In an early scene in “Saw X,” John Kramer (Tobin Bell) offers a succinct summary of how he chooses to spend his free time: “I help people enact positive change in their lives.”
It’s a statement that would elicit some pushback from his victims, but it feels like a fair phrasing of his perspective. The man commonly known as Jigsaw is not a serial killer in any conventional sense of the word. While he’s probably responsible for more deaths, dismemberments, and general maimings than everyone reading this combined, he never holds the weapon himself. Instead he prefers to place his victims in elaborate DIY torture devices that force them to willingly inflict massive amounts of bodily harm on themselves in order to save their lives. If they fail to perform his tasks in the impossibly short time windows that he gives them, Jigsaw feels that they have nobody but themselves to blame for their deaths.
Over two decades and ten movies, Jigsaw and his proteges have robbed victims of their limbs, internal organs, fluids, and general dignity in a variety of traps. But the grotesque results often masks the creativity that goes into Kramer’s engineering. If you’ve ever wondered what might have been produced if Rube Goldberg and Marquis de Sade hung out, look no further than a “Saw” trap.
Kramer’s clever engineering often creates a horrifying marriage of form and function. The early “Saw” films famously ensured that all of the traps actually worked and could theoretically be built in real life. (That standard was abandoned as the films got more outlandish, but was reintroduced for “Saw X,” which takes place just three weeks after the original “Saw.“) At first glance his traps look like something out of a Gothic museum — and even after learning about their nauseating purposes, the temptation to be impressed that he built them never quite goes away.
Steve Jobs famously said that “design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.” It’s a sentiment that Jigsaw would likely agree with, as his personal sadism shines through in every step of each trap. Keep reading for our 13 favorite exercises in brutality from the “Saw” franchise — listed in chronological order. Warning: Spoilers ahead!
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“Saw”: The Bathroom Trap
Image Credit: ©Lions Gate/Courtesy Everett Collection Why it’s brilliant: As a franchise, “Saw” found its theatrical center in the elaborate contraptions that lists like these are designed to celebrate. (See the Reverse Bear Trap — another stroke of genius from the original “Saw,” up next in our ranking — for details.) But John Kramer is at his most geniusly perverse when he’s playing mind games with his victims and the original Bathroom Trap established escape room horror in the 21st century. Dr. Lawrence Gordon (Cary Elwes) and photographer Adam (Leigh Whannell) kick off the now ten-film homage to backwards moralism: just two abducted dudes who awake to find themselves chained to rusty pipes in a shit-covered bathroom, staring down a dead body and a handful of cryptic clues.
How to beat it: Don’t be Adam, I guess? Gordon had a fighting chance of escaping this one, if he would have just acquiesced to Kramer’s demands and killed his trapmate using the conveniently provided poisonous cigarette. But Adam was screwed from the second the key to his shackles went down that bathtub drain. Bummer, dude! —AF
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“Saw”: Reverse Bear Trap
Image Credit: ©Lions Gate/Courtesy Everett Collection Why it’s brilliant: Easily the most iconic Jigsaw invention, the Reverse Bear Trap introduced us to victim-turned-accomplice Amanda (Shawnee Smith) and would make anyone who isn’t part-snake flinch. The device is attached to the victim’s lower and upper jaw, and rigged to spring open when its timer hits zero. Think the opposite of getting lockjaw with some disastrously pulpy consequences.
How to beat it: Which time? The Reverse Bear Trap is so beloved by “Saw” fans that it has appeared in three films. For the device’s inaugural outing, all Amanda had to do was dig through a so-called “dead” dude’s entrails to retrieve a key; no idea why Kramer’s sick plan to get this chick over her drug addiction needed to involved straight-up murder, but whatever! The second time, in “Saw VI,” Detective Mark Hoffman (Costas Mandylor) faced the device because of John’s wife, Jill (Betsy Russell); he used his environment to cleverly keep his jaw closed even after the trap activated by slamming the mouth piece into a grated door. That still really screwed up the man’s face though. So Hoffman UNO-reversed his would-be killer and got Jill in the trap for “Saw 3D.” Strapped to a chair, she didn’t stand a chance. —AF
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“Saw II”: The Needle Pit
Image Credit: ©Lions Gate/Courtesy Everett Collection Why it’s brilliant: John Kramer’s brand of handyman sadism has never been more aligned with Benjamin Franklin-style folk humor than in this trypanophobic nightmare, which is really just an elaborate excuse for a pun. Kramer subverts the old “needle in a haystack” metaphor by forcing his drug addict victims to search through a giant pile of used syringes for a key that would free them from a room that was rapidly filling with nerve gas.
How to beat it: All you need is a sharp eye and a high tolerance for being poked. There’s no rug pull or impossible decision with this one. Just find the damn key. —CZ
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“Saw III”: The Rack
Image Credit: Screenshot: Twisted Pictures/Lionsgate/Prime Video Why it’s brilliant: Similar to the Reverse Bear Trap, this “Saw III” centerpiece milks its terror from the audience’s gut feeling that some body parts just aren’t meant to bend that way. Drunk driver Timothy Young (Mpho Koaho) earns his spot among the most awfully tortured victims in the franchise when he’s strapped to a cross-like structure — one of Jigsaw’s “personal favorites” — with gears that slowly make each of Tim’s limbs and then his head do a full 180-degree rotation. The skin folding is unforgettably nauseating, but it’s the popping sounds that might actually make you give up your lunch.
How to beat it: Don’t drink and drive! Timmy was responsible for the death of Jeff’s (Angus Macfadyen) son and The Rack wasn’t his test to beat. The grieving father would have to decide to get shot to get the key needed for Tim to escape and, as it turns out, Jeff isn’t that big of a man. Yes, he stumbles around trying to help Tim in the end — but no one moving that slow during a timed test really cares about saving the victim, do they? —AF
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“Saw IV”: The Ice Block Trap
Image Credit: ©Lions Gate/Courtesy Everett Collection Why it’s brilliant: A seesaw-like apparatus places one victim, Hoffman, in an electric chair while another, Detective Eric Matthews (Donnie Wahlberg), stands barefoot on a massive block of ice while a chain is tied around his neck. If the foot pain becomes intolerable and he jumps off, he’ll kill both himself (via two blocks of ice smashing his head) and his partner (via an electric shock). In addition to the sadism of forcing someone to spend hours standing on ice, this test comes with an Asghar Farhadi-style moral dilemma that forces players to consider how much pain they’re willing to endure to save a fellow human’s life.
How to beat it: Setting aside the context-dependent mind games that went into the actual scene, this trap can theoretically be beaten if the icy victim is willing to stick it out for 90 minutes. Once the allotted window of time passes, a simple button can shut down the entire device. —CZ
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“Saw V”: The Glass Coffin
Image Credit: ©Lions Gate/Courtesy Everett Collection Why it’s brilliant: Akin to a gorier “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom” scene, the Glass Coffin trap of “Saw V” finally sees a movie hero crushed by a room that’s rapidly getting smaller — and the result is anything but cartoonish. Investigating Hoffman, Special Agent Peter Strahm (Scott Patterson) finds himself suddenly faced with the legendary Jigsaw follower in a small room with nothing but the two men and a illuminated glass casket to go on. Strahm doesn’t think it through and shoves Hoffman into the box, sealing his own tomb in the process.
How to beat it: Get in the coffin! Safe in the glass case, Hoffman descends into the floor and giddily watches from below as Strahm is trash compacted with no hope of escape. —AF
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“Saw VI”: Pound of Flesh
Image Credit: ©Lions Gate/Courtesy Everett Collection Why it’s brilliant: Widely regarded as a high point in the four century history of Shakespearean scholarship, this riff on “The Merchant of Venice” is almost certainly what the Bard had in mind when he wrote the play. Jigsaw stands in for Shylock by demanding that his victims pay him in their own flesh. Two game players (Tanedra Howard, Marty Moreau) are pitted against each other and asked to cut off as much of their own flesh as possible in 60 seconds. Whoever placed more on the scale was freed, while the loser was subjected to a painful head screwing and ultimately death.
How to beat it: Like all truly great “Saw” traps, this one comes down to how bad you want it. Be relentless about cutting off body parts that don’t spark joy and you’ll live to fight another day. —CZ
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“Saw VI”: Shotgun Carousel
Image Credit: ©Lions Gate/Courtesy Everett Collection Why it’s brilliant: Can you talk your way out of a Jigsaw trap? When health insurance grifter Will Easton is abducted in “Saw VI,” he finds himself staring down a series of tests designed to operate like his company’s eggregious health insurance policy; he’ll decide who lives and who dies. That fantastic and still presicent concept reaches its painful peak with the fan-favorite Shotgun Carousel: a children’s merry-go-round set to position six victims, all ruthless insurance adjusters, in front of a loaded shotgun one at a time. Will can only save two of his underlings.
How to beat it: Here’s hoping your boss really, really likes you. These victims try a number of strategies with Will; one claims she’s pregnant, while another stupidly begs his employer to “follow the policy.” Will ultimately saves a mother of two and another woman for, I don’t know, being blonde? Hats off to the last guy who stares down the barrel knowing he’s going to die. (“LOOK AT ME! WHEN YOU’RE KILLING ME, YOU LOOK AT ME!“) —AF
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“Saw 3D”: The Silence Circle
Image Credit: ©Lions Gate/Courtesy Everett Collection Why it’s brilliant: The victim, publicist Nina (Naomi Snieckus), wakes up surrounded by a metal circle with four daggers pointed directly at her neck. To save her life, her sleazy client Bobby (Sean Patrick Flanery) has to pull a fish hook from her stomach up and out of her throat in under 60 seconds. Failure results in her throat getting punctured a bunch of metal spears, killing her instantly. If Jigsaw had simply stopped there, this would already be one of the most brutal traps in franchise history. But “Saw 3D” wasn’t big on subtlety, so he took things a step further. Any sound in the room shortens the already brief time allotment, forcing the victim to be silent while having their internal organs shredded.
How to beat it: Be. Fucking. Quiet. “Saw” trap victims are generally owed a bit of leniency from audiences when they lose their cool because very few of us would truly be our best selves under these circumstances. But even by those very low standards, Nina blew this one. Having fish hooks pulled out of you would undeniably suck, but screaming is literally signing your own death warrant. Just clench your fists for a minute and life will go on. —CZ
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“Spiral: From the Book of Saw”: The Wax Trap
Image Credit: ©Lions Gate/Courtesy Everett Collection Why it’s brilliant: Jigsaw copycat killer William Schenk (Max Minghella) took the famously inconvenient experience of being waterboarded and found a way to make it suck even more. Rather than withstanding water, his victim Captain Angie Garza (Marisol Nichols) has scalding wax poured over her clothed face until she either dies or makes the decision to paralyze herself with a blade behind her neck. The trap begins with a reminder that while you can survive it, you can’t walk away.
How to beat it: If we’re being honest, you probably don’t. You can stop the wax and theoretically save your life if you quickly lean back and sever your spinal cord, but even the best case scenario would leave you paralyzed with a horrifically disfigured face. Schenk had his predecessor’s knack for sadistic machinery, but his inability to craft a winnable game that induced positive change showed that he’s not surpassing the master any time soon. —CZ
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“Spiral: From the Book of Saw”: Marcus Banks’ Trap
Image Credit: ©Lions Gate/Courtesy Everett Collection Why it’s brilliant: Released in the wake of 2020’s widespread Black Lives Matter protests, “Spiral” stars Chris Rock as Detective Zeke Banks in a spinoff that’s first and foremost a lambasting of police brutality. Samuel L. Jackson plays the retired Chief Marcus Banks: Zeke’s father and the last stop in a string of tests designed by Schenk to convince Zeke to join him in his crusade. Marcus is hoisted in the air by hydraulic cables and begins slowly bleeding out through a bunch of tubes tapping directly into his veins. To save his dad, Zeke has to let Schenk go free. If he doesn’t, the trap is rigged to make it look like Marcus is armed and shooting at whoever comes in the door next. And who would that be? Oh, right, the cops.
How to beat it: There’s an eerie poeticism to this trap and the best way to beat it is by agreeing with its message. If you’re on the wrong side of justice, it’s game over. For Marcus, death at the hands of his own force is not just deadly and devastating, but brutally ironic. —AF
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“Saw X”: Bone Marrow Trap
Image Credit: ©Lions Gate/Courtesy Everett Collection Why it’s brillaint: Just when you thought the “Saw” franchise couldn’t get any more digusting, bone marrow saved “Saw X.” In an awful twist of fate, one of the so-called “medical providers” responsible for tricking the cancer-riddled Kramer with a snake oil scheme is forced to use a Gigli saw and real hospital equipment to first remove her leg (at the femur no less!) and then suck out enough bone marrow to trigger a mechanism that will release her from a device set to chop off her head.
How to beat it: I’ll say it: Jigsaw is awful at fluid dynamics. This is one of two “Saw X” traps that comes down to the unpredicatabiltiy of liquids, and while Valentina (Paulette Hernández) almost makes it out alive, she doesn’t get quite enough marrow to avoid decapitation. Move faster than her and maybe you’ll stand a chance. —AF
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“Saw X”: Radiation Trap
Image Credit: ©Lions Gate/Courtesy Everett Collection Why it’s brilliant: This “Saw” trap has everything required to make it one of the greats: ludicrous theatricality, a sympathetic victim, intense gore, and one twisted sense of humor. Looking almost angelic, Gabriela (Renata Vaca) is strung up diagonally — by one hand and the opposing foot — high in the air in the middle of a warehouse. She’s then armed with a sledgehammer and placed in front of a rejiggered radiation machine. To escape its searing burns, she must first destroy her ankle and wriggle her leg out of one chain. Then, as she swings out of the way to dangle by her wrist, she has to do it again. When the machine follows her across the room to keep up the punishing exposure, you’ll struggle not to smile.
How to beat it: Go full “Misery” on your own ass and you might just survive; Gabriela did. (Well, that is until she got her neck broken by a fellow contestant. Sad!) —AF
