I Want To Play A Game (Part 3)
Here’s part three of my list of SAW traps—ranked from most boring and phoned in to most horrifying and coolest, and whether or not I could beat them. Read Part One here and Part Two here.
44 Cycle Trap
JIGSAW (2017)
HOW IT WORKS: Dangling upside down in a blade cyclone, the victim has to avoid touching the sides and pull a handbrake at the bottom.
COULD I BEAT IT?: Yes. You gotta pull that handbrake while Anna has the thing stopped. To be fair though, she probably should've mentioned that the bar holding the wheel in place wasn't super secure.
43 Amanda’s Test
SAW III (2006)
HOW IT WORKS: Amanda is tasked with unlocking Lynn from the Shotgun Collar and freeing her after they have no more need for her services.
COULD I BEAT IT?: Yes. I'm slightly less unhinged than Amanda is and I think I'd be pretty grateful that this woman was trying to keep my father figure alive. Like, yeah, John's poking at her the whole time, and I'd be bummed to be pushed off to the side for someone else the way she thinks is happening, but isn't that even more reason to unlock her and kick her out of the building?
42 Chain Hangers
JIGSAW (2017)
HOW IT WORKS: The chains from the previous trap are still wrapped around the necks of the survivors and they’re being pulled in and eventually up about to be hung and/or strangled. The victims are told that one of them was injected with a poison, the purse snatcher, and despite that only pertaining to one of them, they all check their bodies for needle marks. With the theme of confession really beating them about the heads in this one, the poisoned person is asked how much a life costs to them. Simply, they must confess the dollar amount they got from the purse snatching that left a woman dead and choose the needle with that number on it to receive that antidote and free them all from their chains.
COULD I BEAT IT?: Yes. She literally says “three dollars and fifty-three cents” is what a life costs multiple times, just jab it in her instead of all of them.
41 The Shotgun Collar
SAW III (2006)
HOW IT WORKS: A collar with five shotgun shells aimed at the head and hooked up to a cancer patient’s heart monitor. If the heart monitor flatlines, the shotgun shells are pierced causing the person in the collar to die.
COULD I BEAT IT?: No. I'm not a doctor. But that also means I wouldn't be placed in it to begin with, so maybe yes? I mean, I'd definitely follow the instructions of whoever put it on me.
40 Shotgun Keys
JIGSAW (2017)
HOW IT WORKS: John Kramer presents a shotgun shell and tells the victims “here’s your key to freedom” before putting it in the gun and then leaving the room. They have to work it out from there.
COULD I BEAT IT?: No. I honestly would’ve misunderstood the instructions. Why would anyone think to deconstruct the shell? What if that wasn’t what he actually meant and you just ruined your way out?
39 The Ice Block Trap
SAW IV (2007)
HOW IT WORKS: Detective Matthews is hanging above an enormous block of ice, his toes barely brushing the top while Hoffman is strapped to an electric chair on the opposite side. They’re both on a platform that acts as a seesaw. As the ice block melts, the water from it flows to the side of the electric chair to shock Hoffman. On top of this, there are two more large ice blocks above Matthews on either side of him. If the door to the room they’re in opens before the time is up and the trap is deactivated, the hovering ice blocks will slam down on either side of his head, crushing it.
COULD I BEAT IT?: No. Detective New Kid on the Block isn’t in control of the trap and Detective Hoffman isn’t in any real danger from it. It’s rigged and unwinnable.
38 The Lawnmower Trap
SAW 3D (2010)
HOW IT WORKS: Two people clinging to spiky poles in the air above lawnmowers with the blades facing skyward are across from one another and must take the other one down.
COULD I BEAT IT?: Yes. Hanging on to the jagged bar would suck, but I’d repeatedly kick that man in the junk.
37 The Glass Coffin
SAW V (2008)
HOW IT WORKS: The room with the coffin in it will have the walls slowly close on the victim if they don’t get into the coffin which will be lowered down out of the room before it can crush them.
COULD I BEAT IT?: Yes. I'd really rather take my chances with whatever was gonna happen in the coffin than getting crushed like I dove into a garbage chute in STAR WARS and I'd definitely listen to the entire tape of my message from The Jigsaw Killer. But if I was in there with Hoffman, I'd also try to fight him.
36 The Spike Trap
SAW IV (2007)
HOW IT WORKS: A married couple (a husband who beats his wife) are locked back-to-back with spikes piercing through both of their bodies. The wife’s are flesh wounds while the husband’s are going through major arteries. The wife is tasked with pulling the spikes out to save herself and let her husband bleed to death.
COULD I BEAT IT?: Yes. The only difference between this woman and myself is that I wouldn't have said sorry before starting.
35 The Razor Box
SAW II (2005)
HOW IT WORKS: A glass box suspended from the ceiling with two holes in the bottom just big enough to stick your arms through, but the arm holes are folded over razors that catch one you try to remove the arm.
COULD I BEAT IT?: Yes. You’d have to notice once you had the first arm through what was going on. I’m too wobbly to not have even slightly retracted that first arm and gone “oop, better use my spare hand to lift these so I can pull my arm back out”. To be fair to Addison though, I also wouldn’t have walked around to the other side to see that there was a lock with a key already inside it on the box.
34 The Mausoleum
SAW IV (2007)
HOW IT WORKS: A man with his eyelids sewn shut and a man with his mouth sewn shut are attached by the neck to either side of a machine that will pull the chains around their necks in until they’re strangled. The “blind” man has a box of tools on his side they could use as weapons and the “mute” man has the ability to see that the key to the shackles around their necks is attached to the back of the blind man’s shackle.
COULD I BEAT IT?: Yes. The blind guy immediately throws a tiny hatchet thing at the mute guy. The fact that he doesn't use it to cut the thread on his mouth and communicate is insane. More insane is that once he beats the trap the violent way and is unlocked, he's perfectly capable of finding a pocketknife or even just going to a hospital to be looked after, but he instead just opens his mouth wide enough that they rip. Bonkers.
33 The Needle Pit
SAW II (2005)
HOW IT WORKS: A giant hole filled with tens of thousands of gross, used syringes with one buried among the others that held a key attached to it.
COULD I BEAT IT?: Yes. Much like Amanda does in the film, after being unceremoniously thrown into the pit, you may as well just go ham and start digging through them until you find what you need.
32 The Wisdom Teeth Combination
SAW 3D (2010)
HOW IT WORKS: Bobby’s next task is to find a four-digit combination to progress further through the building, but the digits are etched into his wisdom teeth and he has to pull them to see the numbers.
COULD I BEAT IT?: Yes. Fun fact: I was in a car accident that absolutely wrecked my grill and ended up having my top teeth pulled to get fake ones. It didn’t hurt nearly as bad as I thought it would.
31 Leg Wires
JIGSAW (2017)
HOW IT WORKS: When spotting a door that is clearly marked “no exit,” one of the victims walks over to open it anyway. Due to his inability to follow the rules, he’s punished when the floor collapses beneath him, his leg now underneath and wrapped up in three wires that periodically tighten around it. To escape, he just has to pull a lever.
COULD I BEAT IT?: Yes. He just has to pull a lever.
