31 Days of Horror: 6 of the most Brutal Traps in Saw

Day two of the 31 Days of Horror series brings us to a relatively modern horror franchise, especially compared to the likes of Friday the 13th and A Nightmare on Elm Street. The Saw Franchise was a staple every October in cinemas for quite a few years, and arguably peaked way earlier than it finished, but one thing that it always managed to do was bring the most brutal and horrifying traps to torture its participants with. Here we take a look at six of the worst…

Reverse Bear Trap

traps — Amanda in the reverse bear trap.

A recurring trap throughout the series, the reverse bear trap is almost as iconic as Billy the Puppet in relation to the franchise. First seen in the first film when we’re introduced to Amanda, the reverse bear trap does exactly what it sounds like, instead of springing closed on a victim, it springs open when the timer elapses, pulling the victim’s skull apart if not escaped from in time. It took a while and a few fake-outs for the audience to see the final seconds of this trap, with both Amanda and Hoffman escaping, however the same could not be said for Jill, who ended up in the trap after trying to use it to kill Hoffman.

The Rack

Saw III debuted arguably one of the most brutal and gory traps in the franchise, with the drunk driver who killed Jeff’s child – who himself is stuck traversing one of Jigsaw’s games – trapped in a device that has each of his limbs secured. With this game entirely placing the life of the drunk driver in Jeff’s hands, it’s down to Jeff to forgive the man who killed his child, otherwise, he’ll end up dead. Not many could do this in a normal setting, let alone as you watch the person responsible for your child’s death having their arms, legs, and eventually head twisted beyond the bone and skin’s breaking point.

Razor Wire Maze

Seen after the game has been played, this is one of the first traps shown in the series as a way of driving home the psychotic thought process Jigsaw has all the way back in the first Saw. Intentionally crawling through a maze filled with glass and razor wire sounds hellish enough and that’s without the knowledge you’re against a timer that’ll trap you there permanently if you don’t escape.

The Classroom

One of the first traps we saw which seemed impossible under closer examination, but a man wakes up in a classroom, surrounded by desks and chairs, in front of him is a bomb and television, which ends up instructing him to pull the chains littered throughout his body out to allow him to escape. He does better than you’d expect, with ending up feverishly going from trying to work up the stomach to pull the one from his jaw (is it even possible?) and his eyes focusing on the rapidly decreasing timer. Unfortunately, he runs out of time, and in true Saw style, we see the aftermath later on.

The Blood Sacrifice

Featured in Saw V, the blood sacrifice trap could have been one of the easiest for the victims to beat had they followed the rules and hints left for them at the start of their game. If they had, they’d have only needed two pints of blood from each person, which is a lot, but still survivable. Instead of working together through the preceding games, they instead think that each game requires one to die, so when they end up at the final game, there are only two of them, making the two pints each a much more dangerous five, at least at first.

The Glass Coffin

In one of the many twists in the Saw franchise, Peter Strahm ends up chasing the Jigsaw apprentice Mark Hoffman, whose cover as a law-abiding cop has long since been blown. Figuring he has him trapped, Strahm decides against finishing the recording and turns it off early, commencing a fight with Hoffman and throwing him in the glass-filled coffin. Hurling abuse at him after closing the door, Strahm ends up listening to the end of the recording, realizing his error and having to watch the man whom he’d chased for so long disappear into safety as the walls of the room revealed themselves as the real trap, closing and crushing Strahm slowly and in all too much gory detail.

There’s a lot more than the six traps mentioned here throughout the Saw franchise, and certainly, enough to fill this list with a lot more entries. What other traps would you have included?

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