List of traps in the Saw film series

One of the main focuses of the Saw film series are the traps, more commonly referred to as games and tests, that the characters Jigsaw and his apprentices Amanda and Hoffman create for their victims.

Purpose and construction

The traps are created for people Jigsaw deemed unappreciative of their lives, and are designed to ironically reflect the problems of their characters. Some exceptions include the Quadruple Shotgun Hallway and Electrified Staircase, which were used by Jigsaw for security purposes; the Drill Chair trap, in which Jigsaw used the victim as an experiment; and the Magnum Eyehole trap in Saw II and Jeff Reinhart's tests in Saw III, in which the traps were not based on the victims.

The traps can usually be categorized as involving either devices hooked up to the victim that must be removed, poisons whose antidotes must be discovered, rigged areas from which the victim must escape, or a character given the option of releasing a victim from an otherwise inescapable lethal situation. In all these cases, the victim is usually required to undergo extreme physical or psychological torture. It is sometimes necessary for a victim to interact with other victims and work together to survive.

The victims are usually informed about the traps by use of a recorded video or cassette tape, which either plays automatically once they awaken, or when they start the recording themselves. The video recordings show Jigsaw's puppet giving the details. On some occasions, Jigsaw gives the directions to the trap in person, while security traps and the Mausoleum trap, give little or no warning.

While most of the traps have solutions to them, with the exception of Amanda's inescapable traps, few characters have survived them. A few failed victims were marked by Jigsaw or Amanda, who cut away a small portion of the victim's flesh in the shape of a jigsaw puzzle piece, a symbol representing the survival instinct that the victim was missing.

Saw

Most of the first movie played out in a bathroom, the setting of one of Jigsaw's more complicated tests. However, several more of Jigsaw's inventions were seen via flashbacks from crime scene investigators and surviving victims. Additionally, more of Jigsaw's creations were discovered at his lair, located in an abandoned mannequin factory on Stygian Street. Detectives arrived to investigate and discovered several prototypes of traps, including a diorama of the bathroom, Billy the puppet, and a victim who was to be used as part of an experiment.

Razor wire maze

Paul Stallberg woke up partially naked inside a fenced-in area of a basement, and was told that the only means of escape was a door that was set to lock closed in two hours. Between him and the door was a gauntlet of densely strung together razor wire through which he was instructed to navigate to survive. According to Jigsaw, the irony of his situation was the fact that he had slit his wrists, presumably for attention, a month ago, and that if he really wanted to die, he needed simply stay where he was (as the door to freedom would close, trapping him in), but if he wanted to live, he would have to "cut himself again". Footage from the movie showed him frantically tearing through the maze; however, he was too late and was later found by detectives Tapp, Sing, and Kerry, dead on the wires. In the search, Kerry was heard saying that he was cut so deep that his stomach acid was found on the floor.

Flammable jelly

Mark Rodriguez, a man who had committed worker's comp fraud, was tested on his "illness" and placed in a dark room, with a candle and a box of matches serving as his only light source. Broken glass completely covered the floor, hundreds of numbers were written on the walls, and a safe was placed in the middle of the room. From a tape recorder resting on a small metal platform suspended from the ceiling, Mark, who had been stripped naked, was informed that he was covered with a flammable substance and that there was a slow-acting poison in his system that would kill him in roughly two hours. The combination to the safe, which held the antidote, was written on the walls amidst the myriad of other possibilities. While looking for the combination, Mark drew too close to the candle and went up in flames.

Reverse Bear Trap

The Reverse Bear Trap is an iconic trap, to the extent that it was used on promotional posters for the first film and on Saw merchandise.

The wrists of a heroin addict named Amanda Young were bound with duct tape to the armrests of a chair, and a heavy metal apparatus was hooked up into her upper and lower jaws. Jigsaw, through his puppet on the tape recording, revealed to Amanda that she would have one minute to remove the contraption before it snapped open, much like "a reverse bear trap" (the term "Reverse Bear Trap", referenced in Amanda's instructions, gained fame as a fan name for the trap). The mechanism would rip her jaws open in the process, killing her. To emphasize the point, a demonstration was shown to Amanda, who watched as the device went off on a mannequin head, effectively destroying it. Jigsaw told her that the key needed to unlock the contraption was in the stomach of a dead man lying across the room from her.

As the tape ended, Amanda wriggled her arms free from the duct tape, at which point she stood up, pulling and snapping a trigger wire that set off the one-minute timer on the back of the contraption on her head. Frightened, she slowly walked over to her cell mate, whereupon she had to cut into his stomach and retrieve the key, even after discovering that he was not actually dead as suggested, but in an opiate-induced state of paralysis, unable to move or feel pain. As she was about to cut him open, he woke up. After stabbing him multiple times, Amanda sifted through his innards and retrieved the key. She then managed to remove the device just in time, throwing it onto the floor just as it snapped open. She was the first one to survive Jigsaw's trap.

The Reverse Bear Trap would later be seen in Jigsaw's lair in the third movie, again on a mannequin head, where it was examined and set off by Lynn Denlon. Additionally, it was seen in Saw: Rebirth, in which Jigsaw tested a prototype version of it, and in the original Saw film, where it was used on a character named David. The scenario played out the same as the later version, with David escaping from the contraption seconds before it went off.

The Reverse Bear Trap reappeared as Mark Hoffman's final test in Saw VI. Unlike the previous two examples, Hoffman was given no key to unlock the device. With both arms restrained, he used the trap to break his left arm before escaping and jamming it between two metal bars, preventing it from snapping open completely and allowing him to slide it off. Eventually, as with the previous two scenarios, Hoffman escapes, but with the right half of his jaw severely dislocated.

Drill chair

Jeff's neck was shackled into a metal brace, keeping him trapped in a chair, attached the sides of which were two power drills. The drills were designed to inch toward his head, reaching and killing him in twenty seconds. The trap was activated when Jigsaw decided to test detectives David Tapp and Steven Sing, to see whether they prioritized saving a man's life over arresting him. After ripping apart the circuitry to prevent the detectives from stopping the drills with the button that started them, Jigsaw told Sing to find the key to release Jeff in a box near the chair. Inside the box was a ring with countless keys on it, and, rather than sift through them, Sing instead shot at both drills, deactivating them moments before they reached Jeff's head.

Quadruple shotgun hallway

This trap was used by Jigsaw for security reasons instead of having a test for the victim. Double-barrelled shotguns were suspended from a ceiling in a hallway, each connected by a tripwire strung across the hallway below. When the victim stepped across the tripwire it would pull the triggers of the shotguns. The shotgun would go off simultaneously, firing at the victim and shooting them down. Detective Steven Sing was killed by this trap, who was chasing Jigsaw through his warehouse in an attempt to capture him.

Original idea: According to the Saw commentary and different interviews, the creators wanted a trap that consisted of two devices that would spring from the walls, snap shut on Sing, and fold him up into a box. They described it as an "iron cocoon." They decided against the idea, as the visual effects would have been too expensive to create.

Bathroom trap

The setting for the majority of the first film, this test placed two victims, Adam Faulkner and Dr. Lawrence Gordon, in a grimy industrial washroom. Both were shackled at the ankle to pipes at opposite corners of the room. The pipes were connected to a remote electrical source, which could conduct through the metal chains and shackles to shock the captives. In the middle of the bathroom lay Jigsaw, posing as the corpse of a previous victim, sprawled face down in a pool of poisoned blood, holding an empty pistol in one hand and an empty tape player in the other, just out of reach of Adam and Lawrence. Adam and Lawrence found envelopes with tapes to play to learn their rules, while Lawrence also received a key and a bullet. Following clues from their tapes, Adam found a garbage bag in a toilet, filled with photos he had taken of Lawrence while stalking him under hire, thou he did not show them till the near end, as well as a pair of hacksaws that were not intended to cut through the chains, but were rather meant for the victims to use to cut off their feet in order to escape. Lawrence was told to kill Adam in eight hours, under the threat of death for his wife Alison and daughter Diana, both of whom were being held captive. Adam was simply told to escape, with the only apparent means being the hacksaw, which he broke trying to cut through his chain, and a key that went down the drain of the bathtub that Adam had unknowingly drained after waking up in the water. Saw III revealed that Amanda had tied the chain to the bathtub stopper to Adam's ankle without being told to by Jigsaw.

Following more clues, Lawrence found a box in the wall next to him, and was then supplied with a cellphone that could only receive calls, two cigarettes, and a lighter. With the cigarettes, Lawrence found a note from Jigsaw informing him that he did not need a gun to kill Adam, leading Lawrence to assume he could dip the tip of a cigarette in the poisoned blood that the corpse was lying in before giving it to Adam. Not willing to kill Adam, Lawrence attempted to fake it by dipping one of the cigarettes in the blood before swapping it with the untainted one. Adam went along with the game, pretending to die, but the act was blown when Adam was remotely electrically shocked through his chain. At 6 o'clock, Lawrence received a call from his wife. He became desperate as he had heard a struggle on the other end of the phone (his wife freeing herself and their daughter, escaping), but the phone had hung up, and he accidentally threw the phone out of reach. He then used his hacksaw to sever his chained foot, retrieved the corpse's gun, and used it to shoot Adam (a non-fatal shoulder wound).

As Lawrence was lying on the floor, crying for what he had done, Zep entered the bathroom with the intent of shooting Lawrence. Adam, who was only feigning death, knocked Zep to the floor and beat him to death with the toilet tank lid. Lawrence crawled over to Adam and promised to get help before crawling out; Jigsaw then stood up, turned off the lights, and slammed the door, leaving Adam locked in the bathroom. His corpse was found in the same place, which was located along a tunnel that ran beneath the house of Saw II. In Saw III, it was revealed that Adam did not in fact die of blood loss from his shoulder wound after being locked away, but by suffocation. Amanda, against Jigsaw's orders, held a strip of plastic wrap over his head, suffocating him in a mercy kill.

Zep's test

Some time before placing Lawrence and Adam in the Bathroom Trap, Jigsaw arranged for Zep Hindle, a hospital orderly, to become involved in a game of his own; in order to obtain the antidote to a slow-acting poison in his blood, Zep would have to monitor the events of the bathroom trap while holding Alison and Diana hostage in their own home. Zep's rules were to kill Alison and Diana if Lawrence failed to kill Adam in time.

Zep hid in Diana's closet and waited for her father, Lawrence Gordon, to leave before grabbing Diana and her mother and tying them up. With a gun at his disposal, Zep taunted the two hostages while monitoring Lawrence and Adam through a computer screen. When 6 o'clock finally came around, Zep forced Alison, Lawrence's wife, to make the call to tell him he failed, but when Zep was about to shoot her, Alison, who had untied herself, fought back, managing to escape with Diana. With Detective Tapp in pursuit, Zep left the house and drove to an entrance into the sewer system. After fatally shooting the detective, he arrived at the bathroom, and told Lawrence that he was too late in completing his instructions. Before he shot Lawrence, though, Adam, thought to be dead, pulled Zep to the floor and beat him to death with the toilet tank cover. After Lawrence left to find help, Adam looked through Zep's pockets, hoping to find a key to his chain. He instead found a tape recorder and played back the message, finally realizing that Zep had been acting under a threat of death. He stopped the tape before the specifics of Zep's tape could be heard. The reason why Zep was forced to take part in one of Jigsaw's tests is unknown.

=DON'T READ THIS IT IS STUPID AND DEADLY

Saw II=

While most of Saw II was played out in the Nerve Gas House, listed below, other prototype traps were also seen in Jigsaw's lair, which was based at an abandoned Wilson Steel factory. While none were put to use, one of them was said to be a tribute to the Jaw Splitter from the first movie, while others represented the traps that the victims inside the house would have to face.

Venus Fly Trap

Michael a police informat woke up with a harness similar to an Iron maiden (torture device)|iron maiden]] placed on his chest. Attached to the harness were two masks, opposite from each other and angled down from his head. Each mask had several nails protruding inwards from the interior. A timer was connected to the device, and, if the harness was not removed in one minute, the two masks would clamp together on his head like a Venus Flytrap, driving the nails through his skull and into his brain. Michael soon learned, from an X-ray of his skull, that the key had been surgically implanted behind his right eye, and that he would have to give up "the thing that his life depended on" to survive.

After inadvertently pulling the cord attached to the timer on the device, setting it off, Michael grabbed a scalpel on the floor and, using a mirror, raised the scalpel to his eye. However, he was ultimately unwilling to cut it out, instead throwing the scalpel away and screaming for help. The timer went off and the masks snapped shut on his head, killing him.

After the scene was found, it was discovered that Michael was an informant for Detective Eric Matthews, and that his test was a way to leave a message for Eric. While investigating the scene, Eric was shown the words "LOOK CLOSER DETECTIVE MATHEWS" scrawled on the ceiling of the room.

The Head trap masks were seen briefly in a scene featured on the Saw III Director's Cut DVD, sitting on a desk at which Amanda was reading.

Original ideas: According to one of the features on the Saw II disc, Michael was originally going to be supplied with the key in one of his hands, but would be strapped to the chair at the wrists. Above the hand with the key was a razor, which would dig further into his flesh the more he reached the key up to the locks on his harness. Before filming the scene, a few crew members wanted Michael's eye to pop out as the mask snapped shut, but could not achieve the effect. The Saw III Director's Cut DVD revealed that the mask was originally going to have shards of glass in the mask with the nails. According to the Saw II script, Michael's instructions were originally going to include the lines, "I bet you are confused, cursing and crying like a newborn baby out of his mother's womb. This is significant since tonight is your rebirth."

Nerve gas house

This large-scale trap placed multiple victims in an abandoned house riddled with traps, containing one for each person, though not all of the people were able to locate their personal trap. The front door was rigged to open in three hours, though the victims were given only two hours to live, as they were breathing in a deadly nerve agent through the air ducts. Each trap contained means to acquire an antidote. Several weapons were also found in the house, including a single-edged blade and a bat with several nails driven through it.

Aside from Laura, who succumbed to the nerve agent, the only others to die without the traps were Jonas, who got a blow to the back of the head with the nail-studded bat by Xavier, and Xavier, whose throat was slit by Daniel with the same hacksaw Dr. Gordon used in the first movie.

The majority of Saw II is played in the house. The traps shown to be contained in the house are as follows:

Antidote Safe

In the room that the players woke up in, was a large safe. The welcoming tape that was played for them revealed that one antidote was locked away in the safe and that the combination to open it was "in the back of their heads". The tape also said that "the clue to their order could be found over the rainbow". This hinted at the fact that colored numbers had been written on the backs of their necks (except for Amanda and Daniel), which, when placed in the order of a rainbow (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple), would reveal the combination. From what was seen in the movie, the combination would have been 2-?-16-11-9-8.

Xavier was the first to catch on to this concept after noticing the first number on Gus's neck. He then went on a rampage through the house, first looking at the numbers on the necks of the already dead players before trying to find the surviving ones. In order to find his own number, he desperately sliced the flesh off the back of his neck before analyzing it for the number. Before he could read Daniel's number (though he had none), Xavier was killed. When Eric later investigated the house, it was revealed that the safe had since been opened and the antidote used on Daniel.

Original idea: According to the Saw II script, the original combination to be found on the back of the prisoners' necks was 1-2-9-25-29-17-16. This would mean that Daniel possesed a number in the initial draft.

Magnum eyehole

This trap was meant as a small test to preface the actual tests of the house and cajole the players into following instructions. There was only one door leading out of the room that the eight players woke up in, and a key was provided for them, though a note explicitly warned them not to unlock the door. Unknown to them, a high caliber revolver was behind the door, attached to the other side of the peephole and connected by a pulley and chain. The gun was set to go off when the door was opened with the key. The door, on a timer, was set to open up on its own.

Xavier and Gus refused to heed Amanda's warnings to not use the key and tried it in the lock anyway. Turning the key to the lock, Xavier unknowingly activated the trap, causing the gun to fire. Gus, who was looking through the peephole, was shot through the head and killed.

Furnace

This trap, located in the basement, was built like a furnace for cremating bodies. Obi, an arsonist, was told to crawl inside, being told that there were two antidotes inside, though he was warned that "one would come with a price". The second antidote, when taken, pulled a chain that closed the door to the furnace and ignited the flames. The only way to turn off the gas would be to twist a knob on the other side of the furnace, an act which would force Obi to crawl through the fire. The knob had a painting of a devil pointing to it with the caption "TWIST". Jigsaw had warned Obi earlier, in his tape, said that "once you are in Hell, only the devil can help you out". Obi was unwilling to crawl through the flames and instead attempted to break out through a window of the other end of the furnace. He died before he could get out of the window and along with the antidotes, burned up.

Original ideas: Before settling on the final version of the Furnace, the creators and writers of Saw II had originally thought of having Obi's tape recorder attached to the collar of a pitbull in the basement. They decided against it, as it would have led to cruelty to animals, and instead attached it to a corpse-like mannequin. According to storyboards for this scene, the oven originally only contained one antidote, while also holding a key. The key's intended purpose is unknown.

Needle pit

This trap involved a pit in the middle of a room, filled with thousands of filthy, used syringes. A smaller room held an antidote, but was locked by a metal door set on a three-minute timer. If the timer expired, the door would remain locked forever. This trap was meant for Xavier, a drug dealer, who would have to jump into the pit of needles to find the key, attached to a glow stick, to the door. This trap, unlike many of Jigsaw's other traps, would not directly kill the victim if they failed the task, but was more of a punishment. Instead of going in himself, Xavier picked Amanda up and threw her in to find the key. Although she found the key in time, Xavier fumbled with it, and did not put the key through.

Original ideas: The creators and writers of Saw II had originally thought of having Amanda be forced to dig through a bathtub full of the syringes, but decided it wouldn't be enough, instead wanting it on a grander scale. After thinking of the pit in the middle of the room, they intended for Amanda to land up to her neck in the needles as if it were a pool, but realized that it would be impossible for her to sink into such a pool, along with the fact that getting enough needles would have been too time-consuming.

Hand trap

This trap consisted of a glass container which was suspended from the ceiling by numerous chains. Inside the box was an antidote which was accessible by two holes underneath the box that were big enough to fit one's arms through. Two cylinders extending down from the box hid a series of blades that covered the entrance to the box. Once the victim put their arms through, the blades would bend up and dig into their arms if they tried to pull them out. It was revealed on a special feature on the construction of the trap for the set that if the victim were to walk to the other side of the box, they would see a lock with a key sticking out of it, which in turn would have unlocked the box and allowed them to access the antidote without harm.

Addison stumbled upon this trap after separating from the rest of the group, although it was intended as punishment for Gus' embezzlement (there was an envelope hanging from the ceiling, probably containing a tape for Gus, but Addison simply reached for it, pulled the envelope down, and tore it apart). At first, Addison only inserted one hand, but the plunger to the needle was stuck to the bottom of the box. When she pulled the needle up, the antidote inside spilled out. Panicking, she reached her other hand inside to grab it, trapping herself. As she tried to pull out her arms the blades began to cut up her arms. While it is never shown on-screen, it is assumed Addison died, either from blood loss or from the nerve agent that had already killed Laura.

Original ideas: Before deciding to place Addison in the Hand trap, the creators and writers discussed on a commentary for Saw II that they had originally intended for Addison to end up in a different trap, which was similar to a waffle iron. Addison would wake up shackled at the wrists to a chair. Razors would be planted against her wrists to dig into her flesh if she tried to remove her hands, and the only way to release her hands from the razor shackles would be to burn her face against a waffle iron-like grill that was in front of her. This was a reflection of Addison's prostitution, and she had to give up her good looks if she wanted to live. She was supposed to slam her face against the grill, releasing her cuffs and letting her go free, but with a horrendously scarred face (an idea that was modified into the Knife Chair in Saw IV). While thinking of Gus' trap, Darren suggested a trap in which someone would have to reach into a jar. If he wasn't able to retrieve the antidote, he would be forced to lose his hand. This finally developed into the Hand trap, which was then used on Addison instead. Saw V director David Hackl said "I always wanted to cut back to a shot where we go back to it, much later, where she [Addison] is just hanging dead with her arms half-stripped of flesh. We never got around to that shot."

Eric's test

Jigsaw recorded the events of the Nerve Gas House, which only Daniel and Amanda had survived, and broadcast them for Daniel's father, Detective Eric Matthews, to see when he broke into Jigsaw's lair. Leading Eric to believe that these events were occurring concurrently, Jigsaw proposed a deal to Eric, stating that if he would only converse with him for two hours, he would find his son in a "safe, secure state". Unknown to Eric, his son sat only a few feet away from him, in a safe and wearing an oxygen mask.

Though Eric was patient for a while, he eventually got tired of Jigsaw's game and instead resorted to brutality. After beating Jigsaw to within an inch of his life, Jigsaw ended the game, and took Eric to the house. He found that his son was not there. In the bathroom hidden amongst the tunnels in the foundation of the house (the same bathroom from the first movie), Eric was attacked by someone disguised with a pig mask. Eric was injected with a hypodermic needle and rendered unconscious.

He woke up shackled in the unlit bathroom and discovered a tape recorder for him. Listening to it, he discovered that it was Amanda who had attacked him and left him there (revealing herself to be Jigsaw's protégé), stating that the tables were turned (Eric had falsely arrested Amanda before). Amanda showed up at the entrance of the bathroom where she slammed the door shut. Alone in the bathroom now, Eric saw Dr. Gordon's decrepit severed foot and realized that he was expected to do the same to escape. Refusing to do this, he broke his foot with the toilet tank cover and slipped it out of his shackle. Stumbling into the hallway, he then confronted Amanda.

Despite his injuries, he managed to subdue her and repeatedly smashed her head against a wall, demanding the whereabouts of his son. Amanda escaped from Eric by kicking him in his broken foot, and then decided to leave him to die in the hallway. However, while she was walking away from Eric, he began to taunt and mock her. Amanda, in turn, turned back and beat Eric into unconsciousness. She later implied that she murdered him; however, he was actually kept alive by Jigsaw and used in a later test.

Original idea: According to the final version of the Saw III script, Eric originally broke his foot without the help of the toilet lid, instead simply pointing his foot down and ramming it against the floor repeatedly until it is broken enough to slip through the shackle. Also, after his fight with Amanda (in which he learns his son is in fact safe), Amanda snaps and stabs Eric in the stomach repeatedly before plunging her knife into his neck. This was deleted so that Eric would remain alive for Saw IV.

Saw III

As was in Saw II, many prototype traps and designs were seen in Jigsaw's new lair in Saw III, which was based at the abandoned Gideon meat-packing warehouse. Inside, along and atop many tables, shelves, and walls, sat many deadly looking devices. These included the Jaw Splitter, placed on a mannequin head, as well as obvious prototypes for traps from this film, such as the Angel trap, and conceptual art for the Rack. The traps and tests for the third movie were as follows:

Classroom trap

This was the first of Amanda's inescapable traps. Troy, a man who had led a life of crime despite the advantages given him, found himself in an empty school classroom, with eleven chains hooked into his flesh in various places, including his shoulders, arms, abdominal external oblique muscles, legs, Achilles tendons, and mandible. A television screen nearby featured Jigsaw, speaking through his puppet, telling Troy that, if he wished to live, he would have to "break free" of his chains. He then turned his attention to a bomb sitting next to a jar of nails, set on a ninety-second timer.

Troy began to painfully rip the chain rings from his skin. He managed to free himself from all of them except for the one attached to his mandible before he was caught in the detonation of the bomb. It was later revealed by Detective Allison Kerry, as she studied what was left of his nail-ridden corpse, that there was no escape route for Troy even if he had managed to escape the chains, as the door to the room had been welded shut. This was the first known inescapable trap constructed by Amanda.

Original ideas: Before they settled on the final version of this trap, the creators and writers of Saw III went through a couple of different versions of the game. One of them had Troy suspended above the floor of the classroom by large meat hooks. They decided against this, as they realized it would be basically impossible to escape, and that it would be more thrilling if he was standing and able to rip the chains out. A second version had wires going through his eyelids, his fingernails, and his teeth. This accounts for two of the promotional posters for the film, one showing a mouth missing numerous teeth, and another showing three teeth dangling from wires. In the final draft of the Saw III script, Troy managed to break his jaw and remove the final ring before the bomb detonated, but it was taken out as they didn't know how they would film it.

Angel Wing trap

This was the second of Amanda's inescapable traps. Detective Allison Kerry awoke suspended from the ceiling in a contraption which consisted of a leather harness, hung from the ceiling by several chains, with two sets of metal pins along each side of her torso, piercing into her ribcage. Each array of pins was attached to one of two metal arches behind her that, for the time being, remained folded. Hanging next to her was a jar suspended by chains filled with strong acid, into which a key was dropped as she woke up. The video recording described Kerry as being "desensitized to death and dead on the inside". Jigsaw also added that the device was set to tear open her ribcage in one minute, and that the acid would dissolve the key in a matter of seconds.

Kerry, after trying unsuccessfully to tip the jar over, plunged her hand into the acid and severely burned it, but failed to get the key. Screaming in pain, she plunged her hand in a second time and successfully grasped the key. She pulled out her bloodied, severely corroded hand, and opened the padlock on her harness. Upon removing the padlock, however, she found that she was unable to remove the harness itself, as a second lock, located at the back of the device, held her in place. Amanda sauntered into the room, revealing herself as the inventor. With that revelation, Kerry raised her arms and clenched the chains she was hanging from, bracing herself as the two arms attached to the harness arched upwards like a pair of wings (hence the name of the trap), and pulled each side of the harness with them, causing the pins embedded in her torso to rip both sides of her ribcage out in opposite directions. She collapsed and died in the leather straps, causing some of her organs to spill out.

The trap was revisited in Saw IV when Kerry's corpse was discovered. Agents Lindsey Perez and Peter Strahm speculated that Amanda Young wouldn't have been strong enough to lift Kerry into the device. Detective Hoffman, while being implied as being the one who assisted in positioning Kerry, suggested that Jigsaw or Amanda could have rigged pulleys or other mechanics to get her in place. Writing on the wall, which said, "CHERISH YOUR LIFE", led Strahm and Perez to interrogate Jill Tuck, Jigsaw's ex-wife, who ran a clinic with the same slogan. Investigators also found a bullet casing lodged between Kerry and the device. The casing had Lieutenant Rigg's fingerprints on it, setting him up to look as if he had something to do with the crime.

Original idea: According to a Saw III commentary with producers Mark Burg and Oren Koules, Kerry was originally going to be in a device that would pull her limbs in different directions. However, they eventually thought of the ribcage trap and decided to use it instead. The first idea appeared to be modified into Rigg's FEEL WHAT I FEEL test. In the final version of the Saw III script, Kerry attempted to retrieve the key from the jar of acid by tipping the jar, burning her legs severely from the spilt acid before retrieving the key.

Shotgun collar

Amanda placed a collar equipped with five loaded shotgun shells onto Dr. Lynn Denlon. The hammers behind each shell were clicked back, and the collar responded with Jigsaw's heart rate. If he flatlined, or if Lynn moved out of range, or if the collar was removed incorrectly (as Amanda noted that "the slightest knock in the wrong place could trigger it"), the shells would explode, killing her. Lynn was forced to operate on Jigsaw to keep him alive long enough for Jeff, Lynn's husband, to complete his series of tests in the warehouse. When he did, Jigsaw ordered Amanda to remove the collar from Lynn, as she had completed her task. However, Amanda refused, arming herself with a gun. After a showdown in the makeshift hospital room with Amanda and Jigsaw, Lynn was shot in the back by Amanda as Jeff arrived on the scene. After shooting Amanda dead, Jeff was left with a final choice to kill Jigsaw or forgive him, not knowing that his death would lead to Lynn's due to the collar. Jeff ultimately chose to slash Jigsaw's neck with a circular power-saw, causing his heart rate monitor to activate the collar on Lynn, which began beeping. Lynn had desperately tried to warn Jeff about the collar, but was wheezing from the gunshot. As Jigsaw flatlined, the collar fired the shells, blowing apart Lynn's head. It's possible that this trap was inescapable, due to the fact that it was made by Amanda. This could also be backed up in a scene in which Lynn managed to get the key from Amanda following a fight between the two, only to find that it did not fit the lock at the back of the collar.

Original ideas: When writing Saw III, Leigh Whannell didn't go into detail as to what Lynn's trap would be, simply writing that a "strange device" was applied to her. As it was developed, Lynn's collar was going to be more along the lines of a bomb, hence Jigsaw's line, "an explosion will go off in that collar". The collar would detonate following Jeff killing Jigsaw, shaking the room, knocking the dead Jigsaw from his bed, and knocking Jeff unconscious. A different approach was taken for the surgery scene: Amanda had originally sent Lynn to look around the lair through all the equipment they had to find something to operate on Jigsaw's brain instead of having Amanda go retrieve the real equipment herself. According to the commentary by Darren Bousman, Amanda was supposed to have flicked the switch on a small device after putting the collar on Lynn. Later, when Amanda snapped, Lynn began digging through the junk in the room and found the device and flicked the switch, making it appear her collar was disarmed. When Jeff killed Jigsaw, it would then reveal that it was still armed, activating and killing Lynn.

Jeff's tests

Jeff Reinhart woke up in an empty shipping crate that was elevated on a pair of forklift prongs. Upon escaping, he had to walk through the abandoned Gideon meat-packaging plant that contained the victims of the Freezer Room, Pig Vat, and the Rack. Each person in each trap was directly or indirectly involved in his son's death or the trial of his son's murderer. Jeff had to go through each scenario and decide whether or not to forgive and assist the person or watch them die a horrible death, while also being forced to suffer to move forwards and being tested on his vengeful attitude. He had to get out of the meat-packing plant within two hours' time, or he would be locked in.

In more detail, his tests were:

Freezer Room Trap: "Face Your Fears"

Walking around the abandoned factory, Jeff came to a door that had the words "FACE YOUR FEARS" scrawled in red on it. Nearby he found a key and a piece of a torn-up photograph. Upon opening the door, he found himself in a large walk-in freezer. The door slammed shut behind him, and he was left to face Danica Scott, who was suspended by her wrists in the middle of the walk-in freezer, where her naked body was systematically sprayed by freezing water from twelve hoses, linked along two vertical poles at her sides. Jeff was forced to decide whether or not to help her. Danica was the one witness to the death of Jeff's son, and she fled the scene, giving Jeff the choice to save her or let her freeze to death. Jeff's task was to retrieve the key that would unlock Danica's bindings, as well as the door to the next room to escape the freezer room. The key was suspended behind a wall of icy cold pipes, just out of Jeff's reach. The only way he was able to get the key was by leaning just far enough that his face pressed against one of the pipes, causing the flesh of his cheek to stick to it. Grabbing the key, Jeff pulled back, tearing away part of the flesh on his cheek. Not only were the chains to free Danica frozen solid by the time Jeff attempted to save her, but Danica had frozen as well in an encasement of ice. Jeff left the room distressed as more water sprayed, building up the ice on her further. After leaving the freezer room, Jeff found a bullet, and a second scrap of the photo to go with the first one he found before the ice shower. This trap was similar to an act of torture reputedly given by the infamous Elizabeth Báthory.

Original ideas: Before settling on the final version of the Freezer Room, the creators and writers of Saw III went through a few different versions of the game, with only minor changes. Originally, the victim was going to be a male police officer, but they decided against it, instead going with the idea of a female witness. Instead of being completely naked, Danica was going to be in a T-shirt and panties, but they figured having her being sprayed would make the shirt stick to her body and become too sexual, so they decided to put her in the freezer naked instead.

Pig Vat Trap: "Time To Let Go"

Jeff entered a hallway, where he found the Billy doll fallen off its tricycle, reminding him of his son's death. When he picked it up, it started to laugh and he dropped it. Upon finding a door with the words, "TIME TO LET GO" scrawled in red on it, Jeff entered a room, where he was greeted with the voice of a man screaming for help. Climbing up a stairwell, Jeff found himself standing above a large vat in the middle of the room, in which Judge Halden, who presided over Jeff's son's murder trial, lay shackled to the bottom of the vat by a metal brace around his neck. As he screamed for help, Jeff found a tape recorder and played it to learn the rules. In order to save the judge and leave the room, Jeff had to retrieve the key to the lock on the brace, which was hidden among his son's possessions (dolls, photos, etc.), locked in an incinerator on the lower level. He had to activate the incinerator, which would burn up the mementos, leaving only the key remaining (thus "cleansing" him of his obsession). As the tape ended, a series of large, interlocking saws in an adjoining vat began to spin to life. Hanging from a conveyor-like bar came out a maggot-ridden and rotten pig corpse. The pig was dropped into the saw blades and ground up, leaving a large amount of thick grey liquefied remains to pour down a chute into the vat with the judge, hitting him in the face and gradually filling the vat. More dead pigs were pulled in on the bar and dropped, one after the other, into the saws. Soon, enough pigs had been liquefied to fill the vat nearly enough to drown the judge. Jeff tried unsuccessfully to break into the incinerator and save his son's things, but eventually gave in and ignited it, ending with the key dropping down onto a slide-out tray. The judge managed to escape thanks to Jeff's help, but was later accidentally shot in the head after following Jeff into the Rack Trap. After the two of them left, Jeff found a third scrap of the photo, and a gun magazine which would house the bullet he found earlier.

Original ideas: Before settling on the final version of the Pig Vat, the creators and writers of Saw III went through a couple different versions of the game. One of them had Judge Halden suspended above a meat grinder. As he was lowered down into it, Jeff would have to dive into a "soup" (probably referring to the ground up pigs that were instead poured onto the Judge) to retrieve the key. It was changed again until it resembled the final version, with the exception that Jeff wouldn't have to burn his son's possessions, but simply step down into the vat to free the judge. Leigh Whannell said on the commentary for Saw III that one of the reasons for the final change was that merely having Jeff dive into pig guts was more akin to something on Fear Factor, and that by burning his son's possessions, it was more of an emotional conflict for Jeff than a physical one.

Rack Trap: "Here's Your Chance"

Jeff stumbled upon this trap after saving the judge from the Pig Vat. Together, they found a door marked "HERE'S YOUR CHANCE" in red. Entering the room, Jeff and the judge found Timothy Young, the victim in the trap, who turned out to be the man responsible for the death of Jeff's son. His head was held in place by a rotating lock, while the arms and legs were held in place by spikes driven through the hands and feet. Each section began rotating around 180 degrees, one by one, taking his arms, legs, and head along with it and breaking the bones. The only way to free Tim would be to obtain a key that was attached to a shotgun's trigger by a cord; if the key was taken, the shotgun would go off and shoot Jeff. The key was also needed to leave the room and continue through to the next room. The shotgun and key were kept suspended in a glass box that Judge Halden attempted to break without success. Tim's arms and legs were rotated one by one, and the bones broke, some jabbing straight through his flesh in the process. As the judge watched Tim's bones slowly break one by one, Jeff managed to untie the key, holding onto the string long enough to move his own body out of the line of fire. As he let go, the gun fired. The judge had inadvertently backed up into the line of fire and was shot in the head. Jeff rushed over to Tim just as his head began to rotate. However, he failed to locate the key hole in time, and Tim's neck was fatally broken. The gears slowed down after Tim's head twisted around 180 degrees. After Jeff left, he found the last piece of the photograph, showing him and his family. He also found an empty pistol and loaded it using the magazine and bullet he found earlier. Jigsaw stated on Tim's tape that this trap was a personal favorite of his.

Original ideas: According to the final draft of the Saw III script, Tim was originally going to be bolted to a large, metal slab in the shape of a crucifix. The arms of the device would fold backwards, eventually breaking Tim's arms at the elbows, while the rest of the device would fold in half. This idea was supposed to be a reference to the original 'rack' used during the Spanish Inquisition. Tim died when his stomach tore open after the slab folded at Tim's waist. The shotgun portion of the trap was located in a hole in the wall instead of a glass box, and when it fired, it got Halden in the chest instead of the head.

Final confrontation

Upon completion of the tests, Jeff exited the abandoned plant and entered Jigsaw's lair, using the key he had found outside the Freezer Room to open a locked gate in his way. During the confrontation, Jigsaw gave him the choice of killing him and taking revenge, or making the ultimate choice of forgiveness. However, unknown to Jeff, the choice of killing Jigsaw would ultimately kill his wife Lynn as well, as his death would activate the shotgun collar placed on her. This choice was the true aim of Jeff's test. He ended up killing Jigsaw by slicing his neck with an electric circular saw, and the movie ended with Jigsaw playing a final tape before he died. The tape informed Jeff that Jigsaw was the one responsible for the loss of Jeff's child — his daughter Corbett, who was locked away with a limited air supply. The tape also left the possibility of a prearranged game that Jigsaw left for Jeff prior to his death with the tape's final line, "and if you want to get her back, you'll have to play a game." The door to the sick room slammed shut, sealing Jeff in. Before he could figure out what his next game was, he was shot dead by Agent Strahm, who had quickly reopened the door, in Saw IV, after aiming a gun at Strahm and demanding to see his daughter.

Original ideas: Before settling on the final version of the Confrontation, the creators and writers of Saw III shot numerous different versions, all resulting in Jigsaw's death at the hands of Jeff. Among the differences were the weapons of choice, including the original circular saw blade that Jeff picked up before finding the high power saw and the pneumatic saw Lynn used during Jigsaw's brain surgery. One alternate ending was used for the Saw III: Director's Cut, in which John failed to play the tape before he died. Lynn's collar fired the shells and killed her, and Jeff went into a state of shock, sitting down next to her and talking to her about her beautiful hair, and how he was going to get them out of the room. He then proceeded to play the tape in the tape player that Jigsaw dropped, putting it on his lap and kissing Lynn's bloodied hand. When the tape got to the part about Corbett being locked away, Jeff stood up and screamed at John's corpse. Another alternate ending was also shot, using the concept of Lynn's "bomb" collar, which would detonate and shake the room following Jigsaw's death, knocking Jeff to the floor, unconscious, and knocking Jigsaw's corpse to the floor. Upon awakening, Jeff would then find the tape.

Amanda's test

After becoming Jigsaw's apprentice, Amanda began to crack under the pressure. She soon became a killer, making traps that had no possibility of escape, such as the Classroom Trap and the Angel Trap. Jigsaw realized this, and decided to give her another test to prove that she was willing and able to carry on his legacy after his death, not wanting a "murderer" to continue his work. After having Lynn and Jeff kidnapped, Jigsaw began testing Amanda's patience and temper, gradually building up her stress as Lynn was forced to assist him while wearing another of Amanda's devices, the Shotgun Collar.

After a talk with Jigsaw, Amanda was told that there was an envelope with her name on it in one of the drawers. Upon opening it, Amanda broke into tears, although the contents, consisting of a hand-written letter and some papers, have yet to be revealed. It was, however, revealed in Saw IV that it was actually Hoffman, Jigsaw's second apprentice, who put the letter and papers, along with a key, in the envelope for Amanda.

After reading the letter, Amanda told Jigsaw and Lynn that Jeff had completed his tests. As for the rules of Lynn's game, Jigsaw told Amanda to take off Lynn's collar, but Amanda refused. He asked again, telling her that her life rested in Lynn's hands. Amanda instead snapped and shot Lynn, just as Jeff entered the room. It turned out that Jeff was Lynn's husband, and was now equipped with a loaded gun which he used to shoot Amanda in the neck. She died of blood loss while Jigsaw revealed to her that it was her test all along, and that he had given her the rules when she thought he was talking to Lynn.

Original idea: According to the Saw III script, Amanda was originally going to be shot in the chest (instead of the neck) by Jeff. Following John's speech explaining how she failed her game, Jeff picked up a metal stake and drove it into Amanda's skull. According to the Saw IV script, Hoffman was originally to be looking at photos of Danica, Judge Halden, and Timothy while writing Amanda's letter.

Saw IV

The majority of the fourth movie followed Rigg's trail of tests as he went through the individual games and as Agents Perez and Strahm followed behind. Through flashbacks, Jigsaw's first warehouse lair was revealed, eventually becoming the location of his first trap, the Knife Chair. It also showed prototypes of traps that were seen in the previous movies, including the Razor Wire Maze. An unreleased scene also showed that Jigsaw created mini-prototypes of some of his traps to test on rats.

Promotional photos showed a glass-lined box with a man trapped inside. While the box itself was shown in the warehouse, it was never put to use as the promotional shot shows. The Saw IV script revealed the man inside the box to be the vagrant seen harassing Rigg at the motel, and described the trap as a glass coffin. The trap was also the topic of discussion on the Saw IV DVD commentaries, in which it was stated that along with the glass, there was a key. The scene was said to be very graphic, and although it was taken out, it is to be seen in future Saw films.

The lair from the third movie, a meat-packing plant named Gideon, was also revisited, revealing it to be a building John Kramer had purchased before taking on the role of Jigsaw.

Knife chair

A man named Cecil Adams was trapped in what was referred to first in an interview as the Knife Chair, later revealed to be Jigsaw's first created trap. He woke up with his arms bound to the armrests of a wooden chair, with blades jutting upwards into his forearms. A panel level with Cecil's face was connected to the arm restraints. Pushing it forward would release the restraints and free him. Jigsaw, who was present in the room, applied a large apparatus to the chair, consisting of eight blades enclosed around Cecil's head. Jigsaw then instructed Cecil in what to do, telling him that to release himself from the chair, he had to force his face through the blades to push the panel, matching his "internal ugliness" by scarring his face. Cecil, after sitting and screaming for help, began pushing his face through while Jigsaw watched. However, before Cecil could complete his test, the chair collapsed. Standing up with the restraints still lodged in his arms, Cecil threatened to kill John, and lunged at him. Jigsaw side-stepped, causing Cecil to fall into a pile of hanging razor wire where Jigsaw left him to die, also giving Jigsaw the idea for Paul's trap.

Original ideas: From the Saw IV script, it was learned that John was originally going to use the recording of his message to Cecil that he had been seen making earlier in the film, putting it on a TV recording with his puppet. Once Cecil awoke, John used a remote to turn the TV on and play the message. The conversation that took place between Cecil and John replaced the TV message. The script also detailed John's surprise at the early collapse of the chair. Once Cecil slipped and fell into the pile of razor wire, John began sketching the result.

Mausoleum trap

A man, Trevor, woke up on the floor of a mausoleum with a locked collar around his neck, attached to a chain. He began to panic when he realized that his eyes had been sewn shut, rendering him blind. He started pulling on the chain to try to release himself, waking up a second man, Art Blank, on the other side of the room. Art realized he was shackled by a similar collar to the opposite end of the same chain. Art's mouth had been sewn shut, rendering him mute. Between the two of them was a winding drum, with a trigger-tab in place inside a large cylinder that the chain passed through.

During the ensuing struggle, Trevor knocked over a chair with multiple instruments on it, including a hammer, an axe, and some meat-hooks. As he began pulling on the chain, drawing Art closer to the machine, the tab was pulled out, activating the device. The cylinder began to rotate, slowly reeling in the chain and pulling both men closer together. They both pulled back and forth on the chain, each getting closer to the machine, though the lack of communication made it impossible for them to work together on solving the puzzle. Art spotted a key on the back of Trevor's collar and realized that it might open the one around his own neck. As he made his way over, he armed himself with the axe to protect himself before the two men started fighting. Trevor swung a hook wildly, eventually stabbing Art in the leg. Art, however, still managed to get the key from the back of Trevor's collar after stabbing the hook into his shoulder. As Art attempted to unlock his collar, Trevor attacked again, and Art was forced to kill him by smashing his head in with the hammer. Finally, Art fumbled to try to open the lock on his collar. He managed to remove it, and screamed, ripping the stitching open,with blood coming out.

During a flashback later in the movie, Art subsequently found an envelope elsewhere in the mausoleum, with "THE KEY TO YOUR FREEDOM" written on it. Sitting atop the envelope was a tape recorder, which delivered a congratulatory message to Art.

Original ideas: From the special features found on the Saw IV DVD, it was discovered that Art and Trevor would originally have had to fight to the death before the chain connecting them pulled them from the floor, up to a device on the ceiling that would hang them. According to the final draft of the Saw IV script, Trevor was originally able to rip open one of his eyes, but was killed when his collar was drawn too close to the machine, snapping his neck. The scene in which Art found his congratulatory message was originally going to take place as soon as the trap ended, instead of in a flashback near the end of the movie.

Rigg's tests

Lieutenant Rigg, after becoming obsessed with finding his friend Eric Matthews (who had been missing for six months), was thrust into a game of his own with 90 minutes to find Matthews and Hoffman. Rigg had been too busy making sure his friends did not make the wrong choices, in the process preventing himself from making the right ones. Rigg's obsession to save everyone was a fault in Jigsaw's eyes, and as such, he tested Rigg, trying to teach him how he should truly save a life. To do this, Rigg took on the role of Jigsaw during his tests, doing such tasks as kidnapping, testing, saving, and eventually judging his victims, ultimately teaching him the value of why he can't and shouldn't try to save all of the people, all of the time. His test began in his home, where he was attacked and rendered unconscious by a hooded assailant. Rigg woke up in his bathroom, with a question mark painted on the door. Arming himself with a door-hook, he opened the door, pulling a trigger-pin that activated a TV in the next room that explained his test, revealing to him that Eric Matthews was still alive. When Rigg tried to call for help, he found that the apartment's phone had been broken. "NO PHONE, ONLY YOU CAN SAVE THEM" was scrawled in red paint next to it.

In more detail, his tests were:

See What I See

A woman named Brenda wore a red cloak and a pig mask, chained and seated on a device with numerous gears and a dial, sitting atop a dolly. A tape recorder was duct-taped to the palm of her left hand, and her long hair was twisted through a metal ring and wound up along an axle connected to the gears. She was stuck in a room in Rigg's apartment with numerous photos of herself pimping young girls, posted and hung up around the room, with the words, "SEE WHAT I SEE" scribbled above a bookcase beside her. Rigg entered the room, setting off a timer which began counting down from 90:00, and found Brenda panicking, trying to escape her chains. A TV in front of her turned on, and Rigg was told that she was a criminal. Jigsaw advised him to just walk away from the situation and let Brenda die instead of giving into his obsession of saving everybody. Rigg pulled the pig mask and cloak off Brenda's head, pulling a trigger-pin that was attached by a cord to the mask, activating the machine. A one-minute timer began counting down as the gears on the device began turning, arching Brenda's head back as her hair was yanked and wound along an axle. After having her gag removed, Brenda screamed for help, telling Rigg to hurry, and that the combination for the dial was hidden in the gears. She continued to scream for help while Rigg scrambled around looking for something to stop the device or cut Brenda's hair with. Upon opening a drawer, he found a card that read "Time is wasting." Brenda's hairline ripped and began to spurt blood before Rigg returned and tried shooting the machine with his handgun, merely slowing the machine down for a few seconds before it continued to tear Brenda's scalp from her head. Rigg began reading numbers on the cogs twisting her hair and programmed the code, 6-4-7, into the dial on the machine. Brenda was released, although half of her scalp had been torn from her head.

When Rigg left the room to grab towels, however, Brenda retrieved a knife from underneath the TV set and attacked him when he returned to the room. After pulling back on her hair and throwing her into a mirror, he took the knife, noticing a "G" written on it, and ripped the tape recorder from Brenda's hand. The tape revealed that Jigsaw told her that Rigg was a cop, and that if he was successful in saving her from the device, her test would begin; explaining that Rigg would use the incriminating photos of Brenda to sentence her, Jigsaw told her that the solution to avoid jail-time was to kill Rigg with the knife.

Leaving Brenda bleeding on the floor, Rigg found two keys and a card that read, "One saves a life... one takes it away." The first key was for a room in Rigg's second test, while the second key was for Rigg's third test. On his way out of the apartment, he discovered that someone had broken his cell phone to further prevent him from bringing in outside help.

The point of this test was to see Brenda as a criminal as Jigsaw would have, not as a victim as Rigg believed. If Rigg had listened to Jigsaw, he would not have been attacked by Brenda.

When the police and FBI arrived at Rigg's apartment, they found Brenda dead from her injuries. They also found the words "FOUR WALLS BUILD A HOME" written in illuminated paint above photos of Ivan Landsness, Rex, Morgan, Hoffman, and Eric Matthews. Also posted around the room was a photo of Jill Tuck, Jigsaw's ex-wife.

Original ideas: The message for Rigg was originally scripted to tell Rigg that, if given the chance, Brenda would kill him. According to the commentaries and special features on the Saw IV DVD, the trap was based on an old torture device that consisted of a small wooden board that would have the victim's hair pulled and twisted along. Using that concept, they developed the final version seen in the movie. The numbers for the combination were originally supposed to be the numbers from Rigg's badge before they decided to have them on the gears.

Feel What I Feel

The next test began as Rigg entered room 261 of the Alexander Motel. The victim was the motel clerk, Ivan Landsness. In the room, Rigg found a box with a picture of his wife, Tracy sitting atop it. The back of the photo had a note for Rigg that read, "SHE NEEDED YOU." Looking at the box, Rigg noticed some long strands of hair sticking out of it, implying that his wife's head was in the box. Opening it, he instead found the infamous pig mask used by Jigsaw and Amanda Young, a tape recorder, and a photo of Ivan. The tape told Rigg that he would need to grab Ivan, but to do so, would have to conceal his identity from the motel cameras. He put the mask on long enough to pass by the cameras, then lured Ivan's dog upstairs. When Ivan followed, he found the discarded mask lying outside room 261. As the door opened, Ivan was pulled into the room by Rigg.

Rigg forced Ivan at gunpoint to unlock a communicating door, which had "FEEL WHAT I FEEL" scrawled across it. In the next room were several pictures of various murdered women and a bed with four shackles connected to large posts, described as "hydraulic gear-shifts", standing upwards from the corners of the bed, each equipped with numerous chains and gears. Flashbacks later showed that a "G" was marked on one of the shackles. It was revealed by a video tape in the corner of the room that Ivan was a serial rapist, responsible for raping and torturing unfortunate women. Acting on instructions from a second tape recorder, Rigg ordered Ivan to strap himself in on the bed so that a vise could clamp onto his head.

Rigg, after reading a card that said, "Hand him the tools that will save his life," supplied Ivan with two trigger buttons, one for each hand. Activating either one would cause a scythe-like arm on that side of the vise to swing down and pierce his eye, punishment for being a voyeur. Activating both of them would blind Ivan, but would deactivate the rest of the device. Rigg switched on a third tape recorder, which warned Ivan that he had only 60 seconds to make his choice, and left.

Ivan blinded one of his eyes, but could not bring himself to push the other button and failed his task. The gears holding the shackles cranked as the four posts were pulled and planted outwards, pulling his limbs taut and ripping them from Ivan's body one after the other, punishment for using his body as a tool to cause harm to the women in the photos. Upon leaving Ivan to be tested, Rigg found another card for him which read, "Become the teacher and save a life. Go back to where it all began", leading Rigg to his next test.

The point of this test was to make Rigg feel how Jigsaw felt when he selected his subjects, implying the rage and disgust that Rigg felt upon seeing the acts that Ivan had committed.

Agents Strahm and Perez found Ivan later, dead. Three of the four posts had worked properly, but the last one had only partially removed his leg and dragged him off the bed.

Original idea: According to the Saw IV script, there was originally going to be a scene that showed Art, who had rented out the room, preparing Ivan's bed trap.

Save as I Save

An abusive husband, Rex, and his wife, Morgan, were trapped in a classroom of an abandoned school (the same school in which Troy had died in an earlier trap), where the words "SAVE AS I SAVE" were seen written on a chalkboard for Rigg. Rex and Morgan were locked in harnesses and strapped to a column with eight rods impaled through the both of them, holding them together, next to an overhead projector sitting atop a trolley. An image of the human vascular system was projected onto a screen, showing major veins and arteries, while numerous X-rays hung from the ceiling showed broken bones inflicted from Rex. A sign scrawled on the wall, only viewable by Rex, read, "YOUR LIFE IS IN HER HANDS."

A tape chained to Morgan's wrist revealed that to escape, she would have to "remove the ties that bind" by pulling out the rods. Doing so, however, would cause Rex to bleed to death, as the rods were pierced through major arteries in his body, punishment for the abuse he inflicted on his wife and others, including his daughter. The rods would only leave minor wounds in Morgan's body if she removed them, as none of her arteries were harmed. If she failed to remove them, or remained inactive, she would eventually bleed to death. She began pulling them out while Rex struggled weakly to hold them back, also grabbing his exit wounds to slow his bleeding. Morgan managed to remove all but one rod before passing out.

Rigg discovered the couple still hanging from the ceiling, with the timer for his tests having counted down to 33:00. Rex had bled to death, and Morgan began going into shock as she woke up. A tape revealed to Rigg that he had to decide whether or not to save Morgan, while also leading Rigg to find another photo of his wife. On the back of the photo, another message from Jigsaw read, "GO HOME," bearing the same font "G" as the knife from his first test and the shackle from the second test. Recalling a photo of John Kramer (Jigsaw) in front of a meat-packing plant, Rigg realized that the same font "G" was used on the "Gideon" logo of the plant. After removing the last rod, Rigg handed Morgan the key that would free her (the second key from his apartment meant to "save a life") from her harness. As he left the school, he set off the fire alarm to alert authorities to Morgan's location.

The point of this test was to make Rigg see that he had to stand back and let each victim complete his own test, which was very important for his next test. If he had gone home as the card had suggested, he would have left Eric to survive.

By the time Agents Strahm and Perez arrived, Morgan had already been taken to the hospital; they were told that Rigg saved her. The forensic crew discovered a large harpoon gun-like device at the side of the room, used to put the rods through Rex and Morgan. While being dusted for finger-prints, the apparatus fired a rod, almost hitting Perez. Strahm pulled her out of the way, and the rod instead impaled a crime scene photographer through the head, killing her.

Original ideas: According to the Saw IV script, Rex's hands were originally going to be tied behind his back, preventing him from pulling the rods away from Morgan's grip. There was also going to be a scene that showed a hooded Art preparing the trap, using the harpoon-gun apparatus to fire the spears through Rex and Morgan in the same classroom that Troy's test took place in. Additionally, the spear fired during Perez and Strahm's investigation was originally going to tear the photographer's head from her body. According to concept art seen on the Saw IV DVD, Morgan and Rex were originally going to be able to walk around the class instead of being strapped to the column. From the commentaries on the Saw IV DVD, it was learned that the idea for this trap came about when Darren thought about sadomasochists who endured through painful body piercings. Also, an earlier draft of the script was mentioned as to include a trap-room, described as the "pendulum trap", being the cause of the crime scene photographer's death, after one of the pendulum blades swung down and hit her.

Judge as I Judge

Art Blank, having escaped the Mausoleum trap, found and opened an envelope meant for him, and was equipped with a contraption on his back that held a pair of pincers at his neck. He was missing for two weeks before he was sent to watch over Detective Eric Matthews and Forensic Hoffman at the Gideon meat-packing plant. Eric had a brace on his broken foot, a chain-noose around his neck, and shackles around his wrists, chained to the floor. He was standing on a slowly melting ice block that was being warmed by heat lamps, while Hoffman sat strapped into a chair with an electrode next to his feet. Eric and the ice block were on one end of a large scale, while Hoffman and his chair were at the other. If Eric lost his footing, he would be hanged and the scale would tilt toward Hoffman; the runoff water would spill onto the latter's end and, once enough of the ice had melted, he would be electrocuted.

Art was forced to monitor Rigg's progress as he went through his tests during a 90-minute period, with each of the previous victims being clients of Art. He was, however, supplied with a button that he had been instructed to push once the 90 minutes were up. This would free the three of them. However, if it was pushed too early, the device on Art's back would cut his spine. If the door to the room was opened before time ran out, two large ice blocks (about the size of the block Eric stood on) would be triggered to swing down from the ceiling and smash each other, crushing Eric's head between them. As a precaution, Art gave Eric a revolver and one bullet with which to try and stop anyone from coming in.

Rigg arrived at the Gideon meat-packing plant and found a card that read, "Patience, remember WHO you are saving... time is on your side." Moving further into the plant, he found a second card that read, "Have you truly learned HOW to save a life?", along with Eric and Hoffman's police badges. As Rigg approached the door, Eric shot out through it but only wounded Rigg. Rigg barged through with one second left on the timer, releasing the ice blocks and killing Eric. The runoff water poured toward Hoffman, hitting the electrode. Rigg then shot Art, who was reaching into his bag, in the head. Art dropped a tape player that revealed why Rigg had failed, stating that if he had just waited instead of charging through the door as he had been warned against, he would have saved Eric. Hoffman, having not been in any actual danger of being electrocuted, freed himself and calmly walked towards Rigg, revealing himself to be another accomplice of Jigsaw's. He then pulled the wires from the monitors and left the room, saying, "Game over," to Rigg as he lay bleeding on the floor.

The point of this test was to teach Rigg to not live the selfless life he had been, as people have to "save themselves". It might also have been to teach Rigg to exercise some patience, and not charge through an unsecured door, something Hoffman warned him against earlier in the film.

Original ideas: When the trap was first filmed, the Saw IV crew wasn't sure who was going to be on the ice block, although Darren Bousman insisted it be Eric. Among the other possible victims were Rigg's father and Hoffman. With the victim in mind, the trap started basic, with Eric being hanged if the ice melted. However, the crew still needed it to appear lethal to Hoffman. Hoffman was scripted to be positioned on a meat hook, hanging above a collecting pool of water. Once the timer was up, he was going to be dropped into the water, electrocuting him. He and Eric were not on a large scale as was seen in the movie. Multiple clue cards for Rigg were removed from the final cut of the film, including ones that said, "Some doors aren't meant to be opened," "Eric is safe behind closed doors," "Sometimes it's more courageous to do nothing," "Time is running out," and, "Think again detective." Also, Art's device was originally written to be activated, cutting his spine and killing him instantly. According to Darren Lynn Bousman, part of an alternate ending was filmed in which Rigg reached the door, but stopped there, instead falling to his knees and witnessing Eric's death inside the room without opening the door. Hoffman then stood up and opened the door before whispering something into Rigg's ear, leaving him shocked. Turning the corner, Rigg was then shot dead by Strahm.

Lindsey and Peter's tests

Before her death, Detective Allison Kerry kept in contact with FBI Agents Lindsey Perez and Peter Strahm, giving them the info she had obtained concerning the Jigsaw case. In Kerry's last message, she had informed them that two officers might be in danger, while supplying the agents with a key and another hint, "open the door and you'll find me".

Strahm and Perez joined the investigation with Detective Hoffman after the discovery of Kerry's corpse, withholding some of the info Kerry had given them from Hoffman. They were then led to believe that the two officers in danger were Lieutenant Rigg and Hoffman, after the two disappeared. Learning of Rigg's tests, the two agents arrived at Rigg's apartment, where they found Brenda's corpse, along with a message on the wall and some pictures that led them to Jill Tuck, Jigsaw's ex-wife. While questioning her on the side about her ex-husband, Perez and Strahm followed after Rigg, realizing that he was either being set-up to look like an accomplice of Jigsaw's, being recruited, or was in fact an apprentice.

After arriving at Rigg's FEEL WHAT I FEEL test, they learned that the room that Ivan had been killed in was being rented, for the past six days, by a man named Art Blank, who had been missing for two weeks. Learning of more properties owned by him, they arrived at the most recent residence owned by Art. There, the two agents found two folders. One of them, containing photos of Agent Strahm, repeated the message they had already received, "OPEN THE DOOR AND YOU'LL FIND ME", while the second one, holding photos of Agent Perez, read, "YOU ARE IN DANGER OF GETTING TOO CLOSE ...STEP BACK". After tearing a camera from the wall, Strahm deduced that he and Perez were in fact the two officers in danger.

While waiting for the address of the last of Art's owned buildings (believing it to be Jigsaw's lair or the location of Rigg's last game), Perez and Strahm arrived at the scene of Rigg's SAVE AS I SAVE test. After learning that the building they were in, an abandoned school, was in fact the last owned by Art (who shared ownership with one of his clients, Jill Tuck), Strahm and Perez checked the school office, where Billy the puppet sat in a chair surrounded by candles with a tape recorder around the puppet's neck. Perez pressed the play button and heard a message intended for her. It informed her that her partner was going to kill an innocent man (later revealed to be Jeff Reinhart), and that her "next move [was] critical," hinting that she should get out of the way. The puppet's eyes began to turn as a faint recording of Jigsaw's voice began playing, saying, "Open the door." As Perez leaned forward to hear what it was saying, the puppet's face exploded, sending shrapnel into her face and neck while letting off its mocking laugh, which began to slow down and stop from the damage done to the puppet. Perez's fate was not revealed, although she was rushed to the hospital in critical condition.

Returning to question Jill further, Strahm made the realization that Rigg's final test would be at the Gideon meat packing plant after reading an article headline concerning the building, which read "Urban Renewal Group: Four Walls Build A Home"; recalling the message "FOUR WALLS BUILD A HOME" that had been written in paint at the scene of Rigg's first test, Strahm asked Jill where the Gideon plant, which John Kramer had purchased before he became Jigsaw, was located. Rushing to the meat-packing plant, he was close behind Rigg, who was about to participate in his last test. Strahm, however, took a different route that ended up following Jeff Reinhart's tests. Entering Jigsaw's latest warehouse, he opened a large steel door using the key he had been supplied with in Kerry's last message. Inside, he found Jeff Reinhart with the corpses of Jigsaw, Amanda Young, and Lynn Denlon. Waving a gun in the air and demanding to see his daughter, Jeff was shot down by Strahm. At that point, the steel door was slammed shut and locked by Hoffman, trapping Strahm inside the make-shift sickroom as the lights went out.

Autopsy tape

During the events of Saw III, following his brain surgery, Jigsaw was seen pouring liquid wax onto a cassette tape. Saw IV showed him then putting it into his mouth once the wax had cooled and hardened. Sometime after Jeff and Rigg's tests, Jigsaw's corpse was found, removed from his makeshift sickroom, and taken to the morgue. While performing an autopsy on him, Dr. Hefner pulled out John's stomach and cut it open, revealing the cassette in its wax covering (for protection against the stomach acid). When it was cut out from the wax and played by Hoffman, it proved to contain a message for him from Jigsaw. Despite being "the last man standing," Hoffman should not think he will go untested. It also said that even though Jigsaw is dead, his work will continue and "the games have just begun."

Original ideas: The scene was originally scripted to have the wax-covered tape hidden in Jigsaw's intestines. Once it was decided that the tape would be in the stomach, it was supposed to have been found jutting out from the stomach once Jigsaw's ribcage was pried open, but the production crew decided it would be better to discover it after opening the stomach.

Saw V

According to director David Hackl, one trap that has been constructed for Saw V could have potentially killed the actor placed in it. Paramedics were required to be ready while filming.

In the Saw IV DVD commentary, Darren Lynn Bousman stated that the glass box trap, which was originally planned to be used in Saw IV, will be further explored in Saw V.

The 'grand finale' trap, or final test, was created by David Hackl's son Sean Hackl, who was 7 at the time he drew it. These traps have been described as the most terrifying and disturbing traps of the whole series, according to Hackl. The Ice Block trap and Razor Wire trap will also be revisited.

Pendulum trap

A man named Seth, whom Jigsaw believes did not get a sufficient prison sentence for the crimes he committed, is chained to a table. A pendulum-blade looms above him, while a pair of vices stand next to his hands. Billy, Jigsaw's puppet, appears on a TV screen and informs the prisoner that he is sentenced to a game. To escape, Seth must mangle his hands in the vices so that they will be unable to aid him in committing violence against another innocent person. If he fails to do so within 60 seconds, he will be sliced in half. The pendulum blade begins swinging as the instructions end, and after struggling for a bit, Seth places his hands into the vices and mashes them. The vices open up after crushing his hands, but the blade continues swinging lower until it cuts him in half. It is later revealed that Seth murdered Hoffman's sister, and Hoffman was really the one who made this trap and framed Jigsaw.

Strahm's tests

Head cube

In an interview discussing the trap of Saw V, David Hackl revealed that Scott Patterson's character, Agent Peter Strahm, would be placed in a trap that Hackl called 'the most dangerous' and 'elegant in its simplicity'. In the teaser trailer, he is seen with his head locked inside a sealed box with two tubes leading into it. Strahm uses a secret door to escape the sick room and walks down a hallway. He is knocked out and placed inside a glass box, as seen in the teaser trailer. The box begins to fill up with water and Strahm struggles to remove it. He finally,when the box is full, stabs himself in the throat, allowing him to breathe until the reinforcements called in Saw IV arrived.

Glass Coffin

A recently released picture shows Strahm walking towards a large coffin-like box with broken glass inside. A tape instructs Strahm to enter it to survive. It becomes the only safe haven from the walls of the room, which come together like a trash compacter once the box is closed. Hoffman tricks Strahm into staying out of the box and in the end, Strahm is crushed by the walls and Hoffman watches from the box.

Original Ideas: The initial version of the trap ended with the room filling with water and Strahm drowning. When the effects for the scene were deemed too expensive, one of the producers suggested having the walls come together and crush Strahm to death.

There was also an alternate trap filmed with the box that had the homeless man from the hotel in Saw IV in the trap. Screens were released from the filming, but the idea was rejected and the footage was never released.

The Fatal Five

Five people (Luba, Brit, Mallick, Ashley and Charles) are kidnapped and placed into a sewer, a similar situation to that of Saw II. They each have tasks to accomplish, intended for them to use teamwork. They are connected by the death of eight people who were killed in a building each of the five had something to do with. The tasks are as follows:

Neck Tie Trap

Luba, Brit, Mallick, Ashley and Charles are in a room and all of them are connected to the wall behind them by cables that are attached to collars around their necks. Billy appears on a TV screen and informs them that the cables feed into a wall with v-shaped razors mounted on it and that they will be decapitated by the razors if their cable is pulled too tightly against the wall. The only way to remove the collar is for each of them to get a key out of the 5 glass boxes sitting in front of them. Billy says "Let the games begin" and a 15 minute counter starts. Mallick, frustrated, immediately tries to rush towards his glass box, causing the cables on the other 4 to retract into the wall. Charles grabs Mallick's cable and yanks on it, which stops Mallick while at the same time pulling a pin from the wall and starting another timer. Charles then begins to slowly walk towards his box, tightening the cables and choking the other 4, pulling them closer and closer to the razors behind them. The clip ends with Charles coming close to reaching his box, and Ashley inches away from the razor behind her, screaming. In the end, all retrieve their keys but Ashley. The 60 second timer is up and she is pulled into the wall mount, being decapitated.

The Jar Trap

A recently released picture shows Brit in a sewer tunnel, holding onto the bars of a sewer grate. In the new Saw V TV Spots, she is seen from inside of the sewer watching an explosion take place. A recently released picture shows Charles and Mallick holding sticks below many jars that are hung fom the ceiling. Mallick has to hit all the glass jars while the others are trying to hit Mallick with sticks. In the second trap, Brit, Luba, Charles, and Mallick must smash glass jars to find three keys to three different tunnels. Charles immediately starts smashing jars, trying to find a key. The timer counting down, Luba hits Charles with a bat, takes his key and gives it to Mallick. Now, Brit, Luba, and Mallick have keys and enter the three tunnels. An explosion occurs, killing Charles, while the others are kept safe inside the tunnels. After seeing Charles' destroyed body on the ground, they walk into the next room.

The Bathtub Trap

In this trap, Brit, Luba, and Mallick must find something to connect all five wires. Luba pushes Mallick into the tub and is going to use him as the conductor. Brit stabs Luba in the back of the neck, killing her and uses her body as the conductor. The door unlocks, and Brit and Mallick run into the last room before it explodes.

The Last Sewer Trap

In the new Saw V TV Spots, Mallick is shown sliding his hand through one of many glass boxes, which contains blades that are cutting his hands as he pulls away, yelling in pain. Brit and Mallick, now having survived three rooms, now walk into the final room. Billy tells them that they must fill a container with ten pints of blood. Brit finally realizes that one key would have unlocked all five collars, the tunnels could hold more than one person in each, and that the five people holding onto five different wires would have only given each of them a small shock. The glass box contains five holes, each with blades inside them. Brit and Mallick know what they must do and shove their hands into the blades together, cutting into their hands. After ten pints of blood is given, Mallick falls back and holds up his arm, which begins to split. Brit walks out of the room to run into officer Ericson, saying "We were supposed to work together", before passing out.

Saw VI

Pound of Flesh

Simone and Eddie wake up in a room with sharp instruments on the a table in front of them, they also have masks attached to their heads with drills facing their brains. As they both lean forward, it pulls a string attached to a television. Billy appears telling them that they loan money to people who they know can't pay it off. He says that the only way to survive is put more weight on the scale in front of them than their opponent, and that they have to create this weight by cutting off their flesh. Overweight Eddie immediately starts to cut off parts of his stomach, whereas Simone takes a knife and slowly starts to cut off her arm. As the timer starts to go down and Simone sees that Eddie has put much more weight than her, she takes a Butcher Knife and hacks off her arm. She puts her arm on the scale and tips the weight in her favor but watches Eddie slowly die.

'Williams Games'

William Easton has to go through a series of traps set up by Hoffman for being a greedy insurance company owner. He has 4 bombs on his limbs and will recieve a key for each one after every test. He will "never see his family" again if he doesn't go through in 90 minutes.

The Oxygen Mask

Easton wakes up in a room and he is tied up, has a breathing apparatus over his face like a mask, and two large metal clamps around him, and a explosive charge on his legs and arms. Opposite to him is the company's office janitor. Billy appears on the screen and tells Easton that he must complete 4 tests in 60 minutes, or else the explosive charges will detonate. The first of his traps is the one he woke up in, the Oxygen Trap. Everytime they breath, the two clamps beside them will get closer to their stomach, slowly crushing them. The Janitor is a heavy smoker and older, while Easton is younger and healthier, so the trap favors Easton. The Janitor holds his breath for some time, but his life of smoking has caught up to him, he takes a few breaths and then the clamp crushes his stomach. Easton is released, and finds a key at the exit of the trap, which is used to remove one of the explosive charges on his arm.

Neck Wire Trap

Easton is holding two chains which are keeping two of his employees from being hung. Only one could survive. He could choose the older diabetic woman with a family, or the healthy young man who nobody would miss. William chooses the woman.

Steam Room

Williams lawyer has a device attached to her that will penetrate her brain in 90 seconds if she doesn't pass through the maze. But in order to get through the maze, William has to burn himself with steam to let her get through. When she reaches the end she finds out the key to her device is inside William, and she attempts to cut him open to get it. The timer goes of and kills her.

Carousel

6 employees of William who find the errors in clients insurance claims are on a carousel. A shotgun is pointed at them and William can choose which two he wants to live b pressing a button when its their turn, The button stabs William in the hand when he presses it. Two of the women are saved.

Spike Trap

William is between his sister, Pamela and the family of Harold Abbottthe, Tara and Brent. Tara was to choose to either kill William or set him free using the marked switch next to the tank. Brent shifts the switch to "Die" as Tara could not bring herself to pull it down. A series of spikes slammed onto his back, pumping hydrofluoric acid inside him via the spikes. During the process, his lower torso fell down on the ground, with internal organs showing.

Reverse Bear Trap 2.0

Jill Tuck puts Hoffman in a new version of the reverse bear trap and straps him in the chair so he can't move. Hoffman smashes his hand to get out and first breaks off half of the RBT with a screwdriver, then slamming it in between two bars to prevent it from opening. He then rips off his cheek and survives the unwinnable trap.

Further reading

• Alexander, Chris (June 11, 2006). "Saw's Unkindest Cutssaw's Unkindest Cuts; The latest film in the surprisingly successful Saw series aims to up the ante with its gory traps o but no one wants to give away too much about the serpentine storyline.". Toronto Star: pp. C4. http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/thestar/access/1056513051.html?dids=1056513051:1056513051&FMT=ABS&FMTS=ABS:FT&type=current&date=Jun+11%2C+2006&author=Chris+Alexander&pub=Toronto&edition=&startpage=C.04&desc=SAW%27S+UNKINDEST+CUTSSAW%27S+UNKINDEST+CUTS%3B+The+latest+film+in+the+surprisingly+successful+Saw+series+aims+to+up+the+ante+with+its+gory+traps+o+but+no+one+wants+to+give+away+too+much+about+the+serpentine+storyline.+By+Chris+Alexander. Retrieved 21 November 2008. 
• "More devilish traps in saw". Express & Echo: pp. 28. October 24, 2008. http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P2-19366806.html. Retrieved 21 November 2008. 

External links

• Official World of Saw at UGO

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