To celebrate the release of the 10th installment SAW X (in cinemas now!), your pal The Reaper is stumbling down some barely-lit corridors and avoiding doors with words on them as we travel back through the series and look at some of the best traps concocted by John Kramer (and friends)
As always, my own opinion and this is just 5 OF the best…
REVERSE BEAR TRAP
The quintessential SAW trap, this was first seen in the original and has since featured in seven different films plus video games and shorts.
it is usually secured to the victim’s head by a padlock with a time limit to unlock before the trap, attached to each of the victim’s jaws, springs into action and rips their face apart.
NEEDLE PIT
Just plain nasty. Featured in SAW II, this saw Amanda thrown into a literal pit of needles to locate a key. A single key.
SHOTGUN CAROUSEL
Genius. In SAW VI, a health company CEO is confronted with 6 of his employees tied to a carousel, and he has to choose which one lives while the other five get a shotgun to the chest. This whole sequence is brilliant, heightened by the employees turning on each other to try and save themselves.
RAZOR MAZE
Another one from the original, some poor schmuck is stuffed into a tiny crawlspace which turns out to be a maze filled with barbed wire. He’s given 2 hours to navigate the maze or the door locks and he’s trapped. Not surprisingly, he doesn’t make it and succumbs to the wire but imagine what was going through his mind while he’s trying to get out.
SILENT CIRCLE
Seen in SAW 3D, a lying author tries to save his complicit publicist – the only way to do this is to pull a key up from her stomach which is attached to a fishing hook that will pierce her as he withdraws it. Every time she screams, the metal rods near her throat get closer as well. You see this one coming and it’s agonising.
The series is chock full of brutal, ingenious traps so I could have done 20 of the best but capped it at 5!
SAW X is in cinemas right now, let’s get out and support horror on the big screen.