The Best Traps In 'Saw' Films, Ranked By Brutality
Since its release in 2004, the hit horror film Saw has been a horror culture milestone, with new films coming out every year until the seventh one appeared to be the end of the series. This turned out not to be the case with 2017's Jigsaw and 2021's Spiral: From the Book of Saw, with a tenth film all but confirmed. Not bad for a movie that started with the idea of two men chained up in a bathroom and wondering how they got there.
While none of the films are good per se, they have run the gamut between "good for what it is" and "kill it with fire." You're not going to find a Saw movie in the ranks of The Exorcist or The Shining or Halloween as some of the greatest horror movies of all time. They tend to be a bit threadbare on characters and plot (though the end twists are usually pretty good), but other than Tobin Bell's exceptional performance as the killer (yes, he's a killer, no matter what he says), Jigsaw/John Kramer, what people eventually showed up for first and foremost was the traps. How are people mutilating themselves for our entertainment? Well, it's our turn to look into that. This is the ranking of all Saw traps, from the original to the newest film, based on brutality.
#63: Shotgun chair (Saw V)
The trap is that he has to pull the trigger of an unloaded gun. What's interesting about that? Interestingly enough, given that the shell was in the left chamber, Hoffman should have had his head blown off. A bit of a filming mishap, I suppose.
#62: Electrified Staircase (Saw II)
One of the earliest traps ofSaw II, there's argument on whether or not this trap is even fatal. It's a bit gruesome to see one of the SWAT officers get his shins broken, but the electrified gate behind him and the other two officers might not even be fatal. Even if it is, it's hardly brutal. The officers could have died, but the fact that I even need to ask shows how weak this trap is.
#61: Suspended Cage (Saw 3D)
This trap could technically hurt you as he's suspended over a pit of spikes, but all he has to do is swing over them...which is what he does. Highly forgettable. Too easy. Nothing exciting here.
#60: Drill Chair (Saw)
This one really stretches the limit of John Kramer's (moronic) idea that he isn't a murderer. It's unknown what Jeff did within the context of the film. And how exactly was he supposed to get out of the trap if Sing and Tapp hadn't shown up? Or was Jigsaw counting on that? Besides, nothing even happened. The two drills got shot out, and that was that.
#59: Cyanide Box Trap (Saw 3D)
Gas has got to be a bad way to go. In a Saw film, though, seeing a few people cough and drop doesn't make for a fantastic trap.
#58: Lawnmower Trap (Saw 3-D)
A decent trap conceptually, but logistically, it makes absolutely no sense. How are they suspended up there? How did Hoffman (I assume since cancer patient John couldn't pull this off) make it so that all 400 lawnmowers turned on at the same time, especially upside-down? All we get in the end is a bit of blood splatter on the woman. Could be a half interesting trap, but overall, quite weak.
#57: Peephole Gun (Saw II)
The worst part of this trap is that it needs a perfect sequence of events for someone to die from it. If the key is turned, the gun fires. What are the odds that someone would be looking through the peephole when the gun fires? If someone's not, that still leaves the possibility that nobody will be in the line of fire when the key is turned. Someone was killed, but it was ridiculous.
#56: Pain Train (Saw 3D)
This is technically a brutal, gory trap, but it loses a ton of points by virtue of it being just a dream. It's not a real trap. Boring.
#55: Ceiling Jars (Saw V)
The basic premise behind the main trap line of the mediocre Saw V is that the victims have to smash the jars over their heads to find keys to the bomb shelters before the nail bombs go off. The trap is interesting with the hindsight of the major twist, but it's not particularly brutal.
#54: Sentry Gun Trap (Saw 3D)
This trap is, how do I put this delicately, really, really stupid. I know that by the seventh film Hoffman is essentially a super genius Terminator, but in a series like this, a sentry gun that shoots two officers and discount Baby Ryan Gosling is just too out there.
#53: Electrified Bathtub (Saw V)
Another Saw V trap, but again not one that's particularly brutal. Like the other Saw V traps, it gets a bit more interesting in hindsight, but in the moment, it's not that great.
#52: Exploding Puppet (Saw IV)
It wasn't a huge shock when Billy blew up in Perez's face, as anyone who had seen a horror movie knew that something like that would happen when Jigsaw said that her next move was critical, then whispering so that she'd lean in. And it didn't even kill her. Or really injure her too much as it seemed.
#51: Antidote Safe (Saw II)
Brutal things happen as a result of this particular test, but the test in and of itself isn't inherently violent. Someone was always going to die, but at the end of the day, it's a safe. That's it.
#50: Grain Silo Trap (Jigsaw)
Conceptually an unsettling trap, it doesn't have too much going for it in terms of results. Plus, it's basically an inescapable trap for the people who are actually inside of it. What would happen if the person outside was knocked out, or something? The bestSawtraps have the people in them able to escape, and this one was...not that.
#49: Neck Key (Saw V)
A decent idea, but it loses a ton of points for the bad CG effect once the trap actually kills somebody. I mean, distractingly "takes you out of the movie completely" bad. In a series that actually likes to use practical effects most of the time, it's especially jarring.
#48: Syringe Hanging (Jigsaw)
The only way out of this is if someone injects an unknown substance into themselves, which will allow the other people to get out of their collars so that they don't hang...somehow. It's not really clear on how that works. The end result is predictably gruesome.
47: Blood Target (Spiral)
Meh. Just...meh. Chris Rock has to shoot a target above his father before his father bleeds to death. It's not a particularly tense scene, nor creative trap. Out of all of the traps in the film, this is the one out of all of them that makes you go, "Wait, how did he set that up, again? Surely this is a three person job."
#46: Leg Wires (Jigsaw)
Another one of those traps that is good in theory, but things need to go perfectly for anyone to be trapped at all. At least the end result is disturbing and bloody. Although, it's not even a fatal trap, so there's that.
#45: Breath Hold (Saw VI)
Another meh trap. One person has to hold their breath longer than the other person or get crushed to death. It's not even a tense scene. You know from the start who's going to win, and the blood and crushing effects aren't even that good.
#44: Shotgun Key (Jigsaw)
Another trap that's a cool idea, but it is lessened by the fact that anyone who has seen a Saw film or... a movie in general, knows exactly what's going to happen when the trigger is pulled, and it's kind of unfair to the person who didn't pull the trigger.
#43: Wax Trap (Spiral)
Most Saw traps have a level of implausibility to them. For this trap to work, the killer has to sneak every piece into a police station that is on high alert, and get the victim alone in the basement. I won't give the (obvious) twist away for the people who haven't seen it, but let's say that the twist makes this trap even more ridiculous. For what it is, however, it's a decent trap once you look past all of the dumb stuff.
#42: Tongue Trap (Spiral)
A neat idea, and not a bad start to the overall disappointing Spiral. The problem is that it takes a series of highly lucky (for the killer) events for the victim to even fall into the trap in the first place. Besides, it's not too elaborate or creative, especially for an opening trap. Gruesome ending, though.
#41: Brazen Bull (Saw 3D)
The idea of needing to pierce your chest and use chains to climb up so that you can connect cables or else your wife will die horribly is a good one in theory, but it has one major problem: the wife is completely innocent. The other people he has to save were all complicit in the protagonist's lies, but his wife was fooled just like everyone else. He fails, and a woman who did nothing wrong dies horribly.
#40: Bucket Room (Jigsaw)
This was an interesting trap to start off the Jigsaw traps, but it's not particularly brutal. Even a paper cut would have freed the people. The one death as a result of it happens off screen.
#39: Nerve Gas House (Saw II)
A nasty idea for a trap, but it only kills one person, and we don't really see it affecting other people all that often, to the point where you almost forget why they're walking around in the first place. Not a bad idea overall, though.
#38: Drowning Box (Saw V)
One of those traps that gets extra points for the concept, as it's an easy one to imagine yourself in. Outside of the solution to get out of it, it's not a particularly brutal trap. It's easy to see why it's a favorite, though.
#37: Blind Hanging Trap (Saw 3-D)
This trap provided one of the few decent scenes in Saw 3D. It's actually fairly tense, and it's another one where you can easily imagine yourself as either the victim or possible savior.
#36: Motorcycle Spiral Trap (Jigsaw)
Certainly the most visually creative trap from the series' eighth entry, it also scores major points for the end result, however slightly silly they may be. Regardless of how goofy it can look, it still makes for a good time.
#35: Steam Maze (Saw VI)
Not the worst trap by any means, but I knock it down a few spots because the idea that they have sixty seconds to get her through the maze and she then has to cut a key out of the protagonist is a little excessive, and not in a fun way.
#34: Gallows Trap (Saw VI)
This one is another one that is conceptually good, but implausible in its execution. The moral dilemma is a good one here, but at the same time, there's not a lot of tension because you know who he's going to pick in the end. As a trap itself, it's pretty solid, all things considered.
#33: Flammable Jelly (Saw)
This is the first trap that really let us know that this killer is creative. We know how it's going to end, but it's a trap that you can easily see yourself in, and when you know how he could have won (one blink-and-you'll-miss-it moment shows that the combination is written in giant numbers), it makes it all the more interesting.
#32: Finger Trap (Spiral)
Out of all of the traps from the new film, this one feels most like a trap from one of the originalSawfilms. Mutilation, mechanical, time limit, it's all there. The idea of pulling his fingers off is kind of ridiculous for how implausible it is, but it's a solid, bloody affair.
#31: Mausoleum Trap (Saw IV)
Two people are chained by the neck to a device that's pulling them closer and closer to...strangle them, I think? One person has his eyes sewn shut, and one has his mouth sewn shut, which is already pretty icky. Most people might just force their mouth open to communicate, which is what mute guy ends up doing anyway when it's too late for the other guy.
#30: Furnace Trap (Saw II)
It's one of the classic traps, but it's weakened by the knowledge that only a complete idiot would go in and not check everything, since there's no way that Obi doesn't know what kind of person he's dealing with. That, and even when he is about to catch fire, he has quite a while to look for the obvious way out. It's classic for a reason, though, and his blood hand on the glass is classic Saw.
#29: Impalement Wheel (Saw 3D)
A nasty trap, but it's obvious that it was only done the way that it was just to milk a few 3D shots from the film, and the POV shot doesn't work as well on a regular screen. Putting that aside, it's sufficiently squishy.
#28: Freezer Room (Saw III)
You can almost feel the cold in the room as Danica is sprayed with icy water when she's already in a freezer. The protagonist Jeff takes so long deciding whether or not to help her that it goes from sort of tense to annoying.
#27: Laser Collar (Jigsaw)
The quintessential Jigsaw trap, the laser collar could have gone any direction with its gore, as its futuristic style was a blank slate. What we got was a head that turned into an octopus/Gorgon thing. Nasty.
#26: Razor Wire (Saw)
Like most of Saw's traps, we don't see this one play out in graphic detail, mainly seeing the aftermath and getting shaky shots like the cameraman is drunk. It has the same school of thought that Psycho had, where the camerawork makes it look like you're seeing more than you actually are. Still, this is a brutal kill. Cut so deep they found stomach acid on the floor. Gnarly.
#25: Glass Coffin (Saw V)
This one is ranked high not because of what happens if you get in the glass coffin, but because of what happens if you don't. Agent Strahm's grisly end as a result of his poor choice is one of Saw V's best moments.
#24: Acid Room (Saw VI)
This is another one where the brutality of the kill is lessened a bit by the victim needing to be at the exact right spot for it to work. If he was at his sister's cage, it would have missed him. Since it does hit, though, we get some good gooey, melty person action.
#23: Knife Chair (Saw IV)
It gains points because it was Kramer's first trap, and the idea of needing to push your face through a bunch of sharp knives or bleed out is stomach churning. However, the fact that the trap fails knocks it down several pegs.
#22: Shotgun Roulette (Saw VI)
Easily the most famous trap from Saw VI, it is...kind of ridiculous, and another one that makes you go, "How did this get set up?" I know it's a fan favorite, and the scene itself is tense, but the idea behind it is a little bit silly.
#21: Spike Trap (Saw IV)
This one is good not just because of the idea of two people spiked together with one having them in relatively superficial spots while the other is impaled in places where they'd bleed out if the spikes were removed, but because of the idea behind it of an abusive husband and battered wife. Since we've already seen what kind of man the husband is, it's cathartic to watch him get it.
#20: Bathroom Trap (Saw)
This is as classic of a Saw trap as you can get outside of one of the ones we'll look into later. It isn't bloody until the end, but the mystery behind it and the answers we start to get make it a classic, and it's probably why the series did as well as it did.
#19: Pig Vat Trap (Saw III)
This one's great not because it's so bloody, but because it's so bloody disgusting. Shooting the scene almost made the actor quit, which makes sense. That would be traumatizing. Easily the grossest trap in the series.
#18: Glass Shard Trap (Spiral)
The best trap in the new Saw film, largely because it didn't feel like an afterthought like the others. It got its moment in the sun and wasn't "It's a Saw film so we should have a few traps in there okay next scene more talking." It was grounded enough that you could almost feel the character's pain. We've all been cut by glass, so glass shards shooting into your back would be horrific.
#17: Razor Box Trap (Saw II)
Another one that's hard to watch, not just because of the gruesome injuries that will ultimately leave the victim to bleed out, but because if you take a close look at the box, you'll see that there is a key in the lock on the top of the picture. Sure, she was delirious from the nerve gas coursing through her system, but if she's just examined the box a bit, she would have noticed the easy way.
#16: Ice Block Trap (Saw IV)
There's not a lot to this trap until you see it in action. Then it's all smash! Splat! Blood and gore and brains everywhere! Squish! BZZZT! Oh, wait... maybe not that last one.
#15: Shotgun Collar (Saw III)
Another one that's a lot of buildup leading to boom splat head mush splattering everywhere!
#14: Ten Pints of Blood (Saw V)
The ultimate trap of Saw V and the one that reveals the the main twist of the film. If the five of them had just worked together, they'd only need to donate two pints of blood apiece. With only two left, though... The final shot of the sawed arm is brutal.
#13: Public Execution Trap (Saw 3D)
This trap is a lot of fun, but also completely preposterous. How did this get set up? How long did it take to get all of the mechanics set up, then move the victims into the trap and get everything set up there? Also, while it does make sense that a lot of people would be filming this on their cameras instead of trying to help, only one person helps at all, and he weakly bangs on the glass with his briefcase a few times. All that aside, it's still fun, and the final result is entertainingly gory.
#12: Pendulum Trap (Saw V)
A clear reference to Edgar Allen Poe's The Pit and the Pendulum, the opening trap of Saw V is a bloody good time, and has some tension with the slowly lowering pendulum. We all know how it's going to end, of course, but the gore in the unrated director's cut will satisfy any fan of the series.
#11: Pound of Flesh (Saw VI)
The opening trap for Saw VI, watching two people cut off pieces of themselves just to survive is a hard thing to watch, most of all the actions of the person who actually wins the game. You watch and wonder if you could do that to survive.
#10: Peeping Tom Trap (Saw IV)
If you want to make your audience uncomfortable, you mess with the eyes, the teeth, or the fingernails. The one eye getting gouged out is disgusting, though the victim ultimately getting all of his limbs torn off is a touch cartoonish, even if it is sufficiently bloody.
#9: The Rack (Saw III)
Jigsaw's self-admitted favorite trap, it's a squeamish time watching all of the victim's bones shatter and break through his skin, culminating in his head being turned completely around. Who knows if he would have survived if the protagonist hadn't just stood there raging for a few moments until it was too late to do anything about it but watch him horribly die.
#8: Scalping Trap (Saw IV)
Almost everyone has had their hair pulled painfully at some point. The sight of her hair being torn off of her scalp is not an easy one to stomach. Sure, the fact that she attacks Riggs right after he frees her is kind of ridiculous (you wouldn't have the ability or clarity to attack a trained police officer after having half of your scalp torn off), but it's Saw IV's best trap.
#7: Silence Key (Saw 3D)
This one is easily the most brutal in Saw 3D, having you on the edge of your seat as the protagonist Bobby tries to take a key out of his publicist's stomach that's attached to a fishhook. You know he's not going to do it, but seeing his struggles and the blood make this one of the best.
#6: Classroom Trap (Saw III)
This one barely missed out on the top five, but that's not a knock against it. The mere thought of tearing hooks out of your skin on top of the unwinnable jaw chain is enough to make this one of the series' most brutal and creative traps, even if it's impossible.
#5: Horsepower Trap (Saw 3D)
Coming in at number five, we have the horsepower trap, which sees the late Linkin Park frontman Chester Bennington attempting to rip himself off of a car seat he's been super glued to in order to prevent a Rube Goldberg chain from killing him, his girlfriend, and two of his friends. Does he succeed? Well, it wouldn't be in the top five if he had, now would it?
#4: Venus Flytrap Trap (Saw II)
The opening trap of Saw II, this trap let us know that the traps were going to get more elaborate, and the failures more bloody. It was a perfect way to kick off the second film, which some argue is better than the first. It certainly showed the viewers what they were in for, and that the film would be pulling no punches.
#3: Angel Trap (Saw III)
Taking the number three spot is a trap that let us know that anybody could die, and introduced us to the idea of unwinnable traps. The idea of putting your hand in acid to retrieve a slowly dissolving key is brutal, as is the strangely beautiful end result when she can't get the contraption off. Quintessential Saw.
#2: Reverse Bear Trap (Saw)
The most iconic trap of the series, we wouldn't actually get to see what it does to somebody until Saw 3D. It was the first trap that somebody actually survived, and it set the standard for all traps to come. It's simple, it's brutal, and it's easy to see why it became the series' flagship trap.
#1: Needle Pit (Saw II)
When ranking the traps, the top two spots usually go to the reverse bear trap or the needle pit. I have to put the needle pit here because... Gah! Eugh! Nonononono! We've all had shots. We all know what needles feel like. To be trapped in an entire pit of them and only having a few minutes to find a key is something we do not envy Amanda for. The reverse bear trap is the one everybody knows. The needle pit is far and away the most disturbing.
So there you have it. Each and every Saw film trap ranked from horrible in the worst way to horrible in a bad way. With a tenth film pretty much guaranteed, perhaps it will do much better in the trap department, and not have them be afterthoughts like in Spiral. We'll have to wait and see. Until then, we have these to enjoy.
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