Saw is a horror media franchise created by Australian filmmakers James Wan and Leigh Whannell, which began with the eponymous 2004 film and quickly became a worldwide pop culture phenomenon. The franchise has expanded from films into other media, including a television series, video games, comic books, music, theme park attractions, and merchandising including toys, masks, and clothing. Saw is the fifth highest-grossing horror film franchises of all-time.
The series revolves around the fictional serial killer John "Jigsaw" Kramer and his apprentices. Kramer was introduced briefly in Saw and developed in more detail in the subsequent films. Rather than killing his victims directly, he traps them in life-threatening situations that he refers to as "tests" or "games" to test their will to survive through physical or psychological torture, believing that if they survive, they will be "rehabilitated".
In 2003, Wan and Whannell made a short film to help pitch a potential feature film concept, after having the original script written for several years. After numerous unsuccessful attempts to receive funding in their home country of Australia, Wan and Whannell traveled to the United States, after several producers expressed interest in the project. It was ultimately successful, and, in 2004, the first installment debuted at the Sundance Film Festival and was released theatrically that October by Lionsgate. After its immensely successful opening weekend, the first of many sequels was immediately green-lit. Five directors[a] have worked on the series: James Wan, Darren Lynn Bousman, David Hackl, Kevin Greutert and The Spierig Brothers; while Whannell, Bousman, Patrick Melton, Marcus Dunstan, Josh Stolberg, and Peter Goldfinger have written the screenplays. Both creators remain with the franchise as executive producers.
The film series has been a box office success, grossing more than $1 billion from box office and retail sales. The first, sixth, and ninth films received mixed reviews, while the second, third, fourth, fifth, seventh, and eighth films received negative reviews. The tenth film received generally positive reviews from critics, becoming the only film in the franchise to do so. An eleventh film was scheduled for September 2025 but was cancelled in March 2025.
SAW (First Chapter)
Saw is a 2004 American gore slasher horror film directed by James Wan in his feature directorial debut, and written by Leigh Whannell, from a story by Wan and Whannell. It stars Whannell alongside Cary Elwes, Danny Glover, Monica Potter, Michael Emerson, and Ken Leung. The film tells a nonlinear narrative revolving around the mystery of the Jigsaw Killer, who tests his victims' will to live by putting them through deadly "games" where they must inflict great physical pain upon themselves to survive. The frame story follows Jigsaw's latest victims (Whannell and Elwes), who awaken in a large, dilapidated bathroom, with one being ordered to kill the other to save his own family.
The screenplay was written by Whannell, who co-created the story with Wan in their respective screenwriting debuts. The film was originally written in 2001, but after failed attempts to get the script produced in Wan and Whannell's home country of Australia, they were urged to travel to Los Angeles. In order to help attract producers, they shot a low-budget short film of the same name from a scene out of the script. This proved successful in 2003 as producers were immediately attached and also formed a horror genre production label, Twisted Pictures. The film was given a small production budget and was shot in 18 days.
Saw was first screened at the 2004 Sundance Film Festival on January 19, 2004. Due to positive audience reception, Lions Gate picked up the distribution rights for the film. Originally planned for a straight-to-video release, they decided to instead release the film in theaters in North America on October 29, 2004. The film received mixed reviews from critics. After topping the opening weekend box office, the film would go on to gross $104 million worldwide to become one of the most profitable horror films since Scream (1996). The success of Saw launched a media franchise, including several sequels, video games, theme park rides, and merchandising. The first sequel, titled Saw II, was released the following year in October 2005.
REAR COVER
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"The year's scariest film is SAW, the inspired debut of Melbourne filmmakers JAMES WAN and LEIGH WHANNELL that astounded Hollywood, crics and cinema audiences everywhere.
From its first frame, SAW will hook you with its terriiying story of two men, who wake to find themselves trapped in a room, hostages of a sadistic madman who will kill them both if they don't kill each other From there, it's a roller-coaster thril rite as terific performances, a puzzle like plot, atmospheric direction and about all the suspense you can handle deliver you to a surprise ending thatill make your blood run cold.
DEVELOPMENT AND WRITING
After finishing film school, Australian director James Wan and Australian writer Leigh Whannell wanted to write and fund a film. The inspiration that they needed came after watching the low-budget independent film The Blair Witch Project. Another film that inspired them to finance the film themselves was Darren Aronofsky's Pi. The two thought the cheapest script to shoot would involve two actors in one room.[5] Whannell said, "So I actually think the restrictions we had on our bank accounts at the time, the fact that we wanted to keep the film contained, helped us come up with the ideas in the film."[6] One idea was to have the entire film set with two actors stuck in an elevator and being shot in the point of view of security cameras.
Wan pitched the idea to Whannell of two men chained to opposite sides of a bathroom with a dead body in the middle of the floor and they are trying to figure out why and how they are there. By the end of the film, they realize the person lying on the floor is not dead and he is the reason they are locked in the room. Whannell initially did not give Wan the reaction he was looking for. He said, "I'll never forget that day. I remember hanging up the phone and started just going over it in my head, and without any sort of long period of pondering, I opened my diary that I had at the time and wrote the word 'Saw'." Before writing the word "Saw" in a blood-red, dripping font, the two had not come up with a title. "It was one of those moments that made me aware that some things just really are meant to be. Some things are just waiting there to be discovered", Whannell said.
The character of Jigsaw did not come until months later, when Whannell was working at a job he was unhappy with and began having migraines. Convinced it was a brain tumor he went to a neurologist to have an MRI; and, while sitting nervously in the waiting room, he thought: What if you were given the news that you had a tumor and you were going to die soon? How would you react to that? He imagined the character Jigsaw having been given one or two years to live and combined that with the idea of Jigsaw putting others in a literal version of the situation but only giving them a few minutes to choose their fate. Wan did not intend to make a "torture porn" film, and the script only had one short segment of torture. He said the film "played out like a mystery thriller". It was not until the sequels that the plot focused more on torture scenes.
Funding and short film
Whannell and Wan initially had $30,000 to spend on the film, but as the script developed it was clear that more funds would be needed. The script was optioned by a producer in Sydney for a year but the deal eventually fell through.[5] After other failed attempts to get the script produced in Australia from 2001 to 2002, literary agent Ken Greenblatt read the script and suggested they travel to Los Angeles, where their chances of finding an interested studio were greater. Wan and Whannell initially refused due to lack of traveling funds, but the pair's agent, Stacey Testro, convinced them to go. In order to help studios take interest in the script, Whannell provided A$5,000 (US$5,000) to make a short film based on the script's jaw trap scene, which they thought would prove most effective. Whannell played David, the man wearing the reverse bear trap. Working at the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Whannell and Wan knew cameramen who were willing to provide technical assistance for the short.
I guess the term 'torture-porn' doesn't affect me one way or the other. I don't love the term, nor do I really hate it. For me, it's kind of hard to have any bad feelings about the term, because I guess torture-porn has given me a lot of good things, like being able to work in the film industry and work as a screenwriter. I guess I'm just thankful to be part of a film that made it, and anything after that is just a champagne problem.
—Leigh Whannell (screenwriter) on his feelings of the film being labeled "torture porn"
Wan shot the short with a 16mm camera over two days and transferred the footage to DVDs to ship along with the script. Whannell wanted to play the lead character in the feature film. The short helped show that Wan and Whannell were a "director-actor team" rather than just wanting to sell the script. Wan said, "Leigh and I just loved the project so much and we wanted a career in filmmaking so we stuck to our guns and said, 'Look, guys, if you want this project, we're coming on board — Leigh has to act in it and I have to direct it."
In early 2003, while in Los Angeles and before they met with producer Gregg Hoffman, Hoffman's friend pulled him into his office and showed him the short. Hoffman said, "About two or three minutes into it, my jaw hit the floor. He quickly showed the short and script to his partners Mark Burg and Oren Koules of Evolution Entertainment. They later formed Twisted Pictures as a horror genre production label. The producers read the screenplay that night and two days later offered Wan and Whannell creative control and 25% of the net profits. Even though Wan and Whannell received "better offers" from studios like DreamWorks and Gold Circle Films, they were not willing to chance Wan's directing and Whannell acting in the lead role. In order to finance the film, Hoffman, Burg, and Koules put up a second mortgage on their Highland Avenue headquarters. Saw was given a production budget of between $1 million and $1.2 million.
CASTING
Cary Elwes was sent the short film on DVD and immediately became interested in playing Dr. Lawrence Gordon in the film. He read the script in one sitting and was drawn in by the "uniqueness and originality" of the story. oules was Elwes' manager at the time. To prepare for his role as an oncologist, he met with a doctor at UCLA's Department of Neurosurger. In August 2005, Elwes filed a lawsuit against his management firm and producers of Saw, Evolution Entertainment, alleging "breach of contract and unjust enrichment". Elwes said that he was promised that he would receive a minimum of one percent of the producers' net profits from the film and did not. Elwes claims he only received $53,275 and a salary of $2,587.20. The case was later settled out of court and Elwes reprised his role five years later in Saw 3D.
Shawnee Smith, who is not a horror fan, initially refused the role of Amanda Young, describing the script as "horrific". However, after watching the short, she agreed to the role, which was the part that Whannell portrayed in the shor. Wan offhandly suggested Smith when his casting director asked who he wanted to play Amanda, as he had had a crush on Smith since his teenage years, and was surprised when his casting director secured her on the role. Danny Glover was cast as Detective David Tapp, who is in pursuit of the Jigsaw Killer. Glover stated in an interview, "Something about that detective character at that particular point attracted me to it".[25] Michael Emerson felt drawn to accept the role of Orderly Zep Hindle due to finding the film's writing "masterful" and its twist ending "jaw-dropping", deeming it the "best ending of a piece of film writing [he] had ever seen".
On taking the role of Jigsaw, Tobin Bell said, "I did Saw because I thought it was a fascinating location for a film to be made. These guys locked in a room, to me, was fresh. I did not anticipate the ending when I read the script, so I was quite caught by surprise and it was clear to me that if the filmmakers shot the scene well, the audience would be caught by surprise as well. The film was worth doing for that moment alone". Bell also stated that he wanted to take the opportunity to work with Glover, with whom he had never previously worked. Wan primarily cast Bell because of his voice. Mike Butters was originally offered the role of Jigsaw, but declined as he felt that that role did not have enough exciting scenes. Butters, a friend of one of the producers whom he used to play hockey with, ended up cast as Paul Leahy, the Jigsaw victim who perishes in a razor wire maze trap.
FILMING AND POST-PRODUCTION
With a shooting budget of $700,000, Saw began principal photography on September 22, 2003[14] at Lacy Street Production Facility in Los Angeles for 18 days. The bathroom was the only set that had to be built. There were no chairs on the set. Other sets like the police station were shot in locations where other productions had built similar sets. The bathtub scene was filmed the first day of filming, and it was then that Whannell realized that they didn't have money left in the budget to hire a stuntman to shoot the scene, forcing him to perform the scene himself. It took six days to shoot all the scenes in the bathroom, and these were filmed chronologically to avoid continuity jumps and help the actors stay in character. To film the scenes of the two protagonists, Wan made sure most of Dr. Gordon's shots were very steady and controlled while Adam's shots were shaky and handheld to match the characters' personalities. Instead of using a camera dolly or a tripod, cinematographer David A. Armstrong shot the entire film with the camera over his shoulder.
There was no time for Elwes and Whannell to rehearse their scenes together to not conflict with the schedules of Glover and Emerson, who were only available for a certain number of days. Glover completed his scenes in two days. Emerson found the shoot "punishing", but a "real adventure" he was glad to survive. According to Elwes, his dialogue averaged 12 to 16 pages a day, which he considered a great challenge. Due to the tight shooting schedule, Wan could not afford to shoot more than a couple of takes per actor. “It was a really tough struggle for me. Every day, it was me fighting to get the shots I did not get. I had high aspirations, but there's only so much you can do. I wanted to make it in a very Hitchcockian style of filmmaking, but that style of filmmaking takes time to set up and so on", Wan said about the very short shooting schedule. He said the style instead ended up being "more gritty and rough around the edges due to the lack of time and money that we had to shoot the movie with" and it ultimately became the aesthetic of the film.
$400 were spent on reshoots Wan and Whannell did on their own. For the reshoots, Whannell served as a stand-in to Smith and Ken Leung in the scenes of Amanda searching for her key and of Steven Sing entering into Jigsaw's lair. In post-production, Wan found he did not have enough shots or takes to work with as he was basically shooting rehearsals. Having a lot of missing gaps in the final product, he and editor Kevin Greutert created shots to mend together during editing, such as making a shot look like a surveillance camera feed and using still photographs. "We did a lot of things to fill in gaps throughout the film. Whatever we cut to newspaper clippings and stuff like that, or we cut to surveillance cameras, or we cut to still photography within the film, which now people say, 'Wow, that's such a cool experimental style of filmmaking', we really did that out of necessity to fill in gaps we did not get during the filming", he explained.
BOX OFFICE
Saw opened at number three on Halloween weekend 2004 in 2,315 theaters and grossed $18.2 million, behind Ray ($20 million) and The Grudge ($21.8 million). According to Lionsgate's exit poll, 60% of the mostly male audience was under 25 years of age. Saw had also become Lionsgate's second best opening, after Fahrenheit 9/11's $23.9 million (2004). On its second weekend, an additional 152 theaters were added, bringing the theater count to 2,467. It dropped to number four, making $11 million, a 39% drop from the opening weekend.
Saw opened in the United Kingdom to $2.2 million in 301 theaters, grossing a $12.3 million total in seven weeks. In Australia, it opened in 161 theaters with $1.2 million and totaled out to $3.1 million in six weeks. In Italy, the film opened on January 14, 2005 in 267 theaters to $1.7 million and grossed $6.4 million in six weeks. Saw opened to $1.5 million from 187 theaters in France on March 16, 2005 and made $3.1 million by the end of its four-week run. Saw came to gross $55.1 million in the United States and Canada and $47.9 million in other markets for a worldwide total of $104 million. At the time, it became the most profitable horror film after Scream (1996).
CRITICAL RESPONSE
On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 50% of 193 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 5.6/10. The website's consensus reads: "Saw ensnares audiences with a deceptively clever plot and a myriad of memorable, nasty set pieces, but its lofty ambitions are undercut by a nihilistic streak that feels more mean than profound." Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 46 out of 100, based on 32 critics, indicating "mixed or average" reviews. Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "C+" on an A+ to F scale.
Dennis Harvey of Variety gave the film a negative review after its Sundance premiere. He called it a "crude concoction sewn together from the severed parts of prior horror/serial killer pics". He called the screenplay "convoluted", criticizing the use of "flashbacks within flashbacks" and red herrings. He described the film as being "too hyperbolic to be genuinely disturbing". Carla Meyer of the San Francisco Chronicle gave the film a positive review, saying the film "combined B-movie acting with a twisted mind-set and visual tricks designed to camouflage cheap effects" and that it was "terrifying at some moments and insinuatingly creepy at many others." She called the killing scenes "amazingly evocative for such a low-budget movie".
Empire's Kim Newman gave the film four out of five stars. He said Saw is styled like early David Fincher films and "boasts an intricate structure — complex flashbacks-within-flashbacks explain how the characters have come to this crisis — and a satisfying mystery to go with its ghastly claustrophobia." He ended his review saying, "As good an all-out, non-camp horror movie as we've had lately. Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly gave the film a B minus, calling it "derivative and messy and too nonsensical for its own good." He described Jigsaw's intent as "to show you the serial killer lurking inside yourself". Gleiberman criticized Elwes' performance by saying, "[Elwes] ought to be featured in a seminar on the perils of overacting. He compared the plot to Seven saying, "In a blatant imitation of Seven, Saw features a lunatic sadist whose ghoulish crimes are meant, in each case, to mirror the sins of his victims. The twist here is that the psycho doesn't do the killing. Daniel M. Kimmel of the Telegram & Gazette called it "one of the most loathsome films this critic has seen in more than 20 years on the job".
The New York Times's Stephen Holden gave a mixed review, saying the film "does a better-than-average job of conveying the panic and helplessness of men terrorized by a sadist in a degrading environment, but it is still not especially scary. What sets its demon apart from run-of-the-mill movie serial killers is his impulse to humiliate and torture his victims and justify it with some twisted morality." He said the film is "seriously undermined by the half-baked, formulaic detective story in which the horror is framed. Carina Chocano of the Los Angeles Times also gave the film a mixed review, saying, "Saw is so full of twists it ends up getting snarled. For all of his flashy engineering and inventive torture scenarios, the Jigsaw Killer comes across as an amateur. Hannibal Lecter would have him for lunch." She said the film "carelessly underscores its own shaky narrative at every turn with its mid-budget hokiness". She also noted that Elwes and Whannell had trouble keeping an American accent. Another mixed review came from Roger Ebert, who gave the film 2 out of 4 stars and lamented the gimmicks and plot contrivances but nonetheless described Saw as "well made and acted, and does what it does about as well as it could be expected to".
Richard J. Leskosky of Champaign-Urbana's The News-Gazette said, "Saw wants to be taken as another Seven. Though it features perverse gross-out scenes and a villain with a superficially pedantic motive behind his crimes (his victims, if they survive, have learned to appreciate life more), it lacks the finesse and polish of the David Fincher film." When asked if the 1995 thriller film Seven was an inspiration to Saw, Whannell said, "For me as the writer, definitely. I mean, Seven is just a very well constructed film, and if you're writing a thriller, it can't hurt to study it. In terms of the story though, James and I never really felt Seven was that close to our film. I guess if you stand back, you have two detectives chasing a psychopath, who uses vile methods to teach people lessons, and those points echo Seven. What we always liked about Saw, though, was that the story is told from the point of view of two of the psychopath's victims, instead of the police chasing after him, as you so often see.”
Bloody Disgusting ranked the film tenth in its list of the Top 20 Horror Films of the decade, with the article calling Saw "perhaps the most influential horror film of the decade". The Daily Telegraph listed the film number 14 on their Top 100 list that defined the 2000s. The film was nominated for best horror film at the 31st Saturn Awards.
DETAILED PLOT
Adam, a photographer, awakens in a dilapidated bathtub with his ankle chained to a pipe. Across the room is oncologist Dr. Lawrence Gordon, and between them is the corpse of a suicide victim holding a revolver and a microcassette recorder. Both men find a tape in their pockets, and Adam retrieves the recorder. Adam's tape urges him to survive, while Gordon's tape orders him to kill Adam by 6:00, or his wife, Alison, and daughter, Diana, will be murdered. After listening to the tapes, the duo uncovers a clue leading Adam to find a bag containing two hacksaws inside the toilet. Both men try to saw through their chains, but Adam's saw breaks. Gordon realizes that the saws are intended for their feet, and identifies their captor as the Jigsaw Killer, a serial killer who tests his victims' will to survive through murderous contraptions known as "games", whom Gordon knows about as he was once a suspect.
Five months prior, Gordon, after discussing the terminal brain cancer of patient John Kramer with his medical interns, was interrogated by detectives David Tapp and Steven Sing, who found his penlight at the scene of one of Jigsaw's games. Gordon's alibi cleared him, but he agreed to view the testimony of heroin addict Amanda Young, the only known survivor of one of Jigsaw's traps. Tapp and Sing later found Jigsaw's warehouse using the videotape from Amanda's game. There, they detained Jigsaw and saved a man from a trap, but Jigsaw managed to escape after he critically injured Tapp; Sing was killed by a shotgun trap.
In the present, Alison and Diana are tied up and gagged in their apartment, as their captor watches Adam and Gordon through a hidden camera. The house is simultaneously watched by Tapp who, after being discharged from the police following Sing's death, has become obsessed with the Jigsaw case, and remains convinced that Gordon is the killer. Meanwhile, Gordon finds a box containing two cigarettes, a lighter, and a one-way cellphone. Adam asks Gordon for the cigarette but Gordon discourages this. He recounts his abduction in a parking garage by a pig-masked figure. Adam recalls his own abduction when he returned home to find a puppet in his darkroom, where he stored photos of Gordon.
Held at gunpoint, Alison calls her husband and warns him not to trust Adam, who admits to Gordon that he was paid by Tapp to spy on him, and reveals his knowledge of Gordon's affair with one of his medical students whom he had visited on the night of his abduction. Gordon deduces that the affair is the reason why he is being tested. Adam finds a photo of Alison and Diana's captor, whom Gordon identifies as Zep Hindle, an orderly at his hospital.
Zep, seeing that Gordon has still not killed Adam, moves to murder Alison and Diana, but Alison frees herself and fights him. The struggle attracts Tapp's attention, and he saves Alison and Diana before chasing Zep to the sewers, where he is shot in the chest after a brief fight. Gordon, only aware of the gunshots and screaming, is shocked but cannot reach his cell phone. In desperation, he saws off his foot and shoots Adam with the corpse's revolver. Zep enters the bathroom to kill Gordon, but Adam, having survived the gunshot, bludgeons him to death with the toilet tank lid. Gordon crawls out of the bathroom to find help while Adam searches Zep's body for a key. He finds another tape, which reveals that Zep was just another victim of Jigsaw, following rules to obtain the antidote for a slow-acting poison in his body.
The "corpse" lying in the room suddenly rises to its feet; it turns out to be John Kramer, who is the real Jigsaw Killer. John tells Adam that the key to his chain was in the bathtub; it went down the drain when Adam had first awoken and drained the water. Adam attempts to shoot John with Zep's gun, but John electrically shocks him through his chain. John exits the bathroom before sealing the door, leaving Adam alone to die.
SAW II (Two)
Saw II is a 2005 horror film directed by Darren Lynn Bousman and written by Leigh Whannell and Bousman. It is the sequel to 2004's Saw and the second installment in the Saw film series. The film stars Donnie Wahlberg, Franky G, Glenn Plummer, Beverley Mitchell, Dina Meyer, Emmanuelle Vaugier, Erik Knudsen, Shawnee Smith, and Tobin Bell. In the film, a group of ex-convicts are trapped by the Jigsaw Killer inside a house and must pass a series of deadly tests to retrieve the antidote for a nerve agent that will kill them in two hours.
After the successful opening weekend of 2004's Saw, a sequel was immediately green-lit. Whannell and James Wan were busy preparing for their next film and were unable to write or direct. Bousman wrote a script called The Desperate before Saw was released and was looking for a producer but many studios rejected it. Gregg Hoffman received the script and showed it to his partners Mark Burg and Oren Koules. It was decided that, with some changes, it could be made into Saw II. Whannell became available to provide rewrites of the script. The film was given a larger budget and was shot from May to June 2005 in Toronto.
Saw II was released in the United States on October 28, 2005, by Lionsgate Films. It opened with $31.9 million and grossed $88 million in the United States and Canada. It has remained the highest grossing Saw film in those countries. Bell was nominated for "Best Villain" at the 2006 MTV Movie Awards for his role as Jigsaw in the film. Saw II was released to home media on February 14, 2006, and topped charts its first week, selling more than 3 million units. Saw II was followed by a sequel titled Saw III (2006) and later a prequel titled Saw X (2023).
REAR COVER
While investigating the bloody aftermath of a grizzly murder, Detective Eric Mathews (DONNIE WAHLBERG from THE SIXTH SENSE and TV'S BAND OF BROTHERS) has the feeling that it is the work of Jigsaw - the brilliantly twisted, notorious killer who disappeared leaving only a trail of bodies behind. And Mathews is right, Jigsaw is at work again. But this time there are eight strangers sealed in a house - unaware of their connection to each other and forced to play out a game that challenges their wits and puts their lives in jeopardy.
Co-starring TOBIN BELL, DINA MEYER, and SHAWNEE SMITH, SAW Il is a white-knuckled thrill-ride of suspense that "works brilliantly as both a sequel and a stand-alone creeptest (Adam J. Hakari, ReelTalk Movie Reviews)".
CAST
Tobin Bell as Jigsaw / John Kramer
Shawnee Smith as Amanda Young
Donnie Wahlberg as Eric Matthews
Erik Knudsen as Daniel Matthews
Franky G as Xavier
Emmanuelle Vaugier as Addison
Glenn Plummer as Jonas
Beverley Mitchell as Laura
Timothy Burd as Obi
Dina Meyer as Kerry
Lyriq Bent as Rigg
Noam Jenkins as Michael
Tony Nappo as Gus
Kelly Jones as SWAT Member Pete
Vincent Rother as SWAT Member Joe
DEVELOPMENT AND WRITING
After the success of Saw's (2004) opening weekend, a sequel was quickly greenlit. Since director James Wan and writer Leigh Whannell were occupied with Universal Pictures' Dead Silence (2007), producers were searching for another writer and director. Around this time, music video director Darren Lynn Bousman had written The Desperate, which studios rejected for being too similar to Saw. A German studio offered to produce it for $1 million, but before that moved forward, Saw cinematographer David A. Armstrong suggested Bousman's script to producer Gregg Hoffman. Impressed, Hoffman contacted Bousman with interest in producing it. Initially concerned about accusations of plagiarism. Bousman learned instead that Hoffman and his partners, Mark Burg and Oren Koules, believed The Desperate could serve as the foundation for Saw II. Within two months, Bousman was brought to Toronto to direct the sequel.Saw II was also the final film produced by Hoffman, who died on December 4, 2005, shortly after its release.
Whannell revised Bousman's script, with input from Wan, to integrate it into the Saw universe while retaining the characters, traps, and deaths from The Desperate. Bousman said, "But you could read the script for The Desperate and watch Saw II, and you would not be able to draw a comparison". His original draft for The Desperate consisted of an X-rated violent film, but after difficulty in attracting studio interest due to its graphic violence, he revised it into an R-rated, which drew the attention of Lionsgate executives. Overall, the framework of The Desperate had a similar bleak, grotesque atmosphere and a twist ending, which is why the executives found parallels in the script's style. Wan and Whannell served as executive producers, and several crew members from the first film returned, including Armstrong, editor Kevin Greutert, and composer Charlie Clouser.
To preserve secrecy, only key cast and crew members involved in the film's ending were given the complete script; others received only the first 88 pages. Rewritten pages were shredded, and all members were required to sign confidentiality agreements prohibiting the release of plot details. Reportedly, "four or five" alternate endings were shot in order to keep the ending a surprise. Producer Hoffman stated in Fangoria that the filmmakers considered fans' feedback. For example, instead of only showing flashbacks of a character violently dying, they would allow it to unfold as it happened. This was in contrast to Saw, in which most of the violence was implied off-screen.
CASTING
Tobin Bell reprised his role as Jigsaw from the first film, despite not being contractually obligated to return. Bell found it fascinating to return, but played the role like any of his, feeling the need to understand the character's perspective in order to portray him effectively. Shawnee Smith similarly returned to play Amanda Young, later noting that she had not anticipated reprising the role, as she did not expect the first film to be successful. Smith received $150,000 for her performance, with an additional $100,000 bonus contingent on the film grossing over $50 million. Bousman served as a stand-in for the hooded figure who places a key behind the character Michael Marks' eye, a role that some viewers speculated was Dr. Lawrence Gordon (Cary Elwes) from the first film, though Bousman later stated that this was not his intention.
Donnie Wahlberg was cast as Eric Matthews after expressing interest in both the character and the script At sixteen years old, Erik Knudsen was cast as Eric's son, Daniel Matthews, in his first major feature film role. A fan of the first Saw film and the Scream franchise, Knudsen said he actively pursued the part. He would later star in Scream 4 (2011).
Beverley Mitchell was cast as Laura Hunter despite her dislike for horror films and her inability to watch the first film full until trying for the fifth time. She accepted the role as a personal challenge, noting the physical demands of portraying a character who is being poisoned and frequently coughs. Lyriq Bent initially auditioned for the role of Xavier Chavez but was cast instead as Daniel Rigg. According to Bent, the change was made to avoid the stereotype of casting an African-American actor as a drug dealer. The role of Xavier was ultimately given to Franky G, though Bent later remarked that casting a Puerto Rican actor in the part was also stereotypical.
Bousman gave the actors freedom to change dialogue in the script. He said that 95% of the time, the actors went by the script, with about 5% being adlibs, which "made all of the difference in the world. Wahlberg was allowed to modify some pieces of dialogue, particularly in scenes between Eric Matthews and his son Daniel, as well as those with Jigsaw. For the former, he incorporated a line based on something he had personally said to his own son. For the latter, Wahlberg sought to emphasize Eric's desperation to sit with Jigsaw in order to save Daniel, which Bell supported. The two actors improvised several of their interactions on set, with Wahlberg often adding changes after the day's filming had concluded.
FILMING AND POST PRODUCTION
Saw II was produced on a budget of $4 million, compared to the little over $1 million budget of Saw. Some exterior shots of police vehicles at the industrial docklands next to the Toronto soundstage was filmed on April 29, 2005. Principal photography took place over 25 days at Toronto's Cinespace Film Studios from May 2, 2005 to June 6, 2005. The film was initially given 21 days to be shot. The nerve gas house scenes were shot in an abandoned Toronto warehouse, where the cast portraying Jigsaw's victims worked sixteen-hour days. Knudsen filmed while ill with the flu, noting that it suited his character's poisoned condition; he also continued with an on-set school tutor for two hours daily during production. The film's ending was shot from May 25 t. Music and sound were recorded in July, with the film locked on July 16 and completed by September 9. Visual effects were provided by C.O.R.E. Digital Pictures, with post-production services handled by Deluxe.
TRAP DESIGNS
Production designer David Hackl spent three weeks building 27 sets on a single sound stage. The Billy puppet originally created by Wan from household materials such as paper towel rolls and papier-mâché, was upgraded for the sequel with remote-controlled eyes and a servo-driven mouth. For the "Needle Pit" trap, in which Smith's character Amanda is thrown into a pit of syringes to find a key, the production team modified 120,000 syringes by replacing their metal tips with fiber optic points over a four-day period. As this amount was insufficient to fill the pit, styrofoam and other materials were added to create the appearance of additional needles. Syringes that appeared to pierce Smith's body were blunted and attached to padding beneath her clothing, and a prosthetic arm was used for certain shots.
SAW II MARKED THE DIRECTORIAL DEBUT FOR DARREN LYNN BOUSMAN
Bousman conceived the idea for the "Hand Trap", in which a character's hands become trapped inside a container. Hackl, property master Jim Murray, and art director Michele Brady developed the final design: a glass box suspended by chains from the ceiling that held a hypodermic needle containing an antidote, with two hand openings on the underside. When Emmanuelle Vaugier's character Addison places her hands inside, retractable razor blades closed around them, giving the appearance that any attempt to withdraw would cause severe injury. For safety, the prop was built with movable cuffs and blades that retracted away from the actress's hands. Hackl later noted that the character could have been avoided the trap entirely, as a visible lock and key on the opposite side of the box would have opened it.
The original idea for the "Furnace Trap" came from the house having been a crematorium at some point, but this would have involved turning the house into a funeral parlor, so it was instead decided that the furnace would be part of the house's boiler system. A computer model was created to help Bousman plan camera angles, and the set was constructed in three days from cement board and tin with removable sides and a top. This allowed Timothy Burd's character Obi to be filmed crawling inside. The furnace generated real flames, with a stunt performer coated in fire-retardant gel used in place of Burd for the sequences involving fire.
RELEASE
Saw II was released in the United States through Lionsgate Films, and in the United Kingdom through Entertainment Film Distributors on October 28, 2005. It was later released in Australia by Hoyts Distribution on November 17, 2005.
MARKETING
The film's marketing budget was $2 million. Lionsgate held the second annual "Give Til It Hurts" blood drive for the Red Cross and collected a total of 10,154 pints of blood in 10 states.
The original teaser poster, which depicted two bloody severed fingers forming the Roman numeral II, was rejected by the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA). Although the poster had briefly been released and circulated, the MPAA stated that it was not approved and deemed it unacceptable, prompting Lionsgate to remove it from their websites. The image was used instead for the film's soundtrack cover.
SOUNDTRACK
The Saw II soundtrack was released by Treadstone Records on October 25, 2005. Johnny Loftus from AllMusic gave the soundtrack two and a half out of five stars, writing, "The remixer and occasional NIN member's music was overdone, mysterious, tense, and capably chilling, just like the horror-camp of the film itself." Mudvayne's song "Forget to Remember" was released as a single for both its original album and the soundtrack, and the video was also directed by Bousman.
HOME MEDIA
Saw II was released on DVD, VHS, and Universal Media Disc in the United States through Lions Gate Home Entertainment on February 14, 2006. The DVD and VHS sold 3 million units its first week, becoming the fastest selling theatrical DVD in Lions Gate's history. In rentals, Saw II topped the charts its first week bringing in $9.96 million in combined rentals, pushing Just Like Heaven ($5.96 million) to number two. Its second week, it placed first on rental charts with $5.29 million despite a 47% drop from its first week. The film grossed $45 million in home sales. On October 24, 2006, a DVD "Unrated Special Edition" was released, while an Unrated Blu-ray edition was also released with various special features on January 23, 2007. The film is set to be released on 4K UHD in an Amazon-exclusive steelbook on October 21, 2025.
BOX OFFICE
Saw II opened with $31.7 million on 3,879 screens across 2,949 theaters. The three-day Halloween opening weekend set a Lionsgate record. It became at the time, the widest release for the distributor and one of the best opening weekends for a horror sequel. For its second weekend it fell 47% making $16.9 million. By Monday, the film's opening weekend performance helped boost Lionsgate's stock price by 8%.
Saw II opened in the United Kingdom with $3.8 million on 305 screens, 70% larger than the first installment. It opened in Japan on 67 screens with $750,000. Opening to $1.3 million on 173 screens it was the number one film in Australian. The film grossed $87 million in the United States and Canada and $60.7 million in other markets for a worldwide total of $147.7 million.[56] In the United States and Canada, Saw II is the highest-grossing film of the Saw franchise.
CRITICAL RESPONSE
On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 39% of 124 critics' reviews are positive. The website's consensus reads: "Saw II is likely to please the gore-happy fans of the original, though it may be too gruesome for those not familiar with first film's premise." Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 40 out of 100, based on 28 critics, indicating "mixed or average" reviews. Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B+" on an A+ to F scale.
Robert Koehler of Variety wrote, "cooking up new Rube Goldberg torture contraptions isn't enough to get Saw II out of the shadow of its unnerving predecessor". Gregory Kirschling of Entertainment Weekly gave the film a B minus, saying "Saw II is just barely a better B flick than Saw" and that both films are "more clever and revolting than they are actually chilling". He praised Bell's performance as Jigsaw, saying "As the droopy-lidded maniac in the flesh, Tobin Bell is, for all the film's gewgaws, Saw II's sturdiest horror, a Terence Stamp look-alike who calls to mind a seedy General Zod lazily overseeing the universe from his evildoer's lair". He ended his review: "Where Saw II lags behind in Saw's novelty, it takes the lead with its smoother landing, which is again primed to blow the movie wide open, but manages a more compelling job of it than the original's cheat finish".
Kevin Crust of the Los Angeles Times called Saw II a "worthy follow-up to its grisly predecessor". He said the story was "much more focused on an endgame than the original film. There are fewer credibility gaps and there are plenty of reversals to satisfy fans". He criticized the use of numerous flashbacks, saying that it "rob[s] us of the pleasure of actually remembering for ourselves". Laura Kern, writing for The New York Times, said that Bousman "delivers similar hard-core, practically humorless frights and hair-raising tension, but only after getting past a shaky beginning that plays more like a forensics-themed television show than a scary movie" and called Greutert's editing "crafty". She called the sequel "more trick than treat" and that it "doesn't really compare to its fine predecessor - though it still manages to be eye-opening (and sometimes positively nauseating) in itself".
Empire's Alan Morrison gave the film three out of five stars. He said that the film improves upon Saw's "perverse fascination with Seven-style murders and brutally violent puzzles" and that Jigsaw's intellectual games make "Hannibal Lecter look like the compiler of The Sun's quick crossword". He ended his reviews saying, "Morally dubious it may be, but this gory melange of torture, terror and darkly humorous depravity appeals to the sick puppy within us all".
ACCOLADES
Tobin Bell was nominated for "Best Villain" at the 2006 MTV Movie Awards for his role as Jigsaw, though the award went to Hayden Christensen for his role as Darth Vader in Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith.
DETAILED PLOT
Police informant Michael awakens in a room with a spike-filled mask locked around his neck. Billy the Puppet on a screen tells him that the key to open the death mask is located inside his eye. He cannot bring himself to cut his eye, and is killed when the mask closes on his head. At the scene of Michael's murder, Detective Kerry finds a message for her former partner, Detective Eric Matthews. Matthews joins Kerry and Officer Rigg in leading a SWAT team to the factory which produced the lock from Michael's trap. There, they apprehend John Kramer, the Jigsaw Killer, who indicates computer monitors showing eight people trapped in a house, including his only known survivor Amanda, Matthews's son Daniel, and six other victims: Xavier, Jonas, Laura, Addison, Obi, and Gus. A nerve agent filling the house will kill them all within two hours, but John assures Matthews that if he follows the rules of his own game, he will find Daniel again in a safe place. At Kerry's urging, Matthews agrees to buy time for the tech team to arrive and trace the video signal. During their conversation, John reveals to Matthews that his main motivation for his games was a suicide attempt after his cancer diagnosis, which led to a newfound appreciation for life; the games are intended to help his victims develop the same appreciation.
The group is informed by a microcassette recorder that antidotes are hidden throughout the house; one is in the room's safe, and the tape provides a cryptic clue. Gus ignores a warning note and uses the key provided with the cassette on the door, which triggers a revolver through the peephole that kills him. Once the door opens, they search the house and find a basement, where Obi, who helped with abducting the other victims, is killed in a furnace trap while trying to retrieve two antidotes. In another room, Xavier's test involves digging through a pit filled with syringes to retrieve a key to a steel door in two minutes, but he instead throws Amanda into the pit. She retrieves the key, but Xavier fails to unlock the door in time. Throughout the game, the group discuss connections between them and determine that each has been incarcerated before except Daniel. During his father's test, John reveals their affiliation to Matthews, who was a corrupt police officer who framed his suspects in various crimes.
Xavier returns to the safe room and finds a number on the back of Gus's neck. After realizing the numbers are the combination for the safe, he kills Jonas and begins hunting the others. Laura succumbs to the nerve agent and dies, after finding the clue revealing Daniel's identity. Incensed by the revelation, Addison leaves on her own and finds a glass box containing an antidote, but her arms become trapped in the openings which are lined with hidden blades. Xavier enters the room and leaves her to die after reading her number. Amanda and Daniel find a tunnel from the first room leading to a dilapidated bathroom, where they find Adam and Zep's bodies[N 1] After Xavier corners them, Amanda taunts him by implying that he will not learn his number because nobody will read it to him. Xavier responds by cutting off a piece of skin from the back of his neck to read his number. Xavier charges them, and Daniel slits his throat with a hacksaw.
Having seen Xavier chasing his son, Matthews assaults John and forces him to lead him to the house. The tech team tracks the video's source and while Rigg's team searches the house, Kerry realizes that the game took place days before they captured John and the footage they thought they’d been seeing live was actually pre-recorded. Soon after, the timer for Matthews's game expires and a nearby safe unlocks to reveal Daniel inside, bound and breathing in an oxygen mask. Unaware of these events, Matthews enters the house alone and makes his way to the bathroom, where he is subdued by a pig-masked figure. He awakens shackled at the ankle to a pipe and finds a tape recorder left by Amanda, who reveals she had become John's accomplice after surviving her first trap and helped him set up Matthews's test during the game at the house, intending to continue John's work after he dies. Amanda then appears and seals the door, leaving Matthews to die as John hears his screams outside and smiles.
SAW III (Three)
Saw III is a 2006 American horror film directed by Darren Lynn Bousman from a screenplay by Leigh Whannell and a story by Whannell and James Wan. A sequel to Saw II (2005) and the third installment in the Saw film series, it stars Tobin Bell, Shawnee Smith, Angus Macfadyen, Bahar Soomekh, and Dina Meyer.
In the film, John Kramer (Bell), who is known as the Jigsaw Killer and forces his victims to participate in deadly games in order to test their will to live, puts a man named Jeff (Macfadyen) through a series of tests of his ability to forgive, after Jeff's son was killed by a drunk driver. Meanwhile, John's apprentice Amanda (Smith) has kidnapped a doctor named Lynn (Soomekh) and tasked her with keeping John, who is bedridden with terminal cancer, alive long enough for Jeff to complete his game.
Much like its predecessor, the film was immediately green-lit after the successful opening weekend of the prior film. Filming took place in Toronto from May to June 2006. Whannell aimed to make the story more emotional than previous installments, particularly with the Amanda and Jigsaw storyline. The film is dedicated to producer Gregg Hoffman, who died on December 4, 2005.
Saw III was released in the United States on October 27, 2006, by Lionsgate Films. It was a financial success, opening to $33.6 million and grossing $80.2 million in the United States and Canada. It is the highest-grossing film of the series in the international market and the highest-grossing film in the series overall. It received negative reviews from critics. Bell was nominated for "Best Villain" at the 2007 MTV Movie Awards and the film received nominations for a Saturn Award as "Best Horror Film". The film was released to DVD and Blu-ray on January 23, 2007 where it topped the charts selling 2.5 million units in its first week. A sequel, Saw IV, was released in 2007.
CAST
Tobin Bell as Jigsaw/John
Shawnee Smith as Amanda
Angus Macfadyen as Jeff
Bahar Soomekh as Lynn
Donnie Wahlberg as Eric Matthews
Dina Meyer as Kerry
Leigh Whannell as Adam
Mpho Koaho as Tim
Barry Flatman as Judge Halden
Lyriq Bent as Rigg
J. Larose as Troy
Debra Lynne McCabe as Danica
Costas Mandylor as Forensic Hoffman
Betsy Russell as Jill
Stefan Georgiou as Dylan
Niamh Wilson as Corbett
Alan van Sprang as Chris
Kim Roberts as Deborah
DEVELOPMENT AND WRITING
Darren Lynn Bousman, director and co-writer of Saw II (2005), James Wan, director of Saw (2004), and Leigh Whannell, screenwriter on both, turned down the offer to make a third film in the franchise. Producer Gregg Hoffman died a few weeks after its release. Bousman, Wan, and Whannell got together to have lunch the day they heard of Hoffman's passing and decided to make Saw III in dedication to Hoffman. Whannell aimed to make Saw III more emotional, describing the plot as essentially a father-daughter "love story" between John Kramer / Jigsaw and Amanda Young.
Bousman said they did not intend to have a twist ending, as distinctly as the previous films, noting that "I think most people will figure it out in the first 15 minutes of the film". Whannell added, "What Darren and I struck for Saw III was to have an emotionally impactful ending". As with the previous two films, the ending was only given to the actors who appeared in the final scene at the time it was filmed. At one point the script was stolen from Bousman's chair; however, it was returned before it was leaked online.
CASTING
After Bahar Soomekh appeared in Crash (2004), Lionsgate wanted her in the next Saw film. She was cast in Saw III in the role of Dr. Lynn Denlon. Not a fan of horror films nor having seen the first two Saw films, she found the role challenging. "I had nightmares the first month I was on set", she said. She did, however, enjoy not being typecasted as a Middle Eastern like in most of her previous roles. Angus Macfadyen, a fan of certain horror films including Saw, was cast as Jeff after reading and liking the script
Costas Mandylor was cast as Forensic Hoffman after being introduced to Bousman. Mandylor explained, "At some point I was introduced to the director and he asked if I wanted to come up and have some fun for a week on Saw III. So I thought why not, they're some good guys and all that, so we're gonna have some fun. So being in that movie for a minute or two, I made the most of it and had fun with the guys". J. Larose was cast as Troy, Jigsaw's victim at the beginning of the film. Larose found challenge in playing a role that required making the character's pain look and feel authentic but felt grateful for playing the opening sequence victim of a Saw film, appreciating his opportunity to work with Bousman.
Monica Potter, who played Alison, the wife of Dr. Gordon in the first film, was approached to reprise her role in the film but she declined the offer due to a lack of interest. She felt that she had done "plenty" with the first film Similarly, Rigg's role in the movie was significantly reduced as Lyriq Bent was unavailable due to his work in Angela's Eyes (2006) at the same time; despite the filmmakers' attempts to make his schedule work, Bent was only able to shoot one day
FILMING
Saw III was given a larger budget of $10 million, compared to Saw II's $4 million. Principal photography took place for 27 days at Toronto's Cinespace Film Studios[12] from May 8, 2006, to late June. Production borrowed the bathroom set used in Scary Movie 4, which parodied the franchise.[3] Almost all the transitions from one place to another were not made using digital effects; the transitions were shot on the spot. For example, when the camera moves from Troy's crime scene to Kerry being in the bathtub, Meyer had to run, take off all her clothes, and jump into the tub. Visually the film is akin to the previous two with using quick cuts and fast-paced rhythms. Bousman said, "We're using a lot of whip pans and flash frames to create a dynamic feel". Post-production services were provided by DeluxeThe original cut of the film ran for slightly over two hours, and several scenes were cut out A scene that showed Jigsaw regretting his actions was also cut. Bell said, "I'm glad they cut that scene. This guy knows exactly what he's doing. Does he start off with a model, then refine it? Yeah, he probably does. But there are certain things that are interesting and advance the story, and there are other things that are basically sort of backstory, and you don't really need to know"
TRAP DESIGN
Bousman described the hardest scene to film was the "Pig Scene", explaining that they had to rush and it involved filming "so many moving parts". The pig carcasses were made out of foam, rubber, and latex. The pig props had live, disinfected maggots attached with honey.
For "The Rack Trap", Whannell originally conceived it as a trap that would fold a person into a box, though it eventually morphed into the twisting of body parts. Bousman wanted to have a trap that involved freezing someone to death since the films had already covered burning to death, bleeding to death, and being cut to death. A body cast was made of Debra Lynne McCabe for "The Freezer Room" trap, but due to safety regulations a person cannot be entombed; only a front or back body cast could be on the actress at any given time. For the "Classroom Trap", J. Larose's character was originally going to be hanged from the ceiling by meat hooks, but it was decided against since he would not have been able to rip the chains out himself (as the script called for). It proved to be a challenge since it was done with prosthetics and practical effects.
RELEASE
Saw III was released theatrically in the United States and Canada October 27, 2000. According to executive producer Daniel Heffner, the film was toned down seven times to obtain the "R" rating. According to Bousman, the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) ratings board was less concerned with the film's graphic violence than it was with emotional torture, citing television shows like CSI for expanding the scope of what is acceptable. In Japan, Saw III received a R18+ rating while the previous two films received an R15+ rating. At screenings in the United Kingdom, five people were reported to have fainted at separate cinemas with three at one cinema, resulting in ambulances being called. In the United Kingdom it is the first film in the series to be directly distributed by Lionsgate, the previous films were distributed by Entertainment Film Distributors.
MARKETING
The opening scene of Troy's trap was shown at San Diego Comic-Con on July 21, 2006. The same clip was planned to be shown before the opening of Crank in theaters on September 1, 2006. However, the MPAA would not allow it. On October 10, 2006, Bell, Smith and Bousman appeared at Spike TV's Scream Awards to promote the film and the clip of Troy's trap was shown.
Lionsgate's president of theatrical marketing Tim Palen thought of the idea to make 1,000 posters with a small amount of Bell's blood, which was mixed with the printing ink. He said, "I asked if it would be possible to use actual blood. There was silence. He said, 'We could try, but are you serious?' I said I was dead serious." The posters were sold for $20, with the first being auctioned off; all the proceeds from the auctioned poster were donated to the Red Cross. Lionsgate also held the third annual "Give Til It Hurts" blood drive for the Red Cross and collected 23,493 pints of blood.
SOUNDTRACK
The Saw III soundtrack was released on October 24, 2006. It included 20 songs from heavy metal bands like Slayer, Disturbed, Avenged Sevenfold, Ministry, and Helmet. James Christopher Monger of AllMusic gave the soundtrack three out of five stars. Ed Thompson of IGN Music gave it a 7.2 out of 10
HOME MEDIA
Saw III was released to DVD and Blu-ray through Lionsgate Home Entertainment on January 23, 2007. It topped the home video charts in the United States and Canada with 1.6 million units sold its first day and finished the week with 2.5 million units sold. The "Unrated Edition" was also released that day and features a 113-minute cut of the film that includes more gore. A 120-minute-long director's cut was released on October 23, 2007, to coincide with the theatrical release of Saw IV on October 26. It also included an alternate ending. The film grossed $47.5 million in home sales. The film was released on 4K UHD in an Amazon-exclusive steelbook on October 21, 2025.
BOX OFFICE
Saw III opened at number one on 4,700 screens at 3,167 theaters grossing $33.6 million from its opening weekend, a two percent increase from Saw II's $31.7 million. It held the biggest Halloween weekend debut for five years until it was beaten in 2011 by Puss in Boots ($34 million) It was also Lionsgate's highest-opening weekend. Lionsgate's exit polling indicated that 69 percent of the audience was under 25 years old and 51 percent was male. In its second weekend it placed number four, dropping down 56% to $14.8 million, compared to Saw II's second weekend drop of 47% to $16.9 million. The film was closed out of theaters on December 14, 2006, after 49 days of release.
Saw III opened at number five in the international market with an estimated $6 million. It opened at number one in the United Kingdom to $4.7 million. In Taiwan, it placed third and opened to $320,000. For its second weekend it opened to number two with an estimated $9.7 million. In Spain, it made $3.1 million, an improvement over the previous films. For its third weekend, Saw III grossed $8 million, including Japan's opening on 86 screens with $1.1 million. Australia made $4.3 million, Spain grossed $3.8 million and Brazil made $3.8 million. By its fourth weekend, it placed fourth place with an estimated $5.6 million from 24 territories. Its best market was a second-place start in France.
The film took in $80.2 million in the United States and Canada and $84.6 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $164.8 million. Saw III has the highest-grossing weekend in the series, highest-grossing in the international market and is the highest-grossing film in the series worldwide.
CRITICAL RESPONSE
The film was not screened in advance for critics. On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 28% of 92 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 4.5/10. The website's consensus reads: "Saw III does little beyond repeating its predecessor's tropes on a gorier level. Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 48 out of 100, based on 16 critics, indicating "mixed or average" reviews. Audiences polled CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B" on an A+ to F scale.
Variety's Robert Koehler gave the film a mixed review. He criticized the use of several flashbacks in the film, saying that it "[...] hinder[ed] the movie, ratcheting down its tension and pace". He explained, "A bigger problem lies with Leigh Whannell's script, which utilizes so many flashbacks and explanatory inserts that the tension, a defining feature of the first Saw, is lost". He did, however praise the acting. Roger Moore of the Orlando Sentinel gave it two out of five stars, criticizing the plot and acting.
The San Francisco Chronicle's Peter Hartlaub gave the film a negative review, criticizing the plot. Michael Ordoña of the Los Angeles Times said that "More gore is really all Saw III has to offer", Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly gave the film a "C". Randy Cordova of The Arizona Republic gave it a negative review saying, "Saw III is devoid of any suspense or terror". Empire's Kim Newman gave the film two out of five stars. He said the acting was "surprisingly good" but criticized the script and torture devices.
Saw III was nominated for a Saturn Award for Best Horror Film, but lost to The Descent. It was also nominated as the "Choice Movie: Horror/Thriller" at the Teen Choice Awards, but lost to Disturbia. Bell was nominated for a MTV Movie Award for Best Villain, but lost to Jack Nicholson for his role in The Departed.
DETAILER PLOT
After being imprisoned in the bathroom,[b] Detective Eric Matthews breaks his foot with a toilet lid to escape. Six months later, the scene of a Jigsaw game is discovered by Officer Rigg's SWAT team. The victim, Troy, had to rip chains from his body to escape a bomb. Detective Allison Kerry points out that the room's exit was welded shut, breaking Jigsaw's modus operandi of allowing his victims an opportunity to survive. Kerry is abducted and awakens in a harness hooked into her ribs. She retrieves the key from a beaker of acid as instructed, but opening the lock does not keep the trap from killing her.
Dr. Lynn Denlon is abducted from the hospital she works at and brought to the now bedridden John Kramer. His apprentice, Amanda, locks a collar armed with five shotgun shells around Lynn's neck that is connected to John's heart rate monitor and will detonate if she moves out of range or John dies. Lynn is instructed by Amanda to keep him alive until another test subject has completed his game; the victim, Jeff, a grief-stricken father who was consumed with vengeance after the death of his son Dylan in a drunk driving crash years earlier, must undergo a series of tests at an abandoned meatpacking plant to confront those involved in the case.
Jeff's first test leads him into a meat freezer where he finds Danica, the only witness to the crash (who refused to testify in court) completely naked and chained to a metal frame inside the plant's freezer, with nozzles inside the frame spraying her with water to quicken her hypothermia. Jeff retrieves the key after Danica persuades him to help her, but she freezes to death before he can do so. In his next test, Judge Halden, who passed a lenient sentence on the driver who caused Dylan's death, is chained at the neck to the bottom of a vat. Rotting pig carcasses are dropped into a grinder that slowly fill the vat until Jeff saves him by burning Dylan's belongings in an incinerator to retrieve a key. His third test involves Timothy, the driver who killed Dylan, who is strapped to a machine that will slowly twist and snap his limbs and then his head. The key is tied to the trigger of an enclosed shotgun that goes off after Jeff retrieves it, killing Halden. Jeff cries out twice that he forgives Timothy, but even so, he cannot save him in time; the machine twists and breaks Timothy's neck.
Lynn is forced to perform an improvised surgery to relieve pressure on John's brain. The surgery is successful, and Lynn convinces John to order Amanda to remove the collar. However, Amanda refuses and threatens Lynn's life, having become jealous of her interactions with John. John pleads with Amanda, who admits that she no longer believes in his philosophy and had rigged Troy and Kerry's traps. Refusing to listen to John's warnings, Amanda shoots Lynn just as Jeff arrives. Jeff, who is revealed to be Lynn's husband, retaliates by shooting Amanda with a gun provided by John after his tests. As Amanda dies, John reveals that Lynn's test was actually hers: John was aware of her motives and unwilling to allow a murderer to continue his legacy. He then addresses Jeff, offering to call an ambulance for Lynn if he has learned everything from his ordeal, and accept one last test: either killing John or forgiving him. In response, Jeff slashes John's throat with a power saw, activating Lynn's collar as the room is sealed shut. Before dying, John takes out a tape recorder to inform Jeff that his daughter, Corbett, is also captured and no one but him knows where she's being held.
SAW IV (Four)
Saw IV is a 2007 American horror film directed by Darren Lynn Bousman from a screenplay by Patrick Melton and Marcus Dunstan, and a story by Melton, Dunstan, and Thomas Fenton. A sequel to Saw III (2006) and the fourth installment in the Saw film series, it stars Tobin Bell, Scott Patterson, Costas Mandylor, Betsy Russell, and Lyriq Bent.
The film picks up where the previous film left off, with the death of John Kramer. However, it is revealed that John had planned for his death and left behind a series of recordings and clues that would lead investigators to his final game. As the detectives try to unravel the mystery of John's final game, they are drawn into a web of deceit that reveals more of the motives behind his lethal games.
Saw IV was the first film in the franchise to not be written by Leigh Whannell or James Wan. It was released by Lionsgate Films in the United States on October 26, 2007. It received mostly negative reviews from critics and grossed $139 million worldwide. A sequel, Saw V, was released in 2008.
CAST
Tobin Bell as Jigsaw / John Kramer
Costas Mandylor as Detective Hoffman
Scott Patterson as Agent Strahm
Betsy Russell as Jill
Lyriq Bent as Rigg
Athena Karkanis as Agent Perez
Justin Louis as Art
Donnie Wahlberg as Eric Matthews
Angus Macfadyen as Jeff
Bahar Soomekh as Lynn
Dina Meyer as Kerry
Mike Realba as Fisk
Marty Adams as Ivan
Sarain Boylan as Brenda
Billy Otis as Cecil
James Van Patten as Dr. Heffner
Kevin Rushton as Trevor
Julian Richings as a vagrant
Kelly Jones as SWAT Pete
Ingrid Hart as Tracy
Niamh Wilson as Corbett
Janet Land as Morgan
Ron Lea as Rex
Devon Bostick as Derek
Tony Nappo as Gus
Emmanuelle Vaugier as Addison
Noam Jenkins as Michael
Mike Butters as Paul
J. Larose as Troy
Oren Koules as The Man
PRODUCTIVE
In January 2007, Saw writer James Wan stated that a script was in development. Leigh Whannell told Fangoria that he and Wan would be executive producers stating, "James [Wan] and I, as executive producers, are still treating it like our baby; we'll still oversee it. I've definitely been privy to the ideas they've had and the scripts they’ve been writing, and it’s coming along well. I'm actually excited". That following month, Darren Lynn Bousman, who previously directed Saw II and Saw III, was announced to return as director David Hackl, who served as production designer for the two previous Saw films, was offered to direct the film, but the day he received the offer his wife was diagnosed with cancer. Producers offered him directorial duties for Saw V and Saw VI.
As Whannell was uninterested in writing any more Saw films, Twisted Pictures sought new writers and ideas for the fourth Saw film, making it the first film to not be written by him. An executive discovered Marcus Dunstan and Patrick Melton and read their script The Midnight Man. The executive thought that the duo's script could serve as a prequel to the first film, detailing a traumatic event in Jigsaw/John's early life. However, producers Mark Burg and Oren Koules did not want to do a prequel and dropped the idea, but the script led Dunstan and Melton to be hired to write the next three Saw films. Thomas Fenton also joined Dunstan and Melton as writer to the film. Marek Posival was attached to write at one point.
Stepping into the franchise was tricky for Dunstan and Melton, given the serialized nature of the Saw films. However, they counted on Bousman and the crew to watch over them, pitching a trilogy that would start with Saw IV and conclude in Saw VI. The duo did not have any trouble in bringing Jigsaw back into the story despite his death in the last film, as the character had been dying since the original film, feeling that the film would not feel like a Saw entry without the character Like in previous entries, rewrites took place during the writing process, leading many unused ideas for the film to later be recycled for Saw V
Even though Tobin Bell's Jigsaw Killer character was killed off in the previous entry, in March 2007 it was announced that he signed on for Saw IV and Saw V
With a production budget of $10 million, principal photography took place from April 16, 2007 to May 3, 2007 in Toronto
RELEASE
Saw IV was released theatrically in the United States and Canada on October 26, 2007 Lionsgate held its fourth annual "Give Til It Hurts" blood drive for the Red Cross.
SOUNDTRACK
"Saw IV (Music From And Inspired By Saw IV)" was released on October 23, 2007, by Artists' Addiction Records . The film's theme song "I.V." was written by Yoshiki and performed by the rock group X Japan
HOME MEDIA
The DVD and Blu-ray was released on January 22, 2008 by Lionsgate Home Entertainment. It grossed $32.7 million in home sales. The film is set to be released on 4K UHD in an Amazon-exclusive steelbook on October 21, 2025.
BOX OFFICE
The film grossed $63,300,095 in the United States and Canada with an additional $76,052,538 in other markets, bringing the worldwide total to $139,352,633.
CRITICAL RESPONSE
Saw IV received mostly negative reviews from critics. On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 18% of 84 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 3.8/10. The website's consensus reads: "Saw IV is more disturbing than compelling, with material already seen in the prior installments." Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 36 out of 100, based on 16 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable" reviews. Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B" on an A+ to F scale.
Scott Schueller, writing for the Chicago Tribune, called it "a film as edgy as a rubber knife” and said that "if the terrible craft of Bousman's film doesn't turn your stomach, the borderline pornographic violence will. It's disconcerting to imagine anyone enjoying the vile filth splashing the screen." Frank Scheck from The Hollywood Reporter said "the famously inventive torture sequences here seem depleted of imagination", but added that "it hasn't yet jumped the shark like such predecessors as the Nightmare on Elm Street and Friday the 13th movies eventually did."
Peter Hartlaub from The San Francisco Chronicle called it "the Syriana of slasher films, so complicated and circuitous that your only hope of understanding everything is to eat lots of fish the night before and then watch each of the previous films, in order, right before you enter the theater." James Berardinelli wrote that "Saw IV functions as a drawn-out, tedious epilogue to a series that began with an energetic bang three years ago with Saw, then progressively lost momentum, coherence, and intelligence with each successive annual installment."
A less negative review came from Jamie Russell from the BBC, who called it "deeply unsettling; just like a horror movie should be."
DETAILED PLOT
An autopsy of the Jigsaw Killer reveals a wax-coated microcassette in his stomach, and Detective Mark Hoffman is called in to listen to it. The tape promises him that "the games have just begun." In a mausoleum, a man named Trevor and a lawyer named Art Blank are chained to a large device. Trevor's eyes have been sewn shut, and Art's mouth has been sewn shut, making communication between them impossible. When the device begins pulling them together, they panic, and Art eventually kills Trevor to retrieve a key from his collar.
Meanwhile, the police discover the remains of Detective Allison Kerry.[b] Hoffman cautions Officer Daniel Rigg for barging through an unsecured door in attempt to save Kerry. Hoffman is introduced to FBI Agents Peter Strahm and Lindsey Perez, who deduce that Amanda, Jigsaw's apprentice, would have needed assistance with Kerry's death, indicating that there is another apprentice.
That evening, Rigg and Hoffman are kidnapped. Rigg is told that Detective Eric Matthews is in fact still alive, and is given ninety minutes to save himself. He is then given his first test, where he finds a sex trafficker named Brenda strapped to a device that scalps her. He rescues her, although he is warned not to, and Brenda later attempts to stab Rigg; Rigg subdues her and learns that Brenda was told that Rigg was there to arrest her for her crimes.
Strahm interrogates Jill Tuck, Jigsaw's ex-wife, who recounts Jigsaw's backstory. She was once pregnant with a boy named Gideon but suffered a miscarriage when Cecil, a drug addict, robbed the clinic at which she was employed and accidentally slammed a door into her stomach.
Rigg's next test is at a motel, where he is instructed to abduct the manager, Ivan Landsness, revealed to be a serial rapist. Angered by seeing videos of Ivan's exploits, Rigg forces Ivan into a prearranged trap which forces him to gouge out his eyes; he fails to do it in time and the trap dismembers him. Rigg's next test occurs in a school where Rigg attacked a man named Rex acquitted of abusing his family, though Rigg's career was saved by Hoffman. In one of the classrooms, Rigg discovers Rex and his wife, Morgan, chained back to back with a spike impaled through their bodies. Morgan has removed every spike but one, killing Rex and leaving herself barely alive. Rigg removes the final spike and gives Morgan the key to free herself from her restraints, then pulls a fire alarm and leaves.
Strahm and Perez arrive on the scene, where it is learned that all of the victims were defended by Art, who is also Jill's lawyer. After a photographer is accidentally killed on the scene, Perez finds Billy, Jigsaw's puppet, in the office. She is told that Strahm will "soon take the life of an innocent man" and that Perez’s "next step is critical". Ignoring past clues that she is in danger, Perez leans toward Billy and is critically injured by shrapnel when its face explodes. She is rushed to the hospital.
After learning that he had terminal cancer, and after a suicide attempt, Jigsaw placed Cecil in his first trap. After Cecil got out when the trap broke, he lunged at Jigsaw to attack him but fell to his death in a mesh of razor wire. Strahm makes connections from Jill's story to the Gideon Meat Factory, the scene of Rigg's final test.
Strahm arrives but finds himself lost, accidentally trailing Jeff Denlon. Meanwhile, Rigg approaches his final test. In the next room are Art, Eric, and Hoffman; it was revealed earlier that if the door was opened before Rigg's timer expired, Eric's head would be crushed between two ice blocks and Hoffman would be electrocuted by a complex device. Rigg charges through the door with one second to spare. Despite Eric's attempts to stop Rigg by shooting him, he is killed. Rigg shoots Art while, in another room, Strahm encounters Jeff, who brandishes a gun. Strahm, who is unaware that Jeff is frantically searching for his daughter,[b] kills him. Hoffman, who was never in any danger and is revealed to be Jigsaw's other apprentice, rises and seals a dying Rigg and a bewildered Strahm in the factory.
These games are revealed to have taken place before Jigsaw's autopsy, and Hoffman is warned via the microcassette that he can expect to face a test of his own.
SAW V (Five)
Saw V is a 2008 American horror film directed by David Hackl, in his directorial debut, from a screenplay by Patrick Melton and Marcus Dunstan. A sequel to Saw IV (2007) and the fifth installment in the Saw film series, it stars Tobin Bell, Costas Mandylor, Scott Patterson, Betsy Russell, Mark Rolston, Julie Benz, Carlo Rota, and Meagan Good.
The plot follows FBI Agent Peter Strahm (Patterson) investigating the murders committed by the Jigsaw Killer (Bell), but as he delves deeper into the case, he realizes that the murders are part of a larger, more intricate plot. Meanwhile, Jigsaw's accomplice, Mark Hoffman (Mandylor), has been promoted to lieutenant and is tasked with leading the investigation into the Jigsaw murders. However, as Strahm gets closer to the truth, he becomes the target of Jigsaw's traps.
Melton and Dunstan, the writers of Saw IV, returned to write the film. Filming took place in Toronto from March to April 2008. Saw V was released by Lionsgate Films in the United States on October 24, 2008. The film received generally negative reviews from critics and grossed $118.2 million worldwide. A sequel, Saw VI, was released in 2009.
CAST
Tobin Bell as Jigsaw / John Kramer
Costas Mandylor as Mark Hoffman
Scott Patterson as Agent Strahm
Betsy Russell as Jill
Julie Benz as Brit
Meagan Good as Luba
Mark Rolston as Dan Erickson
Carlo Rota as Charles
Greg Bryk as Mallick
Laura Gordon as Ashley
Joris Jarsky as Seth
Mike Butters as Paul
Al Sapienza as Chief of Police
Mike Realba as Detective Fisk
Jeff Pustil as Bernie
Dana Sorman as Law Office Receptionist
Sheila Shah as Special Agent Cowan
Samantha Lemole as Pamela Jenkins
Lyriq Bent as Rigg
Athena Karkanis as Agent Perez
Justin Louis as Art
Donnie Wahlberg as Eric Matthews
Danny Glover as David Tapp
Shawnee Smith as Amanda
Bahar Soomekh as Lynn
Niamh Wilson as Corbett
Angus Macfadyen as Jeff
Tony Nappo as Gus
Tim Burd as Obi
Sarah Power as
DEVELOPMENT AND WRITING
Pre-production began in October 2007 with Saw IV writers Patrick Melton and Marcus Dunstan outlining the story. David Hackl made his directorial debut with Saw V. He previously served as the production designer of Saw II, Saw III, and Saw IV and second unit director for Saw III and Saw IV. Hackl spoke about the fast-paced writing process saying, "We have about a week to write the outline, then the script by the end of the month. We're really just throwing down the ideas now and it's coming together quickly. I've been with Darren on all of [the sequels], we've always arrived just before Christmas with a script that needed a lot of shakedown but, before shooting, [the script] is really tight. Right until the last days of filming we're always changing things and adjusting things just seeing what works as the story unfolds and I think that's why people like them - because we never let them rest. We don't go into pre-production with a white script and say, 'That's it no changes.' We push it so there's no holes." He aimed to bring a more emotional context to film so the audience would have an emotional investment to the character in the traps. Without that, Hackl felt the traps would be "just like any gory horror film", which he did not want.
CASTING AND FILMING
Tobin Bell, Scott Patterson, Costas Mandylor and Betsy Russell reprised their roles as Jigsaw/John, Agent Strahm, Detective Hoffman, and Jill, respectively. Patterson had signed on through Saw VI but stated, "that doesn't mean I'll actually be in it or do it. It's their option" Bell, whose character was killed in Saw III, shot all new flashback scenes for the film. Bell stated that Russell's character Jill, who plays his ex-wife, would not be featured as prominently as in Saw IV, but "still plays an important part in the story".
Julie Benz was cast as Brit, a real estate developer who is put in a Jigsaw trap Benz described her as a "very unlikeable character". On her experience filming she said, "Filming the movie freaked me out. I had nightmares. I'd never been in a psychological horror movie. It actually affected me on a deep level. I don't know if I can actually see this one". However, Benz praised Hackl's directing techniques, such as using a full storyboard on set which helped the actors know the correct camera angles at any given time.
Principal photography took place from March 17 to April 28, 2008 in Toronto
BOX OFFICE
Saw V was released in the United States on October 24, 2008 by Lionsgate Films In its opening weekend, Saw V grossed $30,053,954 in 3,060 theaters in the United States and Canada, ranking number two at the box office behind High School Musical 3: Senior Year. It grossed $56,746,769 in the United States and Canada, and an additional $57,117,290 in other markets, for a worldwide total of $113,864,059
CRITICAL RESPONSE
On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 13% of 77 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 3.1/10. The website's consensus reads: "If its plot were as interesting as its torture devices, or its violence less painful than its performances, perhaps Saw V might not feel like it was running on fumes." Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 20 out of 100, based on 13 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable" reviews. Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "C" on an A+ to F scale, the lowest of the franchise.
Elizabeth Weizman of the New York Daily News gave Saw V one out of five stars. She believed that the lack of Tobin Bell's Jigsaw character hurt the film: "Bell's deliciously twisted madman was the lifeline of this series and, without him, we're left watching a routine horror flick that might as well have gone straight to DVD. The series began with two major assets that set it apart: the concept of a brilliantly righteous executioner, and the actor who played him. Now, aside from Bell's brief, intermittent cameos, it has neither. So where the original Saw was diabolical fun, this fifth installment is as bloodless as the most unfortunate of Jigsaw's victims." Sam Adams of the Los Angeles Times wrote that "The virtues of the individual films are almost beside the point, since it's hard to imagine why anyone would want to pick up the thread at this late date, but Saw V is a particularly dull and discombobulated affair, shot and acted with all the flair of a basic-cable procedural"
Some reviews were positive, however. The British website Digital Spy rated it three out of five stars and commended the film for its "solid acting, slick direction and suitably filthy cinematography too", while also stating it will "make far more sense to those familiar with the previous installments". Jim Vejvoda of IGN awarded the film with three out of five stars stating that the film ties up most of the loose ends of the previous four installments while also having a more straightforward and less complicated storyline. They also praised the traps for being the most inventive and best that the Saw franchise has had to offer.
HOME MEDIA
Charlie Clouser, who provided the score for all previous Saw films, returned to compose the score for the film. The "Saw V Original Motion Picture Soundtrack" was released on October 21, 2008 by Artists' Addiction Records. Spence D. from IGN.com gave the soundtrack a score of 7.9 out of 10, saying, "From start to finish the Saw V soundtrack flows with a sense of purpose and cohesion, the tracks having a unifying dark undercurrent that makes for an electric shocked jolting mixtape with dark intent."
Saw V was released on DVD on January 20, 2009. An unrated director's cut was released and runs approximately 3 minutes longer than the theatrical cut. The film grossed $28.8 million in home sales.
DETAILED PLOT
Convicted murderer Seth Baxter wakes up chained to a table beneath a pendulum blade. He is told that he can release himself by crushing his hands between two presses. He does so, but the blade still bisects him as someone watches through a hole in the wall.
FBI agent Peter Strahm escapes from the room he was locked in by Detective Hoffman.[b] He is then attacked by a figure in a pig mask and wakes up with his head sealed in a box that is quickly filling with water. Outside, Hoffman delivers Corbett, the kidnapped daughter of Jeff,[c] to the police and claims they are the only survivors. Strahm, having survived the trap by performing a tracheotomy with his pen, is brought out alive as well, much to Hoffman's shock.
Hoffman is promoted and credited with closing the Jigsaw case. Hoffman later finds a note in his office reading "I know who you are", and learns of Agent Lindsey Perez's death while taking Strahm's cell phone from the police evidence room. At the hospital, Strahm tells Hoffman that Perez's last words were "Detective Hoffman" and questions how he escaped the plant. After being put on medical leave by his boss, Agent Dan Erickson, Strahm, suspicious of Hoffman, decides to uncover his involvement with Jigsaw and takes case files of past Jigsaw victims to research them.
In an underground sewer, Ashley, Brit, Charles, Luba and Mallick awaken with collars locked around their necks, connected by cables to a set of blades mounted on the wall behind them. The keys to the collars are in individual glass boxes across the room. A videotape informs them that they are all connected and that they must "do the opposite" of their instincts if they are all to survive the tests ahead of them. Ashley fails to retrieve the key and gets decapitated. In the second room, which is filled with explosives on a timer, Charles first attacks Mallick and then Luba, but she, Brit, and Mallick each retrieve keys to bomb shelters set in the walls. Charles is left to die when the timer expires and the explosives detonate.
Strahm learns that Hoffman killed Seth Baxter, who had killed Hoffman's sister, years prior. John Kramer abducted Hoffman after the fact and blackmailed him into helping him set up his future "games."
In the third room, Brit kills Luba before she and Mallick put her corpse in a bathtub and connect it to five cables to complete an electric circuit that unlocks the next door.
John's ex-wife Jill Tuck claims Strahm is stalking her. Strahm concludes that everyone was meant to die at the plant except for Corbett and Hoffman. After Hoffman tells Erickson about Strahm's theory of a second Jigsaw accomplice, Erickson tries to call him. Hoffman answers on Strahm's phone and hangs up. Erickson has one of his agents track the phone's signal.
In the final room, Mallick and Brit find a machine fitted with five saws and a beaker requiring ten pints of blood to open the final door. They realize that all prior tests could have been completed without casualties if they had worked together, and figure out their connection: they were all involved in a building fire that killed eight people. Mallick and Brit concede a truce and each slice an arm in the saws to provide the blood needed to open the final door.
Following the signal to the sewer observation room, Erickson finds the phone and his own personnel file, both planted by Hoffman. He also finds the still-living Brit and Mallick and calls for medical attention, before putting an all-points bulletin on Strahm, convinced that he is Jigsaw's successor. Meanwhile, Strahm follows Hoffman to the renovated nerve gas house and finds a tape in a room with a box filled with broken glass. The tape is a message from Hoffman urging Strahm to enter the box, but Strahm stops it short and ambushes Hoffman, whom he seals in the box. Strahm believes he has finally caught Hoffman, but the door to the room suddenly shuts itself and the walls begin to close in as the box is lowered beneath the floor. Strahm finishes playing the tape, which warns him that if he does not enter the box, he will die and be framed as Jigsaw's apprentice. Safe inside the box, Hoffman watches as Strahm unsuccessfully tries to escape the room and is crushed to death.