Let’s be completely honest with ourselves. The Saw franchise was never one built on having deep, layered characters. Fans of the series flocked to theaters for the overarching story, shocking twists, inventive traps, and sometimes hard-to-watch gore. However, when there are eight movies in a series, you’re bound to find characters that stand out in your mind.
In Saw, some of those characters are remembered for good reasons. They’re key to the plot and were part of iconic moments in the series. On the flip side, some of these people are memorable for negative reasons. They were unlikable, boring, or kind of unnecessary. With that in mind, we are looking at five best and five worst characters from the Saw franchise.
Worst: Bobby Dagen
The worst-reviewed installment of this series was 2010’s Saw 3D. It currently holds a paltry 9% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. One of the reasons for the low score is Bobby Dagen (Sean Patrick Flanery). He was one of the main pieces of that movie, as a guy who found fame through lies.
Dagen wrote self-help books as a Jigsaw survivor, even though he was never put to the test. For one, Dagen’s story was pretty dull. He was also rather unlikable. Considering the reason he ended up tested wasn’t nearly as bad as some others in the series, we should’ve felt sympathy for him. But we couldn’t, because he was the worst.
Best: Amanda Young
The first time we see Amanda Young (Shawnee Smith) was during a flashback in Saw. She was the only person to survive a Jigsaw trap and claimed that doing so helped her improve her life. In Saw II, she became a bigger part of the lore. The twist at the end revealed that she was carrying on Jigsaw’s work.
At that moment, it seemed like she would be our lead character going forward. Amanda would have ranked higher on this list, but she was a problem in Saw III. She kept reverting to old habits that showed Jigsaw’s tests hadn’t really helped her. Amanda was whiny in Saw III but she was a highlight in the first two movies.
Worst: Eric Matthews
Eric Matthews (Donnie Wahlberg) was the focal point of Saw II. In that movie, he wasn’t entirely unlikable. Sure, he planted evidence to send people to jail, but we empathized with the fact that he was a desperate father with a son who was in danger. His fate at the end of the movie is one of the most surprising in the series’ history.
What really made Eric such a bad character was the diminishing returns we got with each appearance. He showed up in both Saw III and Saw IV when he should have died long beforehand. These appearances didn’t add anything to the plot or his character and they were tedious to get through.
Best: Peter Strahm
One thing that this franchise was filled with was dumb characters. FBI Agent Peter Strahm (Scott Patterson) wasn’t one of them. He came across as one of the few people in this universe who seemed to understand the things happening around him. Strahm first appeared in Saw IV, investigating the Jigsaw case shortly after Allison Kerry’s death.
It is Strahm who is first to realize that Jigsaw has multiple accomplices. Strahm was also the one to kill Jeff. The best thing about Strahm was his resiliency, as he survived two traps set for him. Alas, he ended up getting bested in the end and was crushed to death.
Worst: Daniel Rigg
It was in Saw II that Daniel Rigg (Lyriq Bent) made his debut in the series. He was a SWAT commander assisting the detectives on the Jigsaw case. He played a background role there and in Saw III, before becoming the focal point of a test in Saw IV. The issue was that we were never given a reason to care about him coming into that story.
The whole premise of Rigg’s test was that he often did things without thinking beforehand. So the fact that his whole test came down to him literally running through a door when he shouldn’t was way too on the nose. He learned nothing during his test, rendering all of Saw IV pretty pointless.
Best: Jill Tuck
It is kind of crazy that we didn’t find out anything about Jill Tuck (Betsy Russell) until Saw III. She was the wife of Jigsaw and we first spotted her in a flash of memories he had while getting his brain operated on. Jill went on to play a crucial role in the rest of the series.
Jill isn’t the villain that her husband was, but she did help out with one of his final traps. She became the Hoffman’s rival and that rivalry was a big part of the last two movies. Most fans seemed to like Jill. She came across as smart and tough. Her eventual death was a sad one, even if it was ultimately avenged.
Worst: Mark Hoffman
Like some other characters in the series, Mark Hoffman (Costas Mandylor) was introduced in the background. We briefly saw him during Saw III before he was placed in a trap in Saw IV. And then, all of a sudden, he stood up to reveal himself as Jigsaw’s latest accomplice and the one to carry on his work.
Huh? This was one of those plot twists that made no sense. There weren’t clues leading up to it and nobody cared about Hoffman. That never changed. He was a character with zero redeeming qualities in every future installment. He wasn’t the guy we wanted to see take on the role of Jigsaw.
Best: Lawrence Gordon
There was always a lingering question surrounding Dr. Lawrence Gordon (Cary Elwes). He was one of the two main characters in Saw and he famously cut off his own leg to escape his trap and find his family. That was the last we saw of him and fans wondered for years what happened to him.
Finally, things got confirmed in Saw 3D as he was revealed to truly be Jigsaw’s accomplice. It is Gordon who got to trap Hoffman and close the door on the final scene of the series (until Jigsaw came out several years later). We rooted for Gordon in the first film and the story of how he ended up working for Jigsaw was a cool enough one to put him on this list.
Worst: Jeff Denlon
There really is no question about who the worst character in Saw history is. It has to be Jeff Denlon (Angus Macfadyen) from Saw III. At first, we can see why his life is in shambles. His son was killed in a hit-and-run where the driver got off without severe punishment.
But we quickly found that there was nothing to like about Jeff. He neglected his wife and daughter. When the time came to forgive those who had a part in what happened to his son, Jeff showed next to no remorse and let others die. Even in the end, he failed to forgive. He opted to murder Jigsaw, which triggered a device that killed his wife. There was nothing good about Jeff and he was one of the dumbest horror protagonists ever.
Best: John Kramer
John Kramer (Tobin Bell), better known as Jigsaw, had to top this list. He is the series’ most iconic character and a legend in the horror genre. John has a tragic backstory. He suffered through the loss of his baby when his wife was knocked into a miscarriage and then he was told that he had an inoperable brain tumor.
After a failed suicide, he found a new lease on life and wanted to make people appreciate it. That set him on the path to becoming Jigsaw. Though he was a serial killer, audiences understood his motives. He wanted to find the best in people, even if he did it strangely. Plus, almost every bit of his life that we found out about made for an interesting plot point and we can only ask that these characters entertain us. John Kramer always did.
