Top 10 Secrets About How the Saw Traps Were Filmed

“Saw VI” (2009)
Where many “Saw” sets are dark, grimy dungeons, the Steam Room was one of the most elaborate they’ve ever created. Full of crisscrossing pipes spread across two levels, this tricky set was the location of a fast-paced action sequence between two survivors. The hardest part was getting the look of the steam just right, since obviously you can’t blast hot steam, which is around 212 degrees Fahrenheit, at people. Even actors. Some steam did still make it onto the set for atmospheric effect, but for the rest, they used a smoke machine and increased the velocity of the smoke to make it look like it was pressurized.

“Jigsaw” (2017)
This trap proved that simplicity is best, having only one ingredient: a shotgun. It’s got a key inside one of the shells and they need to get it out in order to free themselves. But rather than work together, one survivor, Anna, takes matters into her own hands and tries to shoot Ryan – the shotgun, however, backfires and kills her. How was this accomplished without actually rigging a shotgun to backfire? It’s easy enough: they used two props, one with a hole blown in it and one without. And the key props within were designed to look like they’d been destroyed in the blast.

“Saw V” (2008)
Sometimes actors go through hell to bring us a great scene, and that’s exactly what happened when Scott Patterson, who played Strahm, had to film the water box trap. There were very few special effects needed for this one, all they had to do was make sure that the box could hold water, but also that it could be emptied at a moment’s notice when Patterson was no longer able to hold his breath. While they always have plenty of medics on set for “Saw”, there was still a very real element of danger to Patterson, and because it was all close-up shots there was no chance of getting a stunt double.

“Saw V” (2008)
Rather than drowning, Strahm finally met his demise this that classic booby trap: a crushing room, where the walls slowly closed in and killed him. To accomplish this, they built an incredibly complex set. It had to be suspended a few feet off the ground so that Hoffman’s glass box could sink beneath the floor, and the walls needed to actually move. The special effects supervisor, Jeff Skochko, said that it was one of the most dangerous traps they ever built. To create the moment where Strahm’s arm gets snapped, they made a fake arm that could be broken as many times as necessary.

“Saw IV” (2007)
How did they make all those blocks of ice look so convincing? Well, all the ice in this trap was actually real, which made it an incredibly difficult shoot for continuity; you can’t have ice blocks thawing and freezing over and over again in one scene, after all. Even the blocks used to decapitate Eric’s head were real – though his head certainly wasn’t. They used a bag of fake blood suspended right where his head would be to get the final shot of the blocks crushing it. And to get the remains seen by Hoffman later on a realistic cast of Donnie Wahlberg’s face was created.

“Saw III” (2006)
Here our Detective Kerry has to either put her hand in a jar of acid to retrieve a key to unlock her harness, or have her ribs and chest torn apart by this metal contraption. More complex than the mechanisms, however, were the prosthetics Dina Meyer had to wear. She had three separate layers of prosthesis attached to her body that could be torn apart by the machine on camera, including replicas of her skin, muscles, internal organs, and, of course, lots of blood. The result is certainly convincing and especially gruesome – it’s as violent as it is clever.

“Saw II” (2005)
Nobody likes getting shots, and this fear was taken to its extreme in this relatively simple concept. But while the idea was easy enough, the execution was particularly challenging; during pre-production, the crew severely underestimated how many needles they would need to create a “pit.” Where they originally thought they would only need 20,000 needles, they actually needed 120,000, and it took four people four days to replace all the metal tips with fake ones. And to get the footage of Amanda pulling out the needles later on, a replica of Shawnee Smith’s arm was made and stabbed with real syringes.

“Saw IV” (2007)
This infamous trap saw another of Jigsaw’s victims have their hair slowly pulled off by a heavy gear system, ripping off not only the hair but also scalping them. From a technical aspect, it was actually very difficult to accomplish, however; Sarain Boylan had an entire fake forehead, fake scalp, and wig attached owing to her having much shorter hair in real life. They also had to use a body double who had longer, natural hair for some shots where her face wasn’t visible, to make it look more convincing. Ultimately, it was Boylan’s performance that made the scene so compelling – she definitely gave it her all.

“Saw III” (2006)
One of the grossest traps to ever grace the big screen, the Pig Vat entailed pig carcasses moving through a meat grinder, creating a gruesome, gray pulp used to drown somebody trapped below. The pigs and the pulp aren’t one and the same, however; they only had four rotten pig props to use, which had to be repeatedly moved to give the illusion that there were many more on the conveyor belt. The pulp was a mixture created by the filmmakers and dumped on the actor, but the maggots seen on the pig carcasses were 100% real; they were sterile and shipped in from a laboratory to make sure they were safe.

Before we unveil our top pick, here are a few Honorable Mentions:

A Stunt Man Was Actually Set on Fire Inside a Specially-Designed Furnace
“Saw II” (2005)

The Box Had to Hide the Blades So Addison Would Realistically Reach In
“Saw II” (2005)

A Prosthetic Body of the Actor Was Made So They Could Rip Him Apart
“Saw IV” (2007)

The Face Stitches Are Fake; the Winch Pulling the Chain Is Real
“Saw IV” (2007)

Both Actors Were Cutting Into Prosthetics… Not Themselves (Obviously)
“Saw VI” (2009)

“Saw II” (2005)
The first movie’s reverse bear trap was iconic, but since Amanda escaped, we never got to see it in action. Luckily the sequel was there to deliver by revamping the original head trap into the “Venus fly trap”, an iron face mask full of rusty nails that would clamp closed in a matter of minutes. The first thing needed to create this trap was a face cast of the actor Noam Jenkins’ head, to make sure it fit nice and snug when it was closed, and the spikes themselves were simply made of rubber. This is so they can get the shot of it snapping shut without having to remove the spikes or risk injuring Jenkins.