Spiral Is Secretly Repeating A Story From The Saw Sequels

The upcoming Spiral: From the Book of Saw claims in its trailers that the original Jigsaw didn’t target cops – although that is not true of the franchise, strictly speaking. Beginning in 2004 with the sleeper hit Saw, the franchise is a horror series whose ingenious (and deeply disturbing) premise spawned seven sequels and an upcoming reboot. Saw inspired an entire subgenre of so-called “torture porn” in the early-to-mid ‘00s, but even the likes of Hostel could not recapture the effectiveness of the original Saw.

Inspired by Mad Max’s ending, Saw forced viewers to decide whether they would part with limbs, eyes, and all manner of appendages to escape the Jigsaw killer’s twisted traps. The upcoming Spiral: From the Book of Saw sees series superfan Chris Rock star as a detective tasked with hunting down a Jigsaw copycat whose MO appears to be that they are targeting his fellow officers. The Spiral trailer sees a character note that this justice-obsessed Jigsaw copycat seems to be targeting corrupt cops, establishing the new killer will be different from their predecessors.

One notable line from the trailers even says the original Jigsaw didn’t target cops, but that claim is not actually accurate. In the original Saw series, Jigsaw counted cops among not only his victims but also his proteges. If anything, the original Jigsaw (and by extension his many accomplices) made a habit of targeting police officers. Saw 2’s Eric Matthews was a corrupt cop, prone to violent outbursts that saw him investigated by Internal Affairs, and in his first appearance, he fails his test by refusing to play by Jigsaw’s rules.

That’s not the only case of Jigsaw targeting members of law enforcement organizations, though; he later targeted Matthews’ colleagues Allison Kerry and Daniel Rigg for games in Saw 3 & 4. In this instance, the victims were trapped for more conceptual reasons rather than anything as tangible as Matthews’ blatant corruption or abuse of power. Unlike Eric, Allison and Daniel weren’t depicted as necessarily corrupt or even bad cops. However, Jigsaw felt their dedication to their jobs was destroying their lives. Both officers die as a result of his tests, though Kerry’s death is possibly a loophole as she only dies due to Jigsaw’s unhinged protege Amanda making her test inescapable (like all of Amanda’s traps).

Meanwhile, the primary antagonist of Saw V, VI, and 3D is another corrupt-cop-turned-serial-killer, the sociopathic Jigsaw proteges Mark Hoffman. Hoffman is another cop who used his authority to kill with impunity, and he eventually takes the original Jigsaw’s place when John Kramer dies. It was the fact Hoffman had already committed a Jigsaw copycat killing that made Kramer see his potential as a protege, so while Spiral: From the Book of Saw is prompting a brand new MO for its killer, Jigsaw targeting police officers for twisted games is a concept the sequels have explored many times. With cops being both the victims and accomplices of the original Jigsaw, the new outing will need an inventive new take on the idea to distinguish itself from the largely lackluster sequels.