Warning: This article contains major SPOILERS for Saw X.
Jigsaw has made his way back to movie theaters with Saw X, and the 10th installment in the horror series features some of his most gruesome traps yet. Taking place between the events of the first and second movies, Saw X sees John Kramer enforcing his particular manner of life therapy on a group of scam artists who tricked him into thinking they could cure his cancer. It is by far Jigsaw’s most personal game yet, and the traps reflect that.
Saw X debuted with the highest Rotten Tomatoes score of the entire series, receiving rave reviews from fans and critics alike. It’s being called one of the best films in the entire franchise and for good reason. Not only does Saw X provide a compelling story for Tobin Bell’s Jigsaw, but it also has some of the franchise’s most fun and inventive traps. Director Kevin Greutert, who also helmed Saw VI and VII, knows how to craft exciting sequences around the traps and film them in appropriately gruesome ways. Saw X displays some of the filmmaker’s best work and some of Jigsaw’s most brutal games.
7 Poison Gas Room Trap
As is the case in almost every Saw movie, the final trap isn’t what it initially appears to be. Just as it seems Synnøve Macody Lund’s Dr. Pederson and Steven Brand’s Parker have outsmarted Jigsaw, they unwittingly walk into the final trap: a gas chamber with a vent for only one of them to live. As the room fills with gas, Dr. Pederson quickly kills her husband, allowing her to poke her head out of the room and survive, even if she is deformed by the toxins.
This is a satisfying reversal, as John Kramer proves his mastermind skills and just how heartless Pederson is. Still, it’s not a very gruesome trap. Outside some slight scarring on their faces — and Parker’s stomach wounds — there is not a lot of bloodshed. Pederson gets off pretty easy considering how awful of a person she is throughout the film. It is a great trap in terms of wrapping up the story and giving the audience one last twist, but the film is filled with more gruesome and inventive games from Jigsaw.
6 Blood-Boarding Trap
More creative than gruesome, the blood-boarding trap is basically a seesaw where whoever is on the lower end is waterboarded with gallons of blood. This trap is less gruesome by design, as it is not meant for any of Jigsaw’s actual victims. While it first appears to be the final trap for Dr. Pederson, Saw X‘s twist ending reveals it to be a decoy meant for John and Amanda while Pederson springs the final trap. The trap becomes more upsetting when the innocent child, Carlos, is roped in by Dr. Pederson, taking Amanda’s spot. Thankfully, John takes most of the torture, protecting the kid.
5 Radiation Trap
Renata Vaca’s Gabriella is one of the more innocent victims in Jigsaw’s latest game, sharing many traits with Amanda before she joined John’s twisted cause. Her trap involves her being suspended by chains while high amounts of radiation are shot at her. The only way out is to break one arm and one leg. Gabriella survives the trap, but she looks much worse for wear, as the radiation does major damage to her skin. The detailed prosthetics make this trap more gruesome in practice than in theory. The brutal breaking of both her limbs and the grizzly fall to the ground only add insult to injury.
4 Eye Trap
As seen on most of the posters for Saw X, the eye trap is one of the more inventive traps of the series. The first trap in the film — and unrelated to the main game — an unnamed custodian has tubes hooked to his eyes. Unless he breaks all the fingers in his left hand, a vacuum will suck his eyes right out of his head. The victim fails his test, and the film shows in graphic detail the eyes being ripped from their sockets and flying into the vacuum. While this trap is revealed to be a hypothetical one John imagines, the film still shows all the gruesome elements.
3 Pipe Bomb Trap
The first trap of Jigsaw’s vengeful game, Joshua Okamoto’s Diego has two pipe bombs implanted into his arms, and the only way to get them out is to cut through his skin with blades that have been tapped to his hands. Diego pretended to be a surgeon to scam cancer patients, so this trap is one of the more ironic and darkly funny ones. After some major damage to both of his forearms, Diego survives the trap as he gets the bombs off just before they explode. This is a classic type of Jigsaw trap and is appropriately bloody and stomach-turning.
2 Bone Marrow Trap
Perhaps the Saw X trap with the most bloodshed, the bone marrow trap finds Paulette Hernández’s Valentina tied to a pipe with a wire on a timer to decapitate her. To escape, Valentina has to cut off her left leg and use a tube to suck out enough bone marrow before time runs out. She manages to get the leg off, but she is not quick enough with the marrow. Her head comes clean off. As the first real trap someone fails in the movie, it is pretty grisly, and the use of Valentina’s intestines as rope later on only makes this trap all the more gruesome.
1 Brain Surgery Trap
Before the release of Saw X, the brain surgery trap was the most hyped sequence in the movie, and the excitement is warranted. Octavio Hinojosa’s Mateo must perform brain surgery on himself, cutting out enough of his brain matter before time runs out, or the bladed mask around him will close, killing him. Mateo cutting into his own skull would be blood-curdling enough, but the detailed focus on the brain matter coming out of his head makes this by far the most horrifying trap in the film — and perhaps one of the most brutal Jigsaw traps of all the Saw movies.
