It all begins in a bathroom. Adam (Leigh Whannell) wakes in chains in a grimy bathtub to find himself entrapped alongside Lawrence (Cary Elwes), an adulterer he was paid to spy on. There is a dead body between them and ominous clues all around. Saw, the 2004 indie smash-hit, could have gone straight to video. Instead, it launched a series spanning nearly twenty years and ten films that is still going strong with every so-called final chapter. Fans return again and again for the snappy dialogue (“This is the most fun I’ve had without lubricant!”), the gravity of its moral dilemmas and the creativity of the contraptions.

Larry is one such Saw superfan. We came across him just as he logged his 200th viewing of James Wan’s original film this past August, with another dozen logs since we first got in touch... And no, that name is not a coincidence: our dear friend Larry is a trans man who had his name legally changed to honor none other than Saw stalwart Dr. Lawrence Gordon himself. 

A passionate fan of downbeat horror movies (“I love seeing bottom-of-the-barrel human beings truly connect with other people for the first time in their lives, only to have it ripped from them,” he tells us), Larry’s viewings of Saw are incredibly condensed, kicking off at the start of 2022. The twenty year old from Virginia only saw Saw for the first time a few weeks after Spiral: From the Book of Saw was released in May 2021. From his Pro stats, we can calculate that he’s watched the other eight films in the franchise an average of eighteen times each... so far.

Larry was first drawn into the Saw puzzleverse after peering over his older brother’s shoulder while his sibling was watching a trap compilation video. Seeing the infamous public trap from Saw 3D was his first, traumatizing dose of Jigsaw. Finally getting to see the first Saw film years later, he was hooked in by the emotion of the horror-thriller. Larry now spends as much time as possible with Adam, Lawrence and John in that bathroom, and with Saw X opening soon—heralding Larry’s first cinema experience of the franchise surrounded by fellow Jigsaw fanatics—we had to put a few questions to him ahead of this momentous occasion. 

Spoilers follow for ‘Saw’ and the fates of its characters in sequels.

What’s a detail in the film that’s only occurred to you recently?
I can’t be a hundred percent sure that this was intentional but I’m pretty sure Adam is supposed to be 27 here and he dies with a white lighter on him. It seems like a cute little hint towards Adam’s fate at the end of the film.

Which is the most compelling trap across the Saw franchise? And which traps make no damn sense?
The bathroom is without a question the most compelling trap in the entire franchise and it’s a hill I will happily die on. I will nail myself to that cross any day. Unlike most traps, it has such a strong emotional center, it’s more than just physical torture. The most brutal traps aren’t necessarily the most compelling or exciting. The bathroom trap works so well even though it’s simple amputation because the emotional consequences are so strong.

If anything were to come close, it’d probably be the glass coffin trap from Saw V. My favorites aside from the bathroom are the circle of silence in Saw 3D and the watercube. It’s probably a cop-out considering Jigsaw is universally hated, but I can’t stand the grain silo or motorcycle traps. They make me so irrationally angry.

There are some absolutely classic line readings from Adam and Lawrence, for better and for worse. Which is your favorite line read from each of our boys?
Anytime I rewatch it, I audibly quote Cary Elwes screaming, “I did not cheat on her!”, and anyone who’s watched it with me can vouch for that. It’s just insane delivery. You can hear how desperate he is to keep up appearances but he’s so terrible at actually lying. Another one [from Lawrence] is definitely “You’d either be in terrible agony or you’d be dead by now.” I love how flat he is when he delivers it. No wonder John hates him so much!

For Adam, I love “Are we going to be okay?” as it’s so vulnerable compared to [what came] before. I think it’s interesting how it was originally changed from “am I” in the original screenplay to “Are we going to be okay?”. He finally connects with another person and steps out of the shadows, so it’s a pretty emotional line. And how could I forget “So, where’s the lucky wife?”. I can’t believe that’s actually a real line.

At the end, Lawrence even says “I wouldn’t lie to you”, something he would do to just about anyone else without even blinking—not with Adam, though. John put them together because he believed they were total opposites who would never get along. Lawrence would be forced to kill Adam and then reckon with the consequences, thus learning the empathy he never showed John when he was a patient. He never anticipated them to connect so early on. But most importantly, is there any heterosexual explanation for Lawrence letting Adam caress his face with his poop hand? I don’t think so.

There’s been a lot of fascinating essays on the relationship between body horror and gender dysphoria. I’d love to hear your take on how this theory connects to Saw for you.
A lot of other trans people have talked about body horror and gender dysphoria and they can do it a lot better than me. I do have opinions on that, but I’d honestly rather talk about body horror and gender euphoria instead, I think it fits the Saw franchise better anyways. For the most part, survivors in the series do change. John’s goal in the first film was to teach Lawrence empathy in the quickest, most psychotic way possible. And he does! But just like Amanda, it doesn’t last forever.

Ironically, most survivors end up as a fully realized version of their worst traits, the exact ones John was trying to correct. Compare Lawrence’s lack of empathy at the start of the first film to his callous “I don’t think so” at the end of 3D. Amanda has a similar arc by the end of Saw III as well. It ends up as a narrative about radical self-acceptance.

I think a really strong case study for this is actually Lawrence. In the first film, it looks like someone told him blue was his color, and he just ran with it. Everything he wears follows traditional suit rules with absolutely no personality whatsoever. As a trans man, I understand the need to validate your gender with titles like husband or the need to exclusively present yourself in the most palatable, masculine way. His marriage and fatherhood were nothing more than a title to him.

A lot of trans men I know relate to the way he sacrifices his identity in order to be perceived a certain way. It’s cathartic to see Lawrence’s expression transform past that after his encounter with Adam. Compared to the way he presents himself in 3D, it’s a massive change. By the end of his arc, he’s more confident in who he is as a person and cares less about how other people perceive him. He no longer performs for social acceptance or bases his identity on how palatable it would be to other people.

For better or for worse, he was forced to see exactly what kind of person he is, and he pretty much chose to live with it, unapologetically. Lawrence goes on to flaunt his amputation and cane in 3D as a symbol of power and wisdom over the other survivors. It’s refreshing to see people come to accept the integral parts of themselves that are so hideous and unthinkable to other people. When I watch Saw, I’d rather think about that instead.