“If it’s Halloween, it must be Saw.” While the long-running franchise eventually moved onto other clever marketing taglines, the Saw series continues to remain in the public eye with new installments such as Jigsaw in 2017 and Spiral: From the Book of Saw in 2021. Although both films were profitable at the box office, audience and critics weren’t as impressed. Despite grisly traps, tight pacing, and the series’ signature twist endings being present and accounted for, recent installments in the $1 billion franchise have failed to pack the punch of the original films. Despite screenwriter Josh Stolberg working on a draft of the newest installment that “will make John Kramer fans very happy,” one of the big issues plaguing the Saw franchise isn’t that it needs more John Kramer. It’s that it needs to once again commit to a central villain for the audience to become invested in, something that hasn’t happened since Saw IV.

With John “Jigsaw” Kramer (Tobin Bell) long dead since taking a circular saw to the throat at the end of Saw III, the franchise has since introduced a rotating cast of villains to serve as the antagonistic force in each film. From Hoffman (Costas Mandylor) to Logan Nelson (Matt Passmore) to William Schenk (Max Minghella), the franchise can’t seem to settle on a dominant antihero. But if Saw is to get back on track with the character-driven stakes, tension, and drama that made the original films so well-crafted, intense, and memorable, focusing on a new central villain in the next installment isn't just important, it's essential.

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Image Via Lionsgate

John Kramer is undeniably what once gave the series its sizzle. The original trilogy allowed viewers to get to know him as both the villain that society sees him as, in addition to the pain-soaked and deeply flawed human that his apprentice Amanda (Shawnee Smith) knows him to be. While we may not agree with his methods or decisions, we understand why he does what he does thanks to multiple films devoted to fleshing out his character, a solid (and tragic) backstory, and allowing the audience to build an attachment to him. The result is a fascinating and multi-dimensional villain whose intensity and unpredictability make him a character that doesn’t merely catch viewers’ attention. He commands it.

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Unfortunately, the same can’t be said for the series’ subsequent villains, and the most recent Saw installments suffer because of it. The past two films — though still taking place in the same universe as the originals — feature entirely new Jigsaw heirs apparent. While both Jigsaw’s Logan and Spiral’s William are introduced as flawed characters who, like Jigsaw, take villainous actions that are justifiable to themselves, they lack the multi-film character arcs and thoughtful development that made the character of John Kramer (and the early films in general) pack such a punch. Instead, we’re given the CliffsNotes version of Why You Should Care About These People.

Logan’s military PTSD and subsequent medical negligence is an intriguing start (especially since it’s revealed that he mislabeled John’s X-ray, directly leading to his inability to get cancer treatment sooner), but his character doesn’t quite develop past expository dialogue. The same is true for William in Spiral, whose horrible memories of his father’s murder lead him to decide to clean up the city’s police corruption using Jigsaw’s ideology and methods. In both cases, the skeletons for solid villains are present (despite a fairly thin social commentary), but there’s little meat on the bones. Quite simply, we aren’t given enough reason to care about their plight, what happens to them, or their roles as Jigsaw acolytes, leading to both Jigsaw and Spiral feeling devoid of the intense character work of the original films.

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It also doesn’t help that both characters are revealed to be the Big Bad only in the films’ closing moments. Such limited screen time as true villains robs them of a multi-film John Kramer-esque character arc — and franchise staying power — while making it challenging for viewers to become invested in their journeys. Would the original films have been as popular if there was a different main antagonist in Saw, Saw II, and Saw III? It's hard to say, but I'd venture not. The series desperately needs a new villain to re-anchor the franchise’s focus and deepen its stakes, and if there’s ever been a time to mend one of Saw’s biggest problems, it’s now. After all, two soft reboots of the franchise have shown that constantly pivoting villains to see what works isn’t, in fact, working.

But while John Kramer is long gone — despite the series trying its best to keep him relevant and part of the story through flashbacks — there’s nothing to say that the franchise can never again feature a villain of his depth and caliber. Whether the next installment (and the ones sure to follow) brings John back in a time-hopping film-length flashback or focuses on someone completely new, the series needs to once again stick with a singular, consistent villain who is given ample time to grow, develop, and breathe over the course of several films. And if it chooses not to…well, that just might be game over.