson.
Spiral: From the Book of Saw sees Rock, pulling off another dramatic turn in the wake of his role on Fargo, playing a cop investigating a series of gory murders perpetrated by a copycat killer inspired by original Saw villain Jigsaw. Jackson plays Rock’s father, an ex-cop who is somehow involved with the Jigsaw copycat. As already teased by Rock himself, it finally emerges that this Jigsaw imitator is motivated by a desire to take down dirty cops.
Though Spiral may deviate from the original Saw series in a lot of ways, mainly by giving its central bad guy a whole different motivation, the movie remains true to the gory spirit of the earlier films. If that wasn’t already made clear by previous Spiral trailers and TV spots, it’s definitely made abundantly so by the new image released by Lionsgate showing Rock’s character and his partner investigating an incredibly gruesome crime scene. See the disturbing image in the space below:
Previous trailers afforded brief glimpses of the same train tunnel location featured in the above image. In one of these glimpses, a character can be seen stuck in one of the Jigsaw copycat’s traps while a train bears down on him. Connecting the dots, it’s likely the badly mangled body in the new image is the same person shown apparently being hit by a train after apparently being snatched by the new Jigsaw.
The release of this image should quiet any concerns Saw fans might have had about the new movie skimping on gore. Clearly, Spiral isn’t afraid to go all the way when it comes to depicting the Jigsaw-inspired killer’s brutality. But of course Spiral is tweaking the Saw formula in some other crucial ways, and it remains to be seen how these changes will play. Yes the movie still has a killer who uses traps to torture and punish those he has targeted with his twisted sense of justice. But in this case, he’s targeting dirty cops. Given everything currently going on in the world, this premise is bound to be a lot more politically loaded than anything featured in the original Saw movies.
Using the horror genre as a vehicle for exploring social justice issues is of course becoming increasingly prevalent in the wake of Jordan Peele’s breakthrough with Get Out. And it definitely seems like Spiral is trying to follow in Peele’s footsteps. It will be interesting to see if the Saw reboot is able to pay off both as a gorefest and a statement. Of course, there are some hardcore horror fans who will only be interested in the gore and not so much the message.
Source: Lionsgate
