Spawned from the co-operation of James Wan and Leigh Whannell, the Saw franchise that resulted saw itself passed through the hands of countless directors, writers, cast and crew members. For quite some time, it seemed as though Lionsgate Films' gruelling series would release one entry every October. Over that span of time, Saw was (and still is) well-known for its whiplashing camera work, interwoven stories and timelines, and poignant morality plays. Most of all though, the series endures due to its depiction of violence and gore. Saw places the majority of its violence and bloodletting in the hands of deadly and innovative traps. The engineered machinations of the Jigsaw Killer, his apprentices, and his copycats range from simple to incredibly complex and vary between bodily and psychological torment. As October is here once again, despite the most recent entry in the Saw franchise (Spiral: From the Book of Saw) releasing earlier in the year, now is a great time to look back at the most gut-wrenching traps.
10. Pound of Flesh Trap (Saw VI, 2009)
Test subjects Simone (Tanedra Howard) and Eddie (Marty Moreau) are money lenders who screw over several people by providing them with massive loans that couldn't be repaid. The partners find themselves in a divided room with contraptions on their heads. As their game begins, they are tasked by Jigsaw's (Tobin Bell) proxy Billy the Puppet to use the implements given to them (a knife and a meat cleaver) and place as much of their own flesh on a scale in the center of the room as they can in 60 seconds. Whoever provides the most flesh will be spared, while the other will have screws drilled into their brain by their helmet apparatus.
Not only were the two mutilating themselves in a competition, but their temples were slowly being bored into. Although Eddie thought he had the upper hand due to his size, Simone was willing to lop off her own arm with the meat cleaver to gain an edge and escape. Self-harm is a mechanic in many of Jigsaw's traps, but pitting two individuals in a competition of such is as hard to watch as it is gripping.
9. Scalping Seat (Saw IV, 2007)
Officer Daniel Rigg (Lyriq Bent) was a police officer who tried to save as many lives as he can, but to his own detriment.. As he finds himself in the clutches of Jigsaw, he is tested and played against his own nature, being asked to walk away from trapped subjects instead of saving them. With regard to the Scalping Seat, the subject is a woman named Brenda (Sarain Boylan), a pimp and sexual trafficker who was acquitted of her crimes, but continued her abuse of women. Brenda is seen bound in a mechanical chair, her hair tied to a small rotating axis that rotates when the gears in the chair begin to turn. A combination lock is placed around her neck, with the code placed on the gears. Jigsaw tasks Rigg not with saving Brenda's life, but with leaving her be. As the game begins, the gears turn, slowly pulling Brenda's hair and scalp from her skull. Caving to his impulses, Rigg manages to save her, albeit after much of her scalp has already been pulled away.
Unbeknownst to Rigg, Brenda was also being tested. She was presented with the choice to survive her ordeal and end up in prison, or to kill Rigg and avoid incarceration. Preferring freedom, she attempts to stab Rigg. This doesn't end well for her, as Rigg grabs her by the short hairs and slams her into a mirror, leaving her to bleed to death. While this trap didn't "succeed" in its final goal, the thought of having one's scalp removed a little bit at a time is grisly stuff.
8. The Angel Trap (Saw III, 2006)
Saw III brings back the heir apparent to the mantle of the Jigsaw Killer, Amanda Young (Shawnee Smith). Amanda was a drug abuser who survived her trap in the original Saw and was revealed as one of Jigsaw's apprentices in Saw II. Amanda's earliest victims were police officers, blaming them for locking her away on false charges. This led to her "testing" Detectives Eric Matthews (Donnie Wahlberg) and Allison Kerry (Dina Meyer) in a fit of self-serving retribution.
The Angel Trap finds Kerry strapped in a leather harness, with large metal brackets hooked into her ribcage. These brackets are held in place by two large arms attached to an apparatus holding Kerry in place. Her means of "escape" are a padlock fastened to her harness, with the key to the padlock placed inside a jar of acid. Kerry is tasked with removing the key from the acid and unlocking the padlock before the brackets tear her ribs from her torso. Unfortunately, the padlock doesn't match the key at all, giving the detective no real chance of escaping. The metal arms activate, pulling Kerry's ribs from her body and extending out in the shape of grotesque wings. This trap, in particular was censored due to MPAA distaste, with the original cut of Saw III showing Kerry's entrails (click with caution) as the wings of the trap opened.
7. The Glass Coffin (Saw V, 2008)
Special Agent Peter Strahm (Scott Patterson) was another member of authority that let his obsession with solving the Jigsaw murders turn him into a ruthless abuser of power. After recovering from a previous trap and continuing his pursuit of Jigsaw, whose place had now been filled by detective Mark Hoffman (Costas Mandylor), the relentless FBI agent finds his mark. In a small room lies a coffin made of glass and filled with glass shards. Listening to a recording detailing his next test, Jigsaw instructs Strahm to trust him and enter the coffin to be spared. The headstrong FBI agent cuts the recording early, choosing to fight Hoffman, who had entered the room. Strahm seemingly succeeded and locked Hoffman in the coffin, but Hoffman just points at the tape recorder. As Strahm listens to the end of the recording, he discovers that the coffin was his only way out. The glass coffin retracts into the floor safely, and the walls begin to close around him. The exit door locks and the walls cave in on Strahm, crushing him slowly.
6. The Rack (Saw III)
The theme of forgiveness is central to Saw III, and this comes to a head with The Rack. Jeff Denlon (Angus Macfayden) was a man who lost his son after the child was hit by a drunk driver named Timothy Young (Mpho Koaho). The only witness was a woman named Danica Scott (Debra McCabe), who refused to testify against Timothy. As a result, he was only sentenced to a six-month prison term by a judge named Halden (Barry Flatman). Jeff spent countless nights fantasizing about getting revenge for the destruction of his family. Jigsaw offers Jeff the chance he craved by placing him in a game to test his forgiveness.
A large metal crucifix holds Timothy in place, his limbs bolted to cylinders and plates connected to a system of gears. His head is also strapped to a rotating mechanism. Jeff is tasked with removing a key from a glass box, which is attached to a shotgun, and he has to avoid taking a slug for his son's killer. That, or watch Timothy die and see his revenge quest realized. Although Jeff initially wants to watch as Timothy's limbs were fractured, he eventually realizes that his observance was wrong. Thanks to Halden (who Jeff had saved previously), he snaps back to his senses and attempts to save Timothy. Jeff succeeds in obtaining the key, but the shotgun blast kills Halden. Rushing to Timothy, the trap's time expires. After all of his limbs have been ruptured, Timothy's neck is broken. The rack continues turning until Timothy's head is completely reversed. Jeff cries out in distress, begging the trap to stop. This sight brings Jeff to his knees, realizing his revenge was hollow.
5. Freezer Room (Saw III)
Danica Scott also finds herself trapped as part of Jeff's test, much like the man she protected. Suspended by chains inside a frigid meat freezer, Danica hangs naked and can do nothing but wait. As Jeff arrives and listens to Jigsaw's recording, he is presented with the chance to forgive her by grabbing a key stashed behind several cooling pipes at the back of the room and saving her. As the game begins, two contraptions to either side of Danica begin to spray her with ice-cold water. She screams and begs Jeff to forgive her. Jeff refuses to help her and watches as her body is sprayed again and again. Jeff eventually has a change of heart and rushes to reach the key, but stops when heavy silence fills the room. Returning to Danica, Jeff sees that her body is encased in ice. This trap wins bonus points for uniqueness, as the concept of being forcefully frozen alive without anything to protect you is a far cry from the usual lacerations and bone crushing of Jigsaw's traps.
4. The Horsepower Trap (Saw: The Final Chapter, 2010)
Also known as Saw 3D, the film features high-octane trap with a high body count to match, this machination feels like a hellish game of Mouse Trap. Skinheads Evan (Chester Bennington), Kara (Gabby West), Dan (Dru Viergever), and Jake (Benjamin Clost) have been captured by Jigsaw for their racist harassment and attacks on others. Evan awakes glued to the driver's seat of a car jacked above the ground. Kara, Evan's girlfriend, is chained below the vehicle. Dan's arms and lower jaw are chained to the back seat of the car. Lastly, Jake is chained to the garage door where the trap takes place.
Evan is given 30 seconds to lean from the seat and pull a lever before the car's acceleration causes the jacks to fall. The glue is incredibly strong, forcing Evan to pull the skin from his own back. Although he nearly succeeds, his efforts are in vain. The car falls from the jacks, with the spinning back tire crushing Kara. The vehicle then shoots forward, and Dan's arms and jaw are pulled from his body. In the trap's coup de grace, it slams directly into Jake, crushing him along with the garage door. The car then crashes and fires Evan through the windshield, completing the trap's bloody work.
3. The Pig Vat (Saw III)
A step in Jeff Denlon's road to redemption, Halden is locked by his neck to the floor of a massive industrial vat. Next to the vat is a meat blender. As Jeff enters the area and the game begins, rotten and maggot-infested pig carcasses are hoisted and dumped into the blender, spewing disgusting viscera into the vat. In order to spare Halden's life, Jeff needs to make his way to a nearby incinerator. Inside were the keepsakes Jeff kept of his son. Halden begs and pleads to be saved, with Jeff unrepentant for watching the judge drown in the pulp. In a final bid, Halden cries out through gurgles that he had a child himself, and Jeff shouldn't stoop to becoming a murderer. Jeff ignores Halden's cries before noting the wisdom of Halden's plea. He turns on the incinerator through tears, burning away the physical mementos of his son and unlocking Halden's restraint before the final carcass drowns him. Though this trap didn't kill Halden, it still stands as the most repulsive one in Saw's history and arguably one of the most nauseating scenes in recent horror cinema.
2. The Needle Pit (Saw II)
Ranking high on many fans and publications' lists as one of the greatest traps in the series, the Needle Pit is both devious and skin-crawling. The trap is exactly as the name says, a pit filled with bloodied, grungy, discarded hypodermic needles. Amid the countless needles is a key to a nearby door, and behind this door is one of the few antidotes to the deadly Sarin gas pumping into the Nerve Gas House of Saw II. Although the trap was intended for drug dealer Xavier Chavez (Franky G), he has other plans and refuses to comply with entering the pit. Instead, he throws Amanda Young into its depths, barking orders at her and shouting for her to hurry up as she screeched and slung filthy needles about. Although Amanda succeeds in finding the key, the timer runs out and the antidote is lost to the group. Xavier leaves the group in his fury, tasking the rest of the survivors to pull the many grimy needles from Amanda's body.
Even if viewers don't have a needle phobia, this trap can still make them squirm. The idea of flailing about in a pit full of needles that are, at the very least, unsanitary and, at the very worst, a biohazard and deadly, makes this trap as dreadful as it is physically painful.
1. The Reverse Bear Trap (Saw)
Iconic in its appearance, and brutal in its application, the Reverse Bear Trap captures the essence of the Saw series. First seen fastened to the head of Amanda in the original film, Jigsaw gives the young addict a chance to save herself at a price. Any fan of horror movies has likely seen and heard the steely clamp of a bear trap, but this trap offers a twist. The device wires itself inside the test subject's mouth, clamping their jaws shut. The subject in most cases must use a key to unlock the trap and remove it or risk having their jaws forcefully split apart. Amanda is forced to cut open and dig through the stomach of her still-living cellmate in order to obtain her key, narrowly surviving. Billy the Puppet congratulates her on her salvation, speaking the seldom-heard quote "Congratulations, you are still alive. Most people are so ungrateful to be alive. But not you, not anymore."
The Reverse Bear Trap is seen again after John Kramer's ex-wife Jill Tuck (Betsy Russell) incapacitates Mark Hoffman, who was being tested by the posthumous mastermind. With little time, Hoffman breaks his hand to release himself from the chair he was restrained to and jams the front of the trap between two metal bars. The trap fails to kill Hoffman but still splits his cheek open widely. After this near-death experience, Hoffman sets off to get revenge. After murdering multiple police officers, Hoffman finds Jill in protective custody and seizes her. After beating her, he straps her into the same chair he was tested in. He took Amanda's original Reverse Bear Trap from the nearby evidence room and placed it on Jill's head. As the timer goes off, the trap left Jill's face a bloody maw with only her throat and the remains of her tongue as discernible features.
They say you can't beat the classics, and the Reverse Bear Trap is undoubtedly Saw's most enduring trap. It may not be as fancy or as psychologically daunting as some traps, but nothing quite mirrors the panic of a ticking sound in your ear before your face is pried open.
You can also check out our ranked list of all of the movies in the franchise - if you can stomach it.