Entertainment Swindon

With Halloween just around the corner and the update on the release of the eleventh instalment of horror franchise Saw set to hit cinemas on 26th September 2025, in time for next years halloween, we take a look at the best Saw Traps across all ten current Saw movies.

This was a tough task, first we had to sit back and binge all ten Saw movies, I know! Tough job right?! But someones gotta do it!

There are so many traps across the franchise, all of which deserve to be on the list, but like Jigsaw, we had to be brutal, so here is our list…

1: SAW II – Needle Pit 

For me, the ‘Needle Pit’ has to be number one at the top of the list of best traps, this one might not be the most gory or bloodiest, but for me, I hate needles as it is. So to be pushed into a pit full of needles, where the only way to complete the task and to get out, is to dig deep into the pit further, willingly stab yourself with hundreds of needles! I cant believe there was anyone sat there watching this scene without cringing and curling up in a ball feeling the pain.

2: SAW – THE BATHROOM TRAP

You can never beat the original!… In the original Saw, this I believe couldn’t be more true, again, this trap wasn’t the most the most elaborate, complex. But, I would say it’s one of the most cringey traps of the whole franchise. Simple is often best. Imagine waking up in a dirty dim lit bathroom, chained to the wall by your ankle, the only way to escape is to literally saw your foot off at the ankle with a blunt rusty saw. Thats what characters Adam Stanheight (played by Leigh Whannell) and Dr Lawrence Gordon (played by Cary Elwes) wake up to, each chained to pipes by one ankle.

“He doesn’t want us to cut through our chains, he wants us to cut through our feet.” That line from Dr Gordon and the bathroom scene, launched one of the most successful horror franchises ever.

3: SAW VI – POUND OF FLESH

Again a simple trap… For this one Simone (played by Tanedra Howard) and Eddie (played by Marty Moreau) are given a knife and a meat cleaver and told to cut a pound of flesh from their bodies, or they will be killed by the device attached to their heads, where screws will be drilled into their head until they are dead.

They are left with no choice but to start carving, I do have to wonder who and how someone comes up with all these different ways to kill people, its as if they are secret serial killers in the making, or maybe they already are, certainly they have a creative and very sick mind.

4: SAW 3D – Public Execution Trap aka The Love Triangle Trap

The Public Execution Trap, otherwise known as the Love Triangle Trap is the Saw 3D opening trap. The scene is set in a mall in front of a large crowd, no longer hidden away, this trap is set for all to see and in part what makes this all the more gruesome and it making the cut for ‘The Greatest Saw Traps’.

Three victims are in the trap. Two men have their arms strapped down to a workshop table with saw blades on rails. In the middle of the table contains a long, chainsaw like mechanical device in the middle of the table.

The final victim is suspended up in the air, hovering over this chainsaw device. The goal of the game, one of the three must die. Either one of the two men have to push the saw on the work bench at the other to kill them, or come together bringing the saw to the centre and let the girl die. Live or die, Make your choice.

5: SAW – Razor Wire

A suicidal man wakes up naked in a maze filled with razor-wire, and in order to escape from the trap before an automatic door locks him in forever, he must crawl through the maze, slicing himself to shreds in the process. Again, its a simple trap, but its the gritty cinematography, including flashes, the glitches and of course the screams from the naked victim just make this a gruesome trap to make you cringe.

6: SAW III – The Rack

The victim of this trap is locked in an upright full-body crucifix-like contraption with rotating parts. Once activated, a series of gears begin to slowly turn, and the victim’s arms and legs start to twist until his bones snap. Eventually, the victim’s entire head is forced to rotate in a complete 360-degree arc until his neck breaks. It’s a ghastly device that takes its name from a real-life medieval torture instrument that literally pulled its victims in half.

7: SAW IV – Scalping Seat

The Saw traps work best when the viewer can relate to them in some personal way, and since everyone has had their hair pulled at one time or another.

Like all great SAW traps, slow agonising pain is best. SAW IV is definatly one of the most relatable traps across the franchise. A woman is chained to a mechanical chair and her long ponytail is inserted through a metal ring behind her head. As a series of gears begin to slowly turn, her hair is pulled further and further back, until her scalp is literally ripped from her skull, exposing the ghostly white bone beneath her flesh. The sound effects in this scene are enough to make you sick to your stomach.

The Scalping Machine is one of the first tests in Saw IV and is the most gruesome in the whole film by far. It’s a chair that is attached to a mechanical axis that moves backward, pulling the victim’s hair.

The ultimate outcome desired from this trap is to slowly scalp whoever is sitting in it. The Jigsaw killer invented the trap to punish a pimp called Brenda, who would abuse sex workers to gain power.

8: SPIRAL (Book of SAW) – Subway Trap

The very first trap in “Spiral” finds a detective strung up by his tongue in the middle of a subway tunnel. As a speeding train races towards him, he’s forced to decide whether to leap from the platform he’s standing on, thus ripping his own tongue from his mouth, or dangle in mid-air and let the oncoming subway train pulverise him. The close-up shots of the victim’s quivering tongue clamped tightly in an S&M-like device are extremely hard to watch.

9: SAW/SAW VI/SAW 3D – Reverse Bear Trap

The original theatrical poster for “Saw” depicts beloved franchise favourite Shawnee Smith wearing a massive contraption on her head. A reverse-engineered bear trap, the device is designed to spring open rather than clamp shut.

In effect, once triggered, it will literally snap a victim’s head open at the mouth. This infamous trap proved so popular with fans that it returned several times throughout the series.

In “Saw VI,” psychotic detective Mark Hoffman (played by Costas Mandylor) is forced to wear the contraption, which tears a bloody hole in his cheek when it partially springs open. And in “Saw 3D,” Jigsaw’s wife Jill is killed by the device when it opens fully while attached to her head. The final gory image of her gaping mouth ranks high among the sickest sights in the series.

10: SAW 3D – Horsepower Trap

Rip the flesh off your back to save you and your friends… Would you?

One of the most complex traps in the Saw franchise, this one involves four victims in a filthy garage. One victim is glued into the driver’s seat of an El Camino, while another is strapped with barbed-wire to a metal plate beneath the car’s raised rear tire. A third victim is pierced with hooks and chained to the car’s rear bumper, and a fourth is padlocked to a wall directly in front of the vehicle.

If the victim in the driver’s seat can rip himself free and pull a nearby lever in under 30 seconds, all four will survive. If he can’t, the car will simultaneously kill all of them. The final result is an epic massacre, impressively shot in 3-D.

11: Silo Trap

The trap takes place in a grain silo. Kilos of grains would fall over the victims and trap their bodies up to their shoulders. After that, the grain would cease falling, and in its place, various sharp objects such as circular saws and pitchforks would rain down.

The victims of the trap would be killed by any falling debris unless the door was opened, which could be done by pulling a lever located in the Leg Wires. Pulling the lever would open the door, as well as also sever the leg of the victim of the aforementioned trap.

12: SAW IV – Knife Chair

After accidentally causing Jigsaw’s wife to miscarry her baby, a drug addicted criminal finds himself strapped to a chair in the maniac’s workshop. In order to escape from the trap, he must lean forward and push a strategically located pressure plate with his forehead.

Unfortunately for him, eight knives are positioned in front of his face, meaning he’ll have to slice himself to pieces in order to free himself from the shackles. Character actor Billy Otis does a wonderful job of portraying the doomed victim’s pain and terror.

13: SAW 2 – The Venus Fly Trap Death Mask

The Venus Fly Trap Death Mask is quite a simple but effective trap. It’s a metal trap around the neck, and the victim has a minute to free themselves from it. To make matters worse, the key to opening this trap is located behind the subject’s eye.

This famous trap appears in Saw 2, and the person who tries and fails to get out of it is Detective Michael Marks, who is ironically trying to solve the Jigsaw murders. Some of the traps in the series, as gruesome as they always are, do feel solvable, but this one is near impossible to get out of, and that is why it’s so gruesome.

14: SAW X – BRAIN SURGERY TRAP

The “eye vacuum” trap got a lot of attention when Saw X was being released and a lot of fans really like the bone marrow trap – but the most troubling trap in this film may be the one that forces a man to perform brain surgery on himself.

He has to remove a piece of his brain and get it dissolved in an enzyme tank within a certain amount of time of a mask of heated coils will snap shut on his face. The idea of having to cut open your own skull and take out a chunk of your brain, otherwise you’ll be burned to death… There’s a reason the production company behind these movies is called Twisted Pictures.

15: SAW III – The Pig Vat

This revolting trap takes place in an abandoned meat processing plant, where the victim is chained to the bottom of a large cylindrical vat. Overhead, a dozen rotting pig carcasses are dropped into an industrial grinder that liquifies their putrid bodies and pours the foul-smelling juice into the vat, thus drowning the victim in gallons of rancid pig goo.

Actor Barry Flatman portrays the victim, and he deserves hazard pay for going through what he does in this monumentally disgusting trap. According to a recent tweet from director Darren Lynn Bousman, co-star Angus MacFadyen quit the movie after this scene when he was unexpectedly sprayed with pig guts. “I had to talk him in to coming back,” Bousman said.

16: SAW 3D – Go Kart Trap

This trap is actually a dream and not really a real trap. Saw 3D was possibly the weakest of the franchise, using 3D as a gimmick to make the trap scenes more gruesome, but just made the scenes less gruesome and more gimmicky where you laugh, more so than cringe, but this scene is a great scene still and had to go into the list.

17: SPIRAL (Book of SAW) – Finger Trap

Inspired by the harmless toy finger cuffs that children sometimes play with, this horrifying trap in “Spiral” finds a corrupt detective held captive in an abandoned warehouse with each of his ten fingers locked in a device that slowly rips them from his hands.

Director Darren Lynn Bousman places his camera lovingly close to the victim’s skin as it gradually stretches and then tears, making this trap one of the most difficult to watch in the franchise’s history

18: SAW III – The Freezer

In this frosty trap, a woman is chained naked in the freezer of an abandoned meatpacking plant and is repeatedly sprayed with icy water that freezes on her exposed skin, turning her into a human popsicle. A variation on this chilly trap was included in “Saw: The Video Game.”

As the trap’s unfortunate victim, actress Debra McCabe does a remarkable job of displaying the pure agony and terror that her character goes through. Her performance truly helps sell the scene.

19: JIGSAW – LASER COLLARS

The franchise goes super hi-tech with this trap, which feels like it should have been saved for a future sequel where the series goes to space. Brad Halloran (Callum Keith Rennie) and Logan Nelson (Matt Passmore) are both fitted with metal collars that have seven powerful lasers attached to them.

These lasers start out being blasted straight up, but gradually turn inward toward Brad and Logan’s heads. If they can’t get Jigsaw to shut off the lasers and release them from the collars, their heads will be sliced into seven pieces. The laser collars earn a place on the list because who ever thought a Saw trap would include frickin’ laser beams?