The 5 Grossest Kills In Saw Movies Ranked
Committing to self-improvement has never been easy, and no one knows that better than John Kramer (Tobin Bell). Otherwise known as Jigsaw, the anti-hero of the Saw franchise goes to great lengths to help create a better society through a complicated series of deadly traps. John's primary goal is for people to cherish their lives, and he is willing to shed blood to do it. His biggest success story is Amanda Young (Shawnee Smith), who — after escaping the infamous reverse bear trap — devotes her life to John's teachings.
However, not everyone is as lucky as Amanda. Whether through weakness of character or refusing to follow the rules, some people are simply beyond Jigsaw's help. Over the course of the horror franchise's many installments, John creates traps specifically fashioned to show how people need to change. Some — like Amanda — make it out intact. But some don't, and they reap the consequences of the terrible lives they have led. Every trap is violent and deadly; however, some traps are so gruesome that they can be hard to watch, no matter how much the characters seem to deserve being locked in them.
This Saw III trap was impossible to escape
John Kramer always wants his victims to escape his traps and better their lives, but the same can't be said for his apprentices. Amanda struggles with her place following her liberation, while Detective Hoffman (Costas Mandylor) practically sneers at humanity. At first glance, "Saw III" seems to be business as usual. Detective Kerry (Dina Meyer) investigates yet another Jigsaw trap gone wrong, and it's only upon further inspection that she finds something wrong with the scene. To get into the room of massive carnage, authorities had to dismantle the door because it was welded shut. It suddenly becomes obvious that whoever built this trap never intended for the victim to escape. Only later does Hoffman reveal his role as Jigsaw's apprentice, as well as his complete disinterest in following he mentor's moral code. That's what makes this trap so insidious and more cruel than any John put into place.
Then there's the sadistic way Hoffman conceived the trap. When Troy (J. LaRose) wakes up, he finds that he has been pierced and chained to the floor. Multiple chains are hooked into his skin, including his shoulder and lower jaw. The only way to escape is by tearing the chains from his body before time runs out and the bomb detonates. Hoffman had all his bases covered to ensure that Troy would be unable to survive. Though Troy is determined and almost frees himself, he's ultimately too late — and even if he hadn't run out of time, Hoffman made certain there was no way he was getting out of that room alive.
Saw III's freezer trap was chillingly unique
Sometimes John Kramer's truly disgusting traps aren't about blood and guts so much as they're about imagining what terrible experience he can force on his victim. This is the case for Danica Scott (Debra McCabe) in "Saw III," whose death is so harrowing because of how realistic it is. It's possible to stomach outrageous blood effects, but it's not so easy to watch a woman slowly freeze to death.
In one of Jigsaw's more ambitious plans, Danica was part of a trap designed to help Jeff Denlon (Angus Macfadyen) move on from the accidental death of his son. Each component of the trap involves one person who was at the scene of the crime. Danica was arguably the least involved in the child's death; having been guilty of seeing Timothy (Mpho Koaho) hit Jeff's son with his car, she would have been a potential witness, but she fled the scene instead.
When Jeff encounters her in the trap, she has been stripped naked in a freezer room. Not only is this an exercise in humiliation, but the temperature offers a level of pain worse than that suffered by other victims of the trap. In increasing intervals, Danica is sprayed with freezing water as she begs Jeff to help her the way she didn't stay to help him. But by the time Jeff decides to step in, he's too late. The temperature of the room combined with cold water effectively turns her into a living — and soon dead — ice sculpture.
It's hard to forget the rack in Saw III
Jeff Denlon's journey to letting go of his grief involves not one but two of the grossest traps in the "Saw" franchise. John Kramer saved his most gruesome concept for the person that Jeff would have to work the hardest to forgive. After failing to save Danica, Jeff finally comes face-to-face with the person who was directly responsible for his son's death. Timothy was the driver who accidentally killed Jeff's son and got off on a technicality, an injustice Jeff has never been able to accept, and this inability to move on is evident when he encounters Timothy on the rack.
A modern twist on the medieval torture device, Jigsaw's rack slowly twists Timothy's limbs and neck in the opposite direction they're supposed to go, and, once again, Jeff fails to make the right decision. Timothy unequivocally made a mistake that changed Jeff's life — and the lives of his family — for the worse, but it was a human mistake, and both men need redemption. Jeff's grief and anger, unfortunately, have made this impossible, and the rack ultimately stretches and breaks Timothy's bones. In his final, agonizing moments, the audience watches in abject horror as his head twists all the way around, the culmination of one of the most brutal traps in the franchise and one that is almost impossible to watch.
White nationalism has consequences in Saw VII
Even being part of one of the biggest hard rock bands in the world doesn't save you from Jigsaw — or, more accurately, Detective Hoffman. Chester Bennington, the late lead singer for Linkin Park, famously earned a part in "Saw VII" as a white supremacist named Evan, a role that delighted the musician, who was a huge fan of the films.
In the movie, Evan wakes up with his naked back superglued to the seat of his car as the trademark Jigsaw voice tells him that this is the price for his rampant racism. Also attached to the trap are Evan's racist girlfriend and friends, all of whom will be killed by the impact of the car if Evan doesn't free himself by literally tearing the flesh from his body. Evan is committed to this and essentially flays himself as he rips his body from the car seat. But it's to no avail, as he and his friends all die despite his best efforts.
This scene was not just grotesque to every fan watching, but to those who were on set as well. "I was filming a part of the scene, and my wife was watching, and we're both huge fans, so we're watching. We've seen all the crazy crap that's happening in all these crazy movies," Bennington told MTV News. "So, she's watching, and when we're filming this particular scene, she actually almost threw up. So I knew that we were doing something right if it made her want to puke." A badge of honor for any actor in the "Saw" franchise, Bennington earned the distinction of shooting one of the most disgusting scenes in the entire series.
Saw VII goes fishing
Though "Saw VII" is considered one of the worst entries in the franchise, the final entry in the original "Saw" series doesn't know the meaning of the word "subtlety," and, as a result, the traps are some of the most tortuous. In an act of pure stupidity, Bobby (Sean Patrick Flanery) decides to fake a Jigsaw attack on himself, somehow believing that he can get away with his plan to use his story for publicity and a book deal. Ironically, this made him the exact kind of target that the real Jigsaw would be interested in.
As a result of his faked encounter with Jigsaw, Bobby and his entourage are abducted by John Kramer, where Bobby's publicist, Nina (Naomi Snieckus), gets the worst deal. Confined in a straightjacket, Nina's only escape is a key on the end of a string within her stomach. The issue is that the key is also attached to a fishhook, and the only way to get it out is to pull the string out as the hook tears her insides apart.
This trap is the worst of the franchise because of what you don't see. Imagining a hook ripping through Nina's insides is revolting, and the experience is made all the worse thanks to Snieckus' visceral acting. Viewers can practically feel the hook thanks to her performance and pain-filled screams, to the point where it's a relief when she gets impaled by the apparatus, just to end it all. The key to horror is suggestion, and despite its flaws, "Saw VII" accomplishes that to an excruciating degree.