The ‘Saw’ Trap Survivability Ranking
After the release of ‘Saw X,’ it’s only right to go through all 73 traps in franchise history and rank them by odds of survivalThe ‘Saw’ Trap Survivability Ranking
After the release of ‘Saw X,’ it’s only right to go through all 73 traps in franchise history and rank them by odds of survival
Do you want to play a game? Yes, yes I do want to play a game. I want to play them all.
Saw X released this past Friday, bringing the total number of traps set by John “Jigsaw” Kramer—and his friends, affiliates, and copycats—up to 73. And as much as people appreciate the talents of the franchise’s creators, James Wan and Leigh Whannell; the sinister acting of Tobin Bell; and the presence of Billy the Puppet, Saw’s death traps are the main reason viewers keep pressing play on the tapes. (Or perhaps, in 2023, the streaming app.)
I want—no, need—to rank every trap in the series. And not purely on a scale of creativity or gore, as others have, but instead by how likely I could beat every trap (with some reasonable tweaks). I wanted to ask the question everyone asks when Jigsaw is on screen: Could I survive?
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To determine the level of survivability, I created a proprietary score system accounting for physical trauma, psychological duress, and the complexity of the trap’s rules. I also considered the fact that a number of these traps are designed to be inescapable, because Jigsaw’s loser accomplices (looking at you, Amanda Young and Mark Hoffman) don’t always adhere to Jigsaw’s vision. Jigsaw might put a victim through excruciating torture, but he always—theoretically—gives them a chance to survive. It’s a code of honor, of sorts, so I’ve accordingly reflected any breaks with that code in my ranking. On the flip side, I also was generous to any traps for being iconic, overtly creative, or whatever the hell I want, because the list is ultimately supposed to be fun, of course.
One last thing: The ranking will proceed in order of most survivable to least. OK, that’s enough explanation. Let’s play.
73. The Pain Train (Saw 3D)
I want to say the Saw masterminds are better than a dream sequence, but at this point this was their seventh movie in seven years. Still, be better. In her nightmare, Jill Tuck is hung up by her hands in front of Mark Hoffman, who fires a spiked mini-train at her chest. The vehicle splits her in half and leaves each of her arms hanging. Sounds terrifying, but obviously I’m surviving and waking up a bit pissed that I didn’t get a fair crack at a real trap.
72. Eye Vacuum Trap (Saw X)
The main movie poster for Saw X isn’t even a real trap. It’s a vision Kramer experiences in the first 20 minutes of the film. It beats out the dream sequence in Saw 3D because the envisioned trap is a fun one: A thieving custodian has to break all of the fingers on one of his hands within 60 seconds to avoid having his eyes vacuumed out of his head. Ultimately, though, it gets no further on this list because, well, it wasn’t real.
(If it was real, getting out alive is as easy as preheating a ’90s oven. Yes, moving the dial across all five positions in one quick twist breaks all of the fingers on your right hand, but it also avoids having your eyeballs sucked out their sockets.)
71. Quadruple Shotgun (Saw)
A rare L for Kramer on this one. I get that Detective Sing could have avoided the trip wire altogether if he didn’t chase Jigsaw down the obviously booby-trapped hall, but I’d mirror Sing’s failed heroics 10 times out of 10. Yes, that means I’m getting pumped by four shotguns worth of lead, but this trap loses points for being lame as hell.
70. Sentry Gun Trap (Saw 3D)
Jigsaw isn’t Heisenberg. Spraying down a bunch of cops—just for doing their jobs, mind you!—with an unmanned machine gun is bush league. I’m also surviving this because I’m not an idiot. These cops clearly didn’t do up-downs in high school football practice. Touch grass!
69. Leg Wires (Jigsaw)
Ryan is an idiot. I enjoyed his line, “Sold bad mortgages, sold good coke, cheated on my taxes, cheated on my wife. … Both of them.” But he didn’t write the script.
The red spray paint on the door says “NO EXIT.” Jigsaw, who at this point in the series is a famed serial killer known for games and traps, doesn’t make rules for fun. Yet, Ryan approaches the door anyway and, you guessed it, gets caught in a trap. I survive this with both my legs because I have a working brain and can read.
68. Shotgun Chair (Saw V)
Kramer is pissed that Hoffman has become a shitty copycat, so he drugs him in an elevator and traps him in a chair with a shotgun pointed at his chin. Yet, it turns out it’s just a scare tactic because the gun isn’t loaded. It’s a rare case in which a trap is merely a cheeky scare from Jigsaw.
67. Magnum Eyehole (Saw II)
My guy, why are you looking through the keyhole as Xavier opens the door? You woke up in a run-down house to a cassette tape telling you lethal poison has been injected into your body. Did you think it was an Amsterdam peep show on the other side? Was the plan to sneak a glimpse as you slowly backpedal while the guy with the key pulls the door open? What a sad, embarrassing way to go out.
66. Reverse Bear Trap 3.0 (Saw 3D)
Not only is it the third time the series has used the iconic reverse bear trap, but Hoffman also gives Jill no chance to survive, in classic Hoffman fashion. Bonus points awarded for the gruesome shot of the trap actually killing someone this time; bonus points lost for lazy repetition and leaving zero chance to escape.
65. Suspended Cage (Saw 3D)
There are two easy ways to escape: pull off a Tarzan swing like our guy Bobby does, or lower yourself to the point where you can land comfortably in between the surprisingly dull, well-spaced-out spikes.
64. Electrified Staircase (Saw II)
Can we just role-play a bit here?
[SWAT team enters a building Jigsaw is supposedly in.]
SWAT PERSON #1: “Remember, we’re pursuing a serial murderer known for torturing and killing people in sometimes imaginative, but mostly basic traps.”
SWAT PERSON #2: “OK, sweet. Should we avoid the metal cage in front of us that clearly looks like a trap?”
SWAT PERSONS IN UNISON: “Yeah, yeah. Good call.”
-THE END-
63. Oxygen Crusher (Saw VI)
I would need to have better lung capacity than this 52-year-old habitual smoker with a history of heart disease to come out of this nightmare without exploded ribs and chest cavities. I’ve ripped more cigs than I’d like to admit, and I didn’t swim in high school. But I’m only 29 years old, I have staved off the trendy millennial vape addiction, and I ran a marathon in March (humble flex). I got this.
62. Hangman’s Noose (Saw 3D)
A rule of thumb in any run-ins with Jigsaw is to assess the situation before playing a cassette tape or making any rapid movement. You’d think the players would have learned that by the seventh movie, but Bobby is a dumbass. If I, not a dumbass, am at the helm, I’m identifying the hanging key very quickly and handing it to my best bud Cale before I ever play the tape. I will give credit to Bobby for screaming at Cale to shut the fuck up right away and telling him not to move. That’s a positive expected value (EV) move. Everything else Bobby does is a disaster. His toss to Cale right before he’s swinging by his neck like a tetherball is reminiscent of an Anthony Richardson fireball to the flat. I need more touch and more lob on that toss, Bobby. This isn’t the draft combine. Put the cannon away.
Even if I play it by the book and listen to the tape right away, I’m moving with more speed and constantly—I mean constantly—talking to Cale. No gaps in communication. My guy can’t fucking see and is standing on planks. My ability to talk a lot and talk quickly shows up in a big way, and Cale would survive with seconds to spare.
61. The Gallows (Saw VI)
If I’m Bobby in this made-up scenario, I’d probably save Addy, too. How is the other guy so young and handsome, yet apparently has no friends or family? He was on a path for shit even more fucked up than Jigsaw’s rap sheet, anyway.
If I were in this place instead of the loner, Bobby probably kills me, too. I’m also kind of a loser.
60. Razor Box (Saw II)
I’m probably saying this too much, but my god, what an idiot. You can’t be this dumb. Not in this league. If Addison takes 20 extra seconds to play the cassette tape and/or simply look around the room, she would see that there is a padlock on top of the box and a key behind it. I get that she’s pumped full of an unidentified poison that has others in the house disoriented and coughing up blood, but that can’t be the reason you willingly stuff your hands and wrists into a glass, razor-ridden box hanging in the middle of a room—let me check my notes—INSIDE A HAUNTED HOUSE FULL OF DEATH TRAPS.
59. The Lawn Mowers (Saw 3D)
This is essentially the elementary school game in which two kids would hang from the monkey bars and kick each other until someone fell. The only difference is that instead of mulch to cushion your fall, it’s a sea of spinning lawn mower blades. People forget that I’ve never lost that game, and I’m not going to start now.
58. Drill Chair (Saw)
Two drills are closing in on my skull to scramble my brains like Sunday morning eggs unless two detectives either find a key—on a ring of 100 other keys, which is a wildly low blow by Jigs—or shoot the drill bits within 20 seconds. The latter ultimately comes to fruition after some light fumbling with the key potpourri, so I do make it out alive. But I have questions:
1. I’m strapped to a death machine and the detectives don’t just shoot the guy color commentating it like Cris Collinsworth on Sunday Night Football? I get that you want to arrest Jigsaw, but, man, here’s a guy that could use a shot to the leg or shoulder or something.
2. Detective Tapp, buddy, WHY IS YOUR THROAT WITHIN ARM’S REACH OF JIGSAW? Do you not think the guy in the all-black Halloween costume who set up a dual drill killing device doesn’t have a secret weapon?
57. Glass Grinder (Spiral)
Chris Rock needs to identify the trash can as (1) a shield for the glass turret and (2) a clue as to where the key is located way faster. He’s a detective, for god’s sake. I didn’t realize Samuel L. Jackson raised such a slow thinker. That said, if I’m Petey in this scenario, I’m dead. My back would look like Denzel Washington’s chest at the end of Training Day before Rock even gets a chance to replay the trash can clue in his head.
56. Disembowelment Trap (Saw X)
In an all-time fan service play, Hoffman makes an on-camera return to the series in Saw X’s post-credits scene. Hoffman is with Kramer in the series’ iconic bathroom with Henry, a cancer patient who cons Kramer in the latest film, who is hung up by his arms with the wild stomach mower contraption (pictured above) strapped to his body. The scene ends before we can see what happens, but knowing the vengeful, often unfair Hoffman is involved, it’s safe to say Henry’s guts were churned up. Obviously, if that’s the case, I don’t survive this scenario, but the trap loses points for (assumedly) having no way out and because the film doesn’t show its ending.
55. Ceiling Jars (Saw V)
Come on. How does no one suggest doubling up in the tunnels? You have to at least try fitting more than one person in those things. I’m alive and well because I’m 5-foot-9 (in shoes) and have sat in the middle back seat in a five-person vehicle every single time.
54. Seeing Trap (Saw 3D)
Bobby needs to stop skipping leg day. I get that none of the squat machines at 24 Hour Fitness have piercing spears digging into your sides, but you rally through adversity. Get low, find the form, and lock out at the top. His poor lawyer has her eyes and mouth slowly gouged with sharp, hollow pipes because he’s never been to the gym.
(I obviously survive this if I’m Bobby in this scenario, but I die one of the series’ most horrific deaths if I’m the lawyer.)
53. Bucket Room (Jigsaw)
This is an easy win as long as you’re not a hard sleeper and capable of taking a little slice to the forearm from a running buzz saw. Everyone survives if they all just wake up and cut any part of their body on the running buzz saws. As soon as blood is drawn, the player is released.
52. Bloodboarding Trap (Saw X)
(Because this is a part of a key plot twist in the new movie, there aren’t a lot of images that really portray the trap in the Saw X promotional materials. We’ll have to do the best with what we’ve got.)
Imagine two of those nozzles above squirting blood down on both Kramer and a child’s face. If Kramer pulls a lever beside him, the blood drowns him, and vice versa for the kid. In the movie, the pair even out the bloodbaths just enough for them both to survive. What a heartfelt story. How sweet. If it’s me, I don’t touch the lever at all and let the kid die a hero.
51. Laser Collar (Jigsaw)
This trap is inescapable, so I obviously die. But that’s weak. It earns bonus points because the scene shows the guy’s head splitting open like the mouth of a demogorgon in Stranger Things; it loses points for having no way out and being a little too futuristic for my taste. (I blame Gen Z.)
50. Shotgun Carousel (Saw VI)
William can save only two of his six employees in a carousel ride from hell. The other four die by a shotgun blast to the face. Surprisingly, I don’t think I can talk my way into surviving. I’m too sarcastic and kind of a smart-ass. It’s the middling, almost forgettable personality that is saved in this situation. I’m way too loud and obnoxious to earn William’s grace.
49. Chain Hangers (Jigsaw)
The gist of this one is that all four people hang to their death if the anonymous purse snatcher among them, whom Jigsaw injected with a deadly poison beforehand, fails to inject an antidote into their own body in time. One of the three syringes available contains saline, another has lethal acid, and the other is the antidote. All three of the syringes have numbers on them. One set of numbers matches the dollar amount the purse snatcher, Carly, stole from a woman who died as a result of losing the inhaler that was in her bag.
The obvious answer—if you’re Carly and don’t pick up on the fact that the syringe with the number connected to your crime is the “confession” you need to survive—is to squirt a little bit of each syringe into your big toe. Once you identify which one is acid, throw it to the side and pump the other two into your neck. Problem solved, assuming Ryan—the massive asshole in the room—doesn’t intervene. Unfortunately for you, that’s exactly what happens when Ryan punches all three syringes into Carly’s neck at the last second, saving them but killing her.
That’s what happens if I’m Carly, of course. If I’m any of the other three, I walk her through that entire game plan like I’m reading off a play in the huddle rather than screaming bloody murder at her (looking at you, Ryan).
48. Gas Chamber Trap (Saw X)
This is the final trap in Saw X (not including the post-credits scene) and the finale to the film’s major plot twist. It involves the primary antagonist, Dr. Cecilia Pederson, and her lover, Parker Sears. The two con artists are forced to fight to the death in a room quickly filling with poisonous gas. They have 10 minutes before the gas will turn off, but only one head-sized hole to breathe out of and survive. Cecilia kills Parker and is last seen with her head poking out the hole as Kramer and Amanda leave her behind.
I have one question and one (major) concern.
Is Cecilia still trapped in a locked room? Even though the gas is shut off and Parker is dead, can she even get out?
If the reason Cecilia is last seen alive is because the filmmakers want to leave the door open for an 11th Saw movie, please don’t. IT’S DONE. THE MOVIES ARE BAD. SAW X WAS BAD. TOBIN BELL IS 81 YEARS OLD. JUST MAKE YOUTUBE VIDEOS OF NEW TRAPS OR THINK OF A NEW IDEA FOR GOD’S SAKE.
(There’s a 50-50 shot to survive this one, obviously, and I think I win a fight to the death with Parker or Cecilia.)
47. The Brazen Bull (Saw 3D)
Bobby needs to ascend using two hooks connected to chains and connect electrical cords, or else his lover, Joyce, will roast inside of a metal box. Because he needs two hands to connect the cords up top, he shoves the hooks into his pec muscles. That’s the wrong move. You have to try to fit the hooks into the belt loops of your jeans before stabbing the hooks through the meat of your chest. I get that the belt loops might not be strong enough to hold your weight, but Bobby’s chest doesn’t even hold his weight long enough for him to save his partner.
(Side note: Joyce very unfairly dies the most fucked-up death in the entire series.)
46. Grain Silo Trap (Jigsaw)
Again, think before you act. The door of the silo immediately seals when Anna and Mitch grab the hanging cassette tape. Why didn’t they try to wedge it open with something? Why did they both need to retrieve the tape together? Do either of those things, and their chance of survival dramatically increases—and the asshole trapped in the wires doesn’t have to lose his leg.
45. Necktie Trap (Saw V)
I can’t throw a football accurately more than 20 yards, but I can command a huddle. Show some composure and veteran presence at the top of this trap, and you’ll have all five people alive with minutes remaining on the clock. I’d grab hold of the room with a loud, Al Pacino–in–Any Given Sunday kind of tone, and a clear, selfless plan. We each grab the key in front of us one at a time, and I offer to go last. That gives each of us three minutes to move only a handful of inches (it’s more like a few feet, but let’s connect the dots here) to get out of this together as a team.
“That’s a team, gentlemen! And either we heal, now, as a team, or we will die as individuals. That’s football Saw, guys.”
44. Spine Cutters (Saw IV)
Art Blank needed to build and set up multiple traps. He also needed to abduct all of the victims for said traps. Then, he had to go to the meatpacking plant to oversee two other traps. He had to do all of that and pray Rigg didn’t enter the plant before the 90-minute mark or else the device on his back would split his spine. I don’t think I have the criminal instinct to accomplish the initial pieces of the puzzle, but I do know a way out of the last bit. Write a simple note and hang it on the door.
Hey, Rigg!
Art Blank here. Happy you’ve made it thus far! Just an FYI: If you open this door, your friend Eric Matthews will have two frozen blocks of ice pop his head like a zit. Oh, and I’ll take a lethal cut to my spine. Just leave it closed if you can! Please knock on the door if you have any questions or concerns.
Thanks,
Art Blank
43. Scalping Seat (Saw IV)
Brenda, who forces young women into sex work, is tied into a trap by her hair. The trap will keep twisting until it rips off her scalp, unless Rigg identifies a combination on the gears of the machine to set her free.
The bad news is that I don’t have any faith in Rigg saving me, and if that was indeed possible, I would still be in a ton of pain. The good news is that I’m balding big time and could probably get out of this trap by just leaning forward.
42. Reverse Bear Trap 1.0 (Saw)
The shock factor of the explainer video and the 60-second time limit make this particularly challenging, but I personally am playing Hasbro’s Operation on the dude’s stomach and hitting all the buzzers. I’m fishing the key out of his blood and guts with a full NBA shot clock still on the board.
41. Shotgun Keys (Jigsaw)
This is probably the closest Kramer comes to a riddle in any of his rule explanations. One-legged Ryan and Anna are chained up across from each other when Kramer, holding a shotgun and one single shell, says:
“You have to realize you’ve been doing it backwards. So, I’m going to give you an opportunity to turn it all around.
“Here’s your key to freedom. It’s all up to you. Now, the game is simple. The best ones are. You have one shotgun. You have one shell. Like I said, it’s up to you.”
Kramer never says either of them has to shoot the gun at all or shoot each other to survive. Also, no player had to die in any of the previous traps Anna and Ryan were in together. Why would they think this was any different? Anna wasn’t thinking straight, and Ryan was lucky he didn’t have two working legs to go over and grab the gun himself. Ryan finds out after the gun backfires and kills Anna that the keys to their chains were in the shotgun shell.
It all comes back to the biggest rule with Jigsaw: Listen to the rules.
40. The Bathroom Trap (Saw)
It’s unfortunate, because this is the focal trap of the series’ debut film, but it’s also one of the easiest.
Lawrence and Adam wake up shackled in the now iconic run-down bathroom, with Kramer playing dead in the middle of the floor. It’s a scary scene, for sure, but they have ample time to get their bearings. They eventually learn via cassette tape at 10:35 a.m. (!) that Lawrence has until 6 p.m. (!!) to kill Adam in order to be set free. Lawrence is provided a bullet, and Kramer is holding a gun in the hand closest to Lawrence. I understand that you wouldn’t immediately load the gun and shoot Adam, but I’m getting the job done before lunch and never coming anywhere close to sawing off my foot. Lawrence doesn’t even load the gun until after 6 p.m. That’s just abysmal. It would make for a short movie (and maybe a much shorter series), but still, you have to make that play.
(Side note: Bonus points awarded for the Kramer-was-alive-the-whole-time plot twist, and it also moves up the list because there’s obviously the chance you wake up as Adam in this scenario.)
39. Tongue Train (Spiral)
I would definitely mirror this guy’s movements and try to wriggle out of the barbed wire handcuffs to attempt removing the tongue twister with my hands, but I don’t think Jigs (yeah, we’re on nickname basis at this point) is stupid enough to have loose screws or any other easy ways out. Because if all I have to do is jump off the little stand to lose my tongue and be set free, I want to say I’d do it. It’s going to suck, obviously, but I have to just go for it as if I were at the end of a public pool diving board with a long line of judgmental teens behind me.
Of course, there is the whole scientific piece of this in that the trap could rip off my lower jaw, or I could lose consciousness from the unbearable pain, or simply die of blood loss … OK, never mind. I’m dead.
38. The Puppet Trap (Spiral)
We know from the Glass Grinder that Chris Rock isn’t the brightest bulb, so we’re probably screwed regardless of my hypothetical involvement as a fill-in for Samuel L. Jackson. However, if I’m Rock in this scenario, I shoot the bull’s-eye and save my dad. Detective William Schenk, who we now learn is a Jigsaw copycat, tells it to Rock straight: Shoot the bull’s-eye with the last bullet in the provided gun, and your dad lives. Rock does shoot the bull’s-eye, but then he attacks Schenk right after, giving Schenk an excuse to kill Samuel L. Jackson.
You can’t just tackle Jigsaw Jr. and think you’ve saved the day. Shoot the target, save your dad, and figure everything else out later.
37. 10 Pints of Sacrifice (Saw V)
OK, I’m not perfect. Even though I do think I can get myself and others through most of the traps in the Fatal Five’s Trial, I’m not getting all five of us to the final test. That said, I think at least three of us get to that point. Like I said, I’m calling on my inner Pacino to get us through the Necktie Trap and then buddying up in the tunnels to clear Ceiling Jars. By that point, splitting the 10 pints of blood three or four ways becomes a piece of cake.
36. Glass Coffin (Saw V)
GET IN THE BOX, MAN. THE TAPE LITERALLY SAYS, “THE ONLY WAY TO SURVIVE THIS ROOM IS BY ENTERING THE GLASS BOX BEFORE YOU.” Strahm is such a dummy.
35. Knife Chair (Saw IV)
The chair Cecil is strapped into breaks, so I would obviously survive by default, but this one gets bonus points because it’s Jiggy’s first-ever trap (as shown in a flashback). You have to cut him some slack.
34. Furnace (Saw II)
This comes back to one of the principal rules for any trap in the series: Assess the situation before making any moves. That includes diving headfirst into a furnace, Obi.
How are we not evaluating the ins and outs of a furnace before crawling in? Take an extra one or two minutes to get a scouting report. Then, you’ll see the knob by the devil picture that you obviously have to twist to get out successfully before all hell breaks loose.
33. Razor Wire Maze (Saw)
The victim in play here is a near-naked, hefty, 46-year-old man. He has two hours—that’s long as hell on the Jigsaw time scale—to navigate multiple feet of tangled razor wire before he’s locked in a room to suffocate. He dies, of course, with major blood loss from the femoral artery. What a loser.
If you watch the video, you’ll see our guy takes a bull-in-a-china-shop approach to weaving his way through the razor wire maze. He’s frantic. He’s panicking. What are you doing? Get tactical. Stay composed. You have two hours to identify the soft spots in the zone and attack. Also, protect the rock. Your major arteries are your rock. He was throwing his most important arteries at razor wire thinking that he’s Him and that all would be OK.
32. Radiation Trap (Saw X)
Gabriela has chains tied to her left ankle and left wrist in front of a radiation machine that will fry her to death if she doesn’t use a club to break enough bones to slide out. Her foot is chained to the ground, and her hand is chained to the ceiling. Following Cecilia’s terrible advice, she breaks her foot first. That leaves her hanging in front of the radiation machine while she’s clubbing her foot and while she’s clubbing her hand. Nonetheless, she eventually breaks free of both chains and collapses to the floor with her face looking like an overcooked Hot Pocket, only for Cecilia to later snap her neck as soon as she gets the chance.
We don’t know if the radiation machine would have repositioned to the ground if she broke out of the chain suspending her in the air first, but there’s no doubt it was the better option. She could have run around the radiation machine or found a way to break it. Instead, Cecilia essentially kills her twice. Once with the advice and another time with the heel of her foot.
(If it’s me, I break my hand first and strangle Cecilia with the remaining chain.)
31. Wisdom Teeth Combination (Saw 3D)
Sorry, honey. I don’t have this one in me.
There’s no way I can pull two of my wisdom teeth out in any circumstance, let alone under this kind of pressure. I’ve never tried, to be fair, but if it hurts as much as I assume it does, I think I apologize to my wife and say my goodbyes. Chalk this one up as an easy dub for Jigs.
30. Pig Vat (Saw III)
All Jeff has to do in order to save Judge Halden from gargling rotting pig flesh is burn his dead son’s toys with the press of a button. This one is out of my hands, obviously. I’ll just be praying to any god that will listen for Jeff to press that button before I drown in a giant dead-pig smoothie.
(Side note: This is easily the most vomit-inducing trap on rewatch. Enjoy.)
29. Acid Room (Saw VI)
Tara and her son Brent are given the opportunity to seek revenge on William, who denied their husband/father health insurance in his dying days. Pulling the lever in their cage will swing an acid trap that sticks into the back of William and pumps him full of acid until he dies. Baby boy Brent avenges his dad in the most fucked-up way possible and gets a front-row seat to it all.
There’s no way I talk my way out of this, of course, but I do think I’m smart enough to realize that the pressure plate I stepped on activated the big red light above the death lever in Tara’s and Brent’s cage. I’d probably then look up to see the suspended death trap and plan a full-body dive down on the ground for when either of them pulls the lever. That’s called having foresight, William.
28. Electric Bathtub (Saw V)
How many Jigsaw victims does it take to replace a lightbulb connect five electrical cords to a bathtub? In this case, it takes one dead and two alive. Luba, Mallick, and Brit could have thought as a group on how to connect the cords in order to open the locked door. But instead, Brit kills Luba and stabs all five cords into her body to create a closed circuit and escape.
I have no real idea how circuits work or how to close them with five cords. I’m not saying I couldn’t figure it out, but I probably have my head smashed in and end up in the tub like our poor victim does before any spark of genius lights up.
27. Water Cube (Saw V)
Strahm wakes up alone without Billy the Puppet or a tape to explain the rules. He’s simply trapped with his head inside a box that’s slowly filling with water. And as dumb as Strahm’s death is in the end, he shows true brilliance in the Water Cube. Everyone else drowns for two reasons: (1) No one carries pens with them anymore, and (2) no one would ever think to use a deconstructed pen to open a hole in your throat to breathe in the time provided. It’s the second-best play of any Saw character behind Hoffman’s escape from the Reverse Bear Trap 2.0.
26. Finger Trap (Spiral)
Detective Fitch is asked to bite down on two small bars in his mouth hard and long enough for a motor to pull back and rip off all 10 of his fingers before rising water hits electrical cords and sparks an electrocution. It’s hard to know for sure even after rewatching the same agonizing scene over and over, but it looks like his legs are free of any restraints in this trap. That said, I’m taking the first 30 of the 90 seconds allotted to simply try to step out of the tub. If that’s impossible, I’m just taking the L. I’m not going to pretend I have the pain tolerance to have all 10 of my fingers slowly pulled—not cut—off my hands.
25. The Needle Pit (Saw II)
No one dies from the Needle Pit in Saw II, and I don’t think I do either, but bonus points have to be awarded because it’s one of the most iconic traps in the entire series and maybe the easiest to understand in terms of the actual pain you’d experience. Also, Xavier, who throws Amanda in the pit initially, is one of the biggest assholes in all of cinema. Not only does he toss someone else into a trap meant for him, but even after Amanda somehow finds the key in the needle stack, he fumbles the keys at the padlock and is unable to get an antidote at all. There’s a 10th ring of movie hell, and Xavier is roasting in it.
24. Wax Trap (Spiral)
In this all-time fairy-tale scenario, I’d have to self-sever my own spinal cord by rubbing my neck back and forth on a small blade in order to stop the faucet of hot wax from pouring all over my face. Excuse me, what? What triggers the wax to stop? Can I even cut my spinal cord like that? It’s the only use of hot wax, which is fun, but this one sucks. The rules are unclear, and the trap is seemingly inescapable.
(Side note: Spiral is a hard watch for a million reasons. It’s comfortably the worst movie of the series despite the A-list casting. But I almost died laughing at Chris Rock trying to put Detective Angie Garza’s face back together in this scene.)
23. Reverse Bear Trap 2.0 (Saw VI)
There’s no way I could survive this iteration of the Reverse Bear Trap, but my goodness does Hoffman make a brilliant play to survive it himself. His decision to throw his face and the trap through the bars to prevent it from fully ripping his jaw off is spectacular. It’s arguably the most clutch and innovative decision of the entire series.
22. Spike Trap (Saw IV)
It’s a 50-50 split with this one. The bars are strategically stabbed through survivable areas of the wife’s body and, on the other hand, fatal arteries for the abusive husband. Therefore, I survive if I’m the wife and die if I’m the husband. A true till-death-do-us-part situation. (The fact that a version of that line isn’t in the movie is ridiculous.)
(Side note: If you didn’t laugh when she said, “OK. OK. OK. Here we go.” You weren’t watching.)
21. Angel Trap (Saw III)
This trap is technically unwinnable, which is a signature Amanda move in Saw III and usually a call for negative points on this list, but the shot of the mechanical wing-arm thing springing her chest open like a jack-in-the-box is just too cool to put any lower in the ranking. Also, I don’t even know if I could plunge my hand in acid and still have enough dexterity to open a padlock with (what theoretically should be) a partially eroded key.
20. Love Triangle (Saw 3D)
Dina dies via buzz saw because her two lovers agree to kill her rather than kill each other. The trap asks either Brad or Ryan to take a buzz saw to the chest, or for the two to keep their chests intact and leave the third, middle buzz saw to cut their lover, Dina, in half. Dina fails to convince either of the boys to sacrifice themselves with what is easily the funniest dialogue between any of the characters in the series.
DINA: “Brad, I love you. Do it. You gotta do it. You gotta kill him, Brad. You gotta do it.”
[A few seconds later … Dina looks at Ryan.]
DINA: “I didn’t say that. I’ve always loved you. You gotta do it for me, please. You gotta kill him. Kill Brad.”
(Side note: The woman using a briefcase to break the glass is absolute comedy.)
19. The Mausoleum (Saw IV)
Two men wake up with their necks chained to a winch that will slowly choke and kill them if they don’t break free. The twist is one player has his eyes sewn shut and the other has his mouth sewn shut.
The player that can’t speak, Art Blank, has the obvious advantage. Being able to see the situation allows Mr. Speak No Evil (a.k.a. Art Blank) to win even before he musters up the courage to open wide and rip the stitches.
The odds are stacked quite a bit against the other guy. You can try to convince yourself from behind a keyboard that you’d be able to find a way to communicate with your counterpart or take advantage of the weapons on the ground, but there’s just no way you don’t end up dead soon after the other person sees the keys behind your head.
18. Pound of Flesh (Saw VI)
The rules are simple: Two players are provided a cleaver and some other tools to cut off their own flesh over 60 seconds. The player who puts more flesh on the scale in front of them doesn’t have their brain scrambled with spinning screws pointed at their temples.
I want to say I’d grab the cleaver and hack an arm off like the champion of this fucked-up trap does just as the clock expires, but I doubt I actually have the stones to do it. I’d see what the competition is doing and make a judgment call. If they’re half-assing it and chopping off fingers or deli-slicing their stomach, I’ll compete. If they’re quick to make a play for more than half of their arm, I’ll just take the loss.
17. Nerve Gas House (Saw II)
There are just too many reasons not to make it out of the Nerve Gas House. Seven people wake up in a run-down house with lethal poison coursing through their veins. There are antidotes placed around the house, but they’re attainable only if Jigsaw’s traps are escaped. Even though several of the traps inside the house are easily solvable, you’re still waking up with six other dying dumbasses that will likely cost you your life. Amanda is working for Jigsaw; she could kill you at any moment. Xavier could take a nail-ridden baseball bat to the back of your skull like he did with Jonas. Or you could even just die from the poison before getting an antidote, which happened to Laura. It’s an impossible scenario to predict.
16. Steam Maze (Saw VI)
William’s lawyer, Debbie, has 90 seconds to crawl across a room loaded with blowing, hot steam and find a key to unlock a death trap strapped to her chest that will pierce her brain when time expires.
I’m not afraid to say it. She wasn’t crawling quickly enough. Period. I, for one, am an elite bear crawler. I’d be flying through the maze with Unborn speed. Also, she needed to calm the hell down when it became obvious she had to cut the key out of William. You can’t just swing a buzz saw around screaming at the top of your lungs and expect to get what you want. A tempered, measured slice into William’s side, a two-finger dig down a dotted line, and we’re good to go.
The problem, however, is that I’d be relying on William to play two crucial, selfless roles, which he’s clearly incapable of. He can remove steam from the lawyer’s pathway by pulling levers and taking on the steam himself. If I was in the lawyer’s place, there’s no way he’d match pace and pull enough levers to take on the steam for me, and even if I tried to use the buzz saw with surgical precision, he still might evade me until the metal rod uppercut my jaw, skull, and brain in one fell swoop.
15. The Pendulum (Saw V)
Hoffman does make this inescapable, but even if he hadn’t rigged Seth’s death, the Pendulum by itself has to be one of the most physically and psychologically traumatic traps in the series. Seth willingly puts both of his hands into slow-moving vises that ultimately flatten every bone he’s got in them because the rules state that if he does so, the swinging pendulum above his abdomen won’t inch any lower and saw him in half. He is ultimately filleted at the waist anyway and has his guts flung left and right because Hoffman is a vengeful prick, but, man, it’s hard to imagine a scenario in which I’d commit to the juicing of my own hands.
14. Pipe Bomb Trap (Saw X)
The fact that Diego gets out of this trap is insane. He wakes up with his hands duct-taped, with small blades sticking out of them. He has three minutes to cut into his forearms to remove the two active pipe bombs strapped to his arms. After some light screaming and searching for an exit, my guy gets to work. He cuts through his left forearm like it’s a well-done steak and kicks the first bomb away. He does the same with his right and pulls off the final threads of skin by biting the bomb with his teeth.
Diego is built fucking different; I am not.
13. Ice Block Trap (Saw IV)
Detective Eric Matthews, played by Mark Wahlberg’s older brother Donnie, is standing on melting ice for 90 minutes. What he doesn’t know is that the ice beneath him doesn’t matter at all. There are two bigger ice blocks above him that will swing down and land on his head if (when) Rigg opens the door before the 90-minute timer goes off.
This loses points because there’s technically nothing Matthews can do to get out of the trap at all, but it also regains points for being one of the coolest deaths in all of the movies.
(Side note: Donnie Wahlberg will never be able to atone for his sins. The acting disaster class he puts on in not one, not two, but three different Saw movies almost made me throw my TV out the window.)
12. Cycle Trap (Jigsaw)
No one has the composure to slowly descend into a fast-spinning, spiral-bladed death machine and grab a motorcycle brake handle. I’m sorry. A shoulder or an elbow is tapping the side—even just barely—at some point, and human funnel cake is coming out the other end.
11. Shotgun Collar (Saw III)
Warning: This is a bit confusing if you haven’t seen all of Saw III.
Dr. Lynn Denlon is a surgeon Kramer picks to wear the Shotgun Collar. The collar will fire five shotgun shells at Lynn’s head all at once if Kramer dies or moves out of range of Lynn. Therefore, she is asked to keep a dying Kramer alive until the collar can come off. She’s supposed to be set free when her husband finishes his own set of trials and traps. (Spoiler: The collar never comes off.)
The combination of the pressure of the situation, Amanda’s interest in killing Lynn anyway, and the fact that Kramer could just die of a brain tumor at any point makes this one of the most difficult traps in the series. It’s a miracle Lynn survives as long as she does, to be honest.
(Side note: The shot of her head and brains plastered on the wall is an all-timer.)
10. Freezer Room (Saw III)
Jeff, who proves to be a raging, self-absorbed, revenge-seeking imbecile with every decision he makes, isn’t saving anyone from the Freezer Room. All he has to do is fetch a key that’s in between two cold pipes to set the victim, Danica, free of her chains. When he doesn’t, Danica is sprayed with cold water until she is frozen solid. I’d be a popsicle just like her in three sprays of the nozzle.
9. Bedroom Trap (Saw IV)
The Bedroom Trap gets a lot of bonus points because it’s one of the more satisfying traps in the series—the victim actually deserves some legit punishment. Plus, the scattering of the guy’s limbs across the room is dope as hell.
Rigg forces Ivan, a serial rapist, into a trap that will tear him apart at the limbs if he doesn’t remove both of his eyes. To remove his eyes, Ivan has to press down on two buttons that will send blades into his eye sockets.
I think there are two ways of getting out:
1. Refuse to get in the trap at all? Rigg would maybe shoot you anyway, but that’s a better way to go out, and there’s a chance he’ll let you free. It’s worth a shot.
2. There is part of me that believes I could press down on both buttons like I’m mashing sprint in Madden 08. It would be excruciating, but I would probably survive.
8. Horsepower Trap (Saw 3D)
K, so if I don’t peel the entirety of the skin off my back in 30 seconds, a chain reaction is set off that squishes my girlfriend’s head with a tire, rips the jaw and limbs off one of my friends, and sends me and another one of my buddies into a head-on collision that kills us both. No, I don’t have it in me to peel it off.
7. Brain Surgery Trap (Saw X)
Mateo first has to cut out a mini-pancake-sized hole in his skull. That by itself is one of the hardest asks of a player in the series. But he also then has to cut out a chunk of his brain to place into a jar of acid. If the piece is “big enough,” according to Kramer, it will activate a device that gives Mateo a key to set himself free. If all of that doesn’t happen, a sort of George Foreman grill will close on Mateo’s head and cook him alive. Oh, and he has only three minutes.
The science of this feels a little ridiculous. I don’t really understand how the machine could tell the difference between skull and brain tissue. And even if I did, it’d at least be worth trying to place the skull chunk inside the jar to see whether that would work. Mateo just drops it on the floor like it’s a hockey puck. Also, I know the brain doesn’t have pain receptors, so that helps, but can you just cut out a piece of your brain and have working motor functions? This is such a tall order from Kramer, man.
All of that said, I don’t even think I’d have it in me to cut out any piece of my head, let alone my brain. I would probably ride the three minutes out and have my head panini pressed.
6. Flammable Jelly (Saw)
A smarter, more careful, and more pain-tolerant person would maybe get out of this, but I just don’t see it in the cards for me. There’s a slow-acting poison running through my veins (classic Jigs) and an antidote in a safe (even more classic). I’d be completely naked and caked head to toe in flammable jelly (less classic). I’d have to walk over broken glass while carrying a lit candle to identify the safe’s combination among thousands of numbers on the walls. I honestly would just light myself on fire immediately or wait until the poison kills me. Sometimes you just have to tip your cap.
5. Silence Circle (Saw 3D)
I won’t lie. I’m pretty good at the dentist. I’m as quiet as a mouse. But this is an entirely different stratosphere.
Bobby, if I’m indeed his publicist in this scenario, has to drag a key hanging on a fish hook out of my stomach and through my esophagus to unlock me from a device that will otherwise pierce my throat with hollow spikes in 60 seconds. Oh, and the device creeps closer every time the decibels of my screams get over a certain level. I’ve written the following phrase in my notes for this article at least 100 times, but I’ve saved my one use of it for this trap: What the actual fuck?
Funnily enough, Bobby does fish the key out—only to run out of time and watch the publicist die. The same, if not worse, would happen to me.
(Side note: This is the only use of a straitjacket in the series?! That feels like a missed opportunity by Jigs.)
4. Death Mask, a.k.a. Venus Flytrap (Saw II)
Nope. Shut up. You’re not using a scalpel to pluck out your eyeball, retrieve a key, and unlock a Death Mask in 60 seconds. You don’t have that dog in you, and neither do I.
3. Wire Saw Trap (Saw X)
This is easily the best and least survivable trap in Saw X. Valentina has to use a Gigli saw to cut off her right leg along a line drawn across her upper thigh and shove a vacuum into her femur that will suck out blood and bone marrow. If three ounces of bone marrow—not blood, because blood leaks through holes in the customized scale’s surface—hits the scale before the three-minute timer is up, the saw wire across her neck won’t take off her head.
Valentina, a true warrior deserving of a medal of some kind, actually severs her leg and stuffs the vacuum into her femur with 40 to 50 seconds to spare. But, somehow, that’s still not enough time for enough bone marrow to be sucked out of her leg, so she is beheaded anyway.
There’s not a chance in hell I’d even make it as far as she does. What a fucking performance.
2. Classroom Trap (Saw III)
This trap loses points because Amanda welds the classroom door shut, making the room inescapable. However, it gains all the points back and then some because our victim is a legitimate superhero.
There are 11 thick metal hooks and hoops piercing Troy’s body when he wakes up. He has 90 (!!!) seconds to rip them all out of his body before a nail bomb explodes and kills him. Stop right there, and it’s a top-five trap on the list. It reaches top two because Troy gets 10 of the hooks and hoops out and dies with just the one in his jaw. We reward that kind of pain tolerance and grit within these (still very much made-up) rules. Troy is the only person in this universe that comes close to surviving.
1. The Rack (Saw III)
The victim, Timothy, is shackled to a metal crucifix with bolts over his hands and feet. Jeff, whom we’ve called every insulting name in the book by this point, just has to secure a key without getting his head blown off by a shotgun to unlock Timothy from this biblical nightmare. However, in the interim, the machine rotates each of Timothy’s limbs one by one until his bones splinter through his muscle tissue and skin and until his neck suffers the same fatal twist.
The pain is unimaginable. And the victim, though not completely hopeless, is ultimately failed by Jeff. Even when Jeff finally secures the key (after each of Timothy’s four limbs is spun into knots), he can’t even find the lock to ultimately save Timothy.
Jeff can’t save anyone in this scenario, and honestly, I’d rather die on the Rack than even attempt the physical, mental, and emotional recovery from it.
(Side note: Surprising no one, Jigsaw says this is his personal favorite trap.)
