I Want To Play A Game (Part 5)
Here’s the fifth and final part of my list of SAW traps—ranked from most boring and phoned in to most horrifying and coolest, and whether or not I could beat them. Read Part One here, Part Two here, and Part Three here, and Part Four here.
17 The Bedroom Trap
SAW IV (2007)
HOW IT WORKS: A man is strapped to a bed with his head held in place by a vice and a small sickle on either side. He’s given a trigger in each hand that when pressed will send the sickles down into his eyes. If he doesn’t puncture both eyes in 60 seconds, his limbs will be yanked off.
COULD I BEAT IT?: Yes. I'd take out my eyes to live. I'd do them both at once though, not only will it save time, but it'd stop me from pussying out on the second one. This guy’s issue was definitely that he tried to do one at a time.
16 Eric’s Test
SAW II (2005)
HOW IT WORKS: Eric is told that his son is in a “safe place” and to simply sit and talk with John for two hours to be given his child back.
COULD I BEAT IT?: Yes. I understand freaking out because this guy has your kid, but I don’t think I’m willing to put my child’s life on the line when all this old man wants is someone to chat with. Also, this is ranked so high because it’s funny.
15 The Freezer Room
SAW III (2006)
HOW IT WORKS: This is one of those traps where the person being tested has to help someone else out of it rather than themselves. A naked woman is bound and hanging from the ceiling in the freezer of a meatpacking plant with six nozzles aimed at her body that intermittently spray her with cold water. In order to save her before she freezes to death, a key simply has to be grabbed from behind the cooling pipes at the back of the room.
COULD I BEAT IT?: No. I'm not tall enough. But if I could reach the key, I sure would pop my sweater between my face and that pipe—unlike Jeff's dumb ass.
14 Laser Collars
JIGSAW (2017)
HOW IT WORKS: A metal collar is placed around the necks of two people, and they’re told to confess before the lasers emerging from the collar close in on each other leaving their heads looking like sad flowers.
COULD I BEAT IT?: No. It’s rigged and unwinnable.
13 The Horsepower Trap
SAW 3D (2010)
HOW IT WORKS: Four people are in this trap, but only one of them can do anything about it. The man whose naked back is superglued to the seat of the car in the center of the garage must peel himself away from the seat and pull a lever on the dash that’s attached to the motor somehow to stop it within 30 seconds. If he doesn’t manage it, the car will come off the jacks it’s being held up by going forward through the garage door. One of the three other people is chained to the garage door bound to be run over, one is behind the car chained to a pole with his arms and lower jaw pierced by large rings that are chained to the back of the car and will be ripped off when it moves, and the third is strapped to a large metal plate under the car with her face directly under the back tire. The driver will, of course, go flying through the window with the skin of his back left behind when the car inevitably hits something outside.
COULD I BEAT IT?: Yes. I have, in fact, superglued my hands to things before. Prying yourself off hurts enough that I know doing your entire naked back would be excruciating, but I wanna live and missing some skin ain’t shit compared to dying. Also saving my friends would be a major factor. I am glad these people bit it since they’re all racist pieces of shit, but it’s lovely to see Chester.
12 Pound of Flesh
SAW VI (2009)
HOW IT WORKS: Two people have metal traps on their heads that slowly drill into their temples. The way to get it to stop is by cutting off parts of your body and tossing them onto a scale. Whichever person’s scale has more on it after 60 seconds wins, the other has the drills pierce their skull.
COULD I BEAT IT?: Yes. I too would cut my whole arm off. Good for the girl from Scream Queens. Also, side note: watch Scream Queens, it was a super fun competition where the winner got to be in a SAW movie.
11 The Hot Wax Trap
SPIRAL: FROM THE BOOK OF SAW (2021)
HOW IT WORKS: Strapped to a table with the back of their neck positioned above a blade and a cloth over their face, the victim is basically waterboarded with hot wax that will eventually harden and suffocate them if they don’t push their neck back onto the blade and sever their spinal cord.
COULD I BEAT IT?: Yes, but only accidentally. I hate things touching my face. I instinctively jerk backward the second anything comes near me, so I think despite not really wanting to, yes, I’d probably inadvertently sever my spinal cord.
10 The Death Mask
SAW II (2005)
HOW IT WORKS: Essentially a tiny iron maiden that only fits the head, the Death Mask is a metal contraption locked around the victim’s neck that will snap closed impaling them with nails if not unlocked with a key hidden behind their eye within 60 seconds.
COULD I BEAT IT?: Yes. I think cutting one of my eyes out would hurt a lot less than nails being embedded into my face and the back of my head. Also, I’d look very sexy in an eyepatch.
9 The Angel Trap
SAW III (2006)
HOW IT WORKS: Lifted slightly off the floor, the victim is suspended in a large device that vaguely resembles folded up angel wings and is hooked into their ribs by six brackets on each side of their solar plexus. In order to unlock the trap before the wings spread and you get spread open like Bruce Campbell in WAXWORK 2 (1992), you have to retrieve the key from a beaker full of acid suspended in front of you.
COULD I BEAT IT?: Yes. If the game weren’t rigged like Detective Kerry’s was. I wouldn't mind mangling my hand to stay alive. RIP again, Diz
8 The Rack
SAW III (2006)
HOW IT WORKS: Unlike a traditional rack where your limbs are pulled, this Rack twists them until snapping—and the neck is included.
COULD I BEAT IT?: Yes. I'd go about it basically the same way Jeff did, standing off to the side or ducking down to reach my arm up in there. Luckily for the victim, I hate that Jeff spends the entire movie moving at a snail’s pace and would have a little more hustle.
7 Flammable Jelly
SAW (2004)
HOW IT WORKS: Naked in a pitch-black room with only a candle for light, a person covered head-to-toe in a flammable jelly must find the combination to a safe in the middle of the room. The tricky part is the walls are covered in hundreds of numbers, the reason he needs to get into the safe is he’s been injected with poison, and the floor is covered in broken glass shards.
COULD I BEAT IT?: No. I genuinely cannot work a combination lock even if I know the code. On top of that, I’m terrified of fire. There’s so much going on with the trap, why add stuff like the broken glass?
6 The Classroom Trap
SAW III (2006)
HOW IT WORKS: Eleven chains ending in large metal rings are stuck through different parts of the victim’s body and attached to the walls and ceiling of the classroom. To escape before the bomb on the table in front of them detonates, they need to rip the rings from their body.
COULD I BEAT IT?: No. I could pull most of them out, but taking off my own jaw sounds like a nightmare - I'd rather just sit there and wait for the bomb to go off. The fact that Troy doesn't start with the hardest one is insane to me. What are you going through that pointless pain for? Just vibe until the explosion.
5 The Bathroom Trap
SAW (2004)
HOW IT WORKS: Two people (Dr. Lawrence Gordon and Adam Stanheight) are chained by the ankle to pipes on the opposite side of a large bathroom. One is tasked with killing the other by a certain time while the second simply has to survive. Hidden in the room are two hacksaws that aren’t strong enough to cut through their chains but could cut through their legs.
COULD I BEAT IT?: Yes. I’d be able to cut my foot off to save my daughter and, to a lesser extent, my spouse. (Sorry to them, but they’re a fully grown adult, our kid’s helpless.) There are some stipulations though. Adam barely smacks his saw off a pipe, and the tool breaks. Could a saw so fragile—one that can’t even damage their chains in the slightest—cut through bone? If it was strong enough for that - which it is in the film - we’d have to share the saw since the other is broken and I’d demand to go first. It’s not a blood-sharing issue or anything, I just don’t think I could watch someone do that to themselves and then follow suit.
4 The Scalping Seat
SAW IV (2007)
HOW IT WORKS: A woman strapped to a seat has her long hair fed through a winch that’ll continue to tighten until she is scalped. The trap is activated when a mask is pulled off the victim, pulling a metal pin attached to it from the machine. The combination to the lock that’ll free the woman is written on the gears on the back of the machine.
COULD I BEAT IT?: Yes. First of all, Rigg was meant to just ignore her and keep moving on, but he started the machine by removing her mask like a nosey little shit. Aside from that, sticking something in the gears of the machine to jam it up will give you time to find something to cut her hair with or simply reading the combination and unlocking her would help you to win. I’m not sure how this goes so wrong.
3 The Pig Vat
SAW III (2006)
HOW IT WORKS: In order to free a man chained to the bottom of a vat where rotten pig carcasses are being grinded up, shot out at him, and will eventually drown him, Jeff must hit the button on an incinerator containing the belongings of his dead son.
COULD I BEAT IT?: Yes. As a mother, I'd absolutely let this dude get some pig juice in the mouth for a while before saving him because screw him, but yeah, there's no way the two or three pictures in there are the only ones he has of his kid, so it's not even that bad.
2 The Subway Trap
SPIRAL: FROM THE BOOK OF SAW (2021)
HOW IT WORKS: Trapped in a subway tunnel on a stepladder with his hands tied behind his back, a man’s tongue is pressed between two metal bars in a contraption hanging from the ceiling. There’s a train coming and he’s either got to escape or get smashed by it.
COULD I BEAT IT?: Yes. Ugh, I don’t wanna think about it, but yeah. If my options are to either bite my tongue off or step off the ladder to rip it off, I know that the biting would cause less damage in the long run, but I don’t have it in me to do that, so I’d let it rip, and then cry the entire rest of the time.
1 The Reverse Bear Trap
SAW (2003), SAW (2004), SAW III (2006), SAW IV (2007), SAW V (2008), SAW VI (2009), SAW 3D (2010), JIGSAW (2017)
HOW IT WORKS: An extremely rusty contraption is placed onto the head of the victim, hooked into the upper and lower jaw, and if the key isn’t procured (from the stomach of a “dead” cellmate) in 60 seconds, the trap will snap open, ripping the victim’s head apart by the jaws.
COULD I BEAT IT?: Yes. While it’s unfortunate that David (and later, in the full length film, Amanda, and then a few more people over the course of the franchise because the trap is too iconic to die) has to kill his paralyzed cellmate to retrieve the key, it’s a necessary evil if he wants to win and I want to win, so yes, I’d cut that poor guy apart to get the key.
Overall, I think the majority of the traps are beatable and most of the ones that aren’t are only that way because one of Jigsaw's disciples went off-book and rigged their traps. I guess it really depends on your pain tolerance and how desperately you want to survive.
Me? I’m willing to do most of these things to keep hanging out and watching more SAW sequels.
