- The introduction of the Helluva Shorts. Some feel that they are completely pointless and the team should strictly make new episodes. Others gladly welcomed the shorts, feeling they are a great way to bridge the gap in-between new full length episodes and it would be nice to see what the characters get up to outside of the central plot.
- Fanart at First Sight: When the short was first previewed, fans absolutely loved Charlie, and she got a good chunk of fanart in the days leading up to the short's premiere.
- In "POMNI WAKE UP TIME TO GO ON AN ADVENTURE
," we get to see a very brief glimpse of some new characters from the upcoming episodes. Fanart of these characters quickly followed, with the regal-looking lollipop lady (officially named Princess Loolilalu per Word of God) being the most popular.
- In "POMNI WAKE UP TIME TO GO ON AN ADVENTURE
- Hilarious in Hindsight:
- The common Fanon of Husk being a Vietnam veteran takes an amusing turn when he got recast with the voice of Keith David, who famously played another Vietnam veteran who became a demon after making a deal with another demon.
- The Japanese dub has a couple of these:
- While we don't know if this was a coincidence or not, Risa Shimizu's role as Charlie goes by this, considering she previously voiced two princesses living in places surrounded by ice: Daenerys Targaryen and Anna.note The hilarity came with the fact she is voicing the princess of hell, with everything that goes with it, and that without going that, while Charlie is a parody of a Disney Princess, Shimizu actually dubbed one.
- The same goes double for Eiji Hanawa as Charlie's father Lucifer, as he also worked alongside Shimizu in the dub of Game of Thrones as Jon Snow. Letting aside he is voicing the ruler of hell and being the father of the main protagonist, Hanawa's role as Lucifer is pretty ironic considering the relation between Daenerys and Jon in GOT, and their mutual final fate at the end of the show, when Jon had to kill Daenerys in order to stop her from destroying King's Landing and from taking over the world.
- The Italian dub has one as well; when Vox and Alastor fight inside 'Stayed Gone' in 'Radio Killed The Video Star' it can also come as a heated rivalry between brothers, and it comes true since they're played by brothers Oreste (Vox) and Giovanni 'Nanni' Baldini (Alastor).
- In the pilot, Alastor makes a reference to the Annie song "You're Never Fully Dressed Without a Smile", which in the show is sung by the character Burt Healy, a 1930s radio host, as this was the creator's inspiration for Alastor. Alastor would later be recast in the main series as Amir Talai, who played Burt Healy in the 2018 Hollywood Bowl production of the same musical.
- No Love for the Wicked: An effeminate fellow of mine suggested to give me pleasure in the form of the degenerate act of felatio. I polite said "Ha! No" to this perverse suggestion. I'd much rather listen to the sounds to tortured screams on the radio.
- Guns in Church: Jax maniacally brandishes a pistol while on the Candy Canyon Kingdom adventure during the second episode.
- One teaser picture shows V making her Slasher Smile close to the camera while Uzi is laughing manically in the background. N, meanwhile, is just standing expressionlessly in between them. Poor N looks like he's stuck working with two psychopathic females.
- All There in the Script: Although unnamed in the pilot, his name was first revealed in a stream.
- Almighty Janitor: Only in comparison to the other Overlords. Despite being one of the youngest Overlords in Hell, Vox notably battled Alastor and got away with it, even after Alastor had killed several far more ancient and seemingly more powerful Overlords. While he primarily uses manipulation and influence to pursue his schemes, this shows that Vox is no slouch in a fight.
- Blood from the Mouth: Blood occasionally trickles from his mouth.
Alastor has repeatedly been shown to be far less depraved than Vox. While Alastor is still the Token Evil Teammate, he is still shown to have perfectly healthy relationships, a sense of justice, and worked alongside Charlie.Meanwhile, Vox has been willing to brainwash the masses and gladly works alongside the other Vee's
Spoiler tags are not allowed in this page.
- Robot and A.I. Works (middle-left; "Pilot")
- Unintentionally Sympathetic: Timothy Young. Even though drunk drivers, especially those who kill someone, tend not to earn any compassion from the general public, his genuine remorse for his actions and the fact that he's easily one of the subjects least deserving of his fate in the franchise as a whole helps a lot. The flashbacks to his running down Jeff's son are also put together in such a way that implies, intentionally or otherwise, that even a sober driver wouldn't have had time to dodge him. Plus, others in the film (save for Jeff) felt empathy for him being in his gruesome trap.
- Unintentionally Unsympathetic: The "Fatal Five" involved in the main game can be pretty hard to root for, since as the trial itself and the ending to it establishes, they're not good people. Brit hired a drug dealer to pay off Mallick with heroin in exchange for burning down an abandoned apartment building, not caring about the eight people still living inside who would die in the blaze; Luba is a corrupt city planner who accepted a bribe from Brit to give her company a permit for the land the building was on after the fire had occurred, and had no compunctions attacking Charles and trying to kill Mallick for the sake of surviving; Ashley is a fire inspector who figured out it was arson, but took a bribe from Brit for her silence; and Charles was a reporter initially looking into the fire but was bribed by Mallick's father to stop digging, and had no problem trying to kill Mallick quoting Social Darwinism. Even Mallick, who's arguably the most decent of them (being unaware of the building's residents and feeling very much guilty about their deaths), was still a drug addict willing to commit arson for just an ounce of heroin. The only saving grace for Mallick and Brit is that they consider themselves monsters for what they've done, and as such willingly sacrifice their hands to the last trap instead of forcing the other to do it on their own.
- What Do You Mean, It's Not for Kids?: The series is clearly intended for adults due to its surreal and sometimes frightening Mind Screw imagery (including the occasional Jump Scare), Black Comedy, premise (a woman becomes trapped in the body of a clown in a glitchy, psychedelic virtual world with no way to escape, and starts going insane) and bleeped swearing, but has gained a lot of young fans from Generation Alpha (children born from 2013-present, who are as of 2024 no older than 11) who are attracted to its bright rainbow colours and cast of kooky, oddball characters. Despite this Periphery Demographic, the animation was never intended to be a children's show.
Not really necessary to say "One of the main villains" when the folder makes the related character rather clear.
Adding back per this query.
Updating index.
Creating a page for Memetic Mutation.
Saw has its own page now.
Oh, Crap! or The End of the World as We Know It:
traumatizing-v0-wbmdm9bdfhrc1.png
[up][up][up][up][up] Huh, I've made several comments with multiple images/pages on this thread before and nobody told me about it.
- Fans of Murder Drones, GLITCH Productions' preceding series to The Amazing Digital Circus, have grown concerned that their show will be forgotten among the studio's work in favor of the massive popularity that TADC has attained.
Sandbox page for Inky 100.
"Where do I discuss this?" - ATT query to start later when I have the time.
Correcting the "Western Animation" section; it involves series, not films, and by standard of media folders and pages, it's just called "Western Animation".
Adding the statement that Tastes Like Disdain is the inverse of this trope to this page.
Adding the image that used to be in the former Western Animation subpage.
All spoilers for the game are left untagged in these pages, per the Spoilers Off warning.
(that's the name of V3's rhythm minigame, not THH's)
- Same as the exaggerated case, with the woman giving out her motivation. "To show those fucking morons who didn't look at the fucking rating that this ain't no fucking kids' movie!"
Folderizing
- Ambiguous Disorder: It is made clear that something is not right with Luan psychologically. With her erratic mood swings, her lack of social skills, and her obsessive fixation on getting revenge on all the popular students, as of now, though, it is unknown what exactly she suffers from.
- They are not called the "Louds" for nothing.
- Queen Barb in Trolls World Tour is this to Chef from the first Trolls film.
- Chef was the aged, resentful former royal chef to the ruling family of Bergen Town who sought to exploit her re-discovery of the Pop Trolls in order to overthrow King Gristle Jr., out of revenge for his father scapegoating and exiling her twenty years prior for the Pop Trolls escaping their kingdom. Barb is the young, devil-may-care queen of the Hard Rock Trolls who seeks to forcefully unify all the troll tribes under her music by destroying their respective genres so that only rock music remains.
- Chef was a Manipulative Bitch who opted to hide her goals behind the facade of wanting to atone for her past failures and make her people happy once more, while Barb is all too honest with what she wants to do with the strings of the other troll tribes.
- Whereas Chef immediately established herself as a threat to Poppy by kidnapping her friends and usually did her own dirty work, Barb never properly interacted with Poppy before the final act of the sequel, up until which point she had relied on bounty hunters to locate Poppy and bring her to Barb with the Pop trolls' string.
- Chef wanted to rule over the Bergens for the sake of power and respect, which left her with little-to-no redeeming factors. Barb, on the other hand, was only trying to wipe out all non-Rock music in a misguided attempt to bring peace and unity to all trolls; she eventually learns her lesson and changes for the better.
- Studio Episode: The fourth and fifth episodes focus on Ramona investigating two of her exes in the middle of the production of a film that Young Neil apparently wrote in the space of a single night, based off of a timeline where Scott survived his fight with Matthew (basically the original plot from the comic and movie). Said film first stars Lucas as Scott, before Todd is later brought on to replace him. In the end, the film fails to come to fruition, between Lucas's ego and the relationship drama between Envy and Todd after Wallace becomes the latter's Closet Key.
General clarification on work content (as far as I'm aware, the second character in the Murder Drones quote is only ever referred to as "Teacher")
- Villainous Breakdown: He completely loses his cool in the Chapter 4 trial as it becomes increasingly clear that Aoi, of all people, managed to completely outwit him due to his cold-hearted Lack of Empathy blinding him to the truth, whereas Makoto and Kyoko were able to see that truth and solve the mystery. The idea that he might have gotten everyone, himself included, killed over a result he had felt so completely confident in clearly upsets him. He revokes his "villainous" status soon afterward.
Episode 7 is already out.
Replacements:
Alliterative Title.Western Animation ("Driver's Dread"):
April Fools' Plot.Western Animation ("April Fools Rules"):
Banister Slide.Western Animation (opening sequence):
Suggestion for Funny Animal.Western Animation (promo for "White Hare"):
Let This Index Be Your Umbrella:
Memes.Five Nights at Freddy's 2:
Offscreen Reality Warp ("By the Seat of Your Pants"):
Pants-Pulling Prank.Western Animation ("One of the Boys"):
Pink Means Feminine.Western Animation ("A Tattler's Tale"):
Pubescent Braces.Western Animation:
Pun-Based Title.Western Animation ("Undie Pressure"):
("Don't You Fore-Get About Me"):
Referenced by....Peanuts - Western Animation ("The Loudest Yard"):
Referenced by....Pink Floyd ("One of the Boys"):
Referenced by....Space Invaders:
Rhyming Title.Western Animation ("Puns and Buns"):
Sound-Effect Bleep.Web Original ("The Gang"):
Tropes in Space ("Happy Trails Pt. 2: Jumping the Shark"):
Tropes on a Plane ("Wingin' It"):
Your Makeup is Running.Western Animation:
Lo Fi Send Up TLP:
Timeline - Saw
WARNING: This synopsis is written with the events of the films arranged in chronological order, rather than in the order of which film they happened in. Since the films jump back and forth chronologically, especially in the later installments, you cannot avoid spoilers by stopping or skipping around when you see events with which you are not familiar. Reading this page will spoil the major details and reveals of the entire franchise. Read on or go back — make your choice.
[folder - Pre-Jigsaw (flashback storyline)]
- While on a car with his two friends, a teenager named Ryan causes an accident that gets his friends killed alongside another driver. To cover himself, he tries to pin the blame on the friend who drove the car.
- In the Iraq War (where he fought with Keith Hunt), US Army medic Logan Nelson is captured and tortured by an enemy squad at some point. This even left him with severe trauma that led to his discharge from the army not long after his eventual rescue.
- Civil engineer John Kramer and lawyer Art Blank found the Urban Renewal Group, a building company aimed at costumers who need homes or other buildings. John designed the Urban Renewal Group's first building, the Gideon Meatpacking Plant.
- Dr. Jill Tuck, owner of the Homeward Bound Clinic for the rehabilitation of drug addicts, implements a motto at the suggestion of her husband John: "Cherish your life."
- Eric Matthews, a detective of the Metropolitan Police Department, plants misleading evidence in some crime scenes to get a raise on his job, resulting in the arrest of about seven people. One of them, Amanda Young, develops an addiction to heroin while imprisoned, and following her release, becomes a regular patient of the Homeward Bound Clinic.
- Timothy Young, a medical student, accidentally runs over and kills a child named Dylan Denlon while drunk driving. Only one witness other than Dylan's father Jeff, Danica Scott, was present, and her refusal to testify against Timothy causes Judge Halden to give Timothy a six-month sentence in prison afterwards. This puts Jeff in a state of depression, causing him to ignore his remaining family consisting of his wife Dr. Lynn Denlon and his daughter Corbett. Lynn herself also suffered grief due to her failure in treating Dylan.
- Detective Mark Hoffman and Officer Daniel Rigg come to an elementary school due to the report of child abuse issues. Jane, a child whom Daniel interrogates, fearfully denies any incident regarding her, to which Rigg retorts to beat her abusive father Rex before Hoffman calms him down. Rex tries to take legal action against Rigg afterwards, and while he fails, he's still sucessfully defended from his accusations of abuse by Art.
- Similarly, Art succeeds in defending Brenda, a pimp, and Ivan Landsness, a serial rapist, from their accusations.
- In a dispute between the two, Seth Baxter murders his girlfriend and Hoffman's sister Angelica Acomb. By the time Hoffman comes to the crime scene, he begins to experience depression. Seth, meanwhile, is sentenced to life in prison.
- William Easton, a vice president of the insurance company Umbrella Health, sponsors a party at the Homeward Bound Clinic. At the party, John meets William and decides to become a client of Umbrella Health, but not without questioning to William about his practices beforehand.
- Officer Matt Gibson is sent to an old crossroad factory area in response to an emergency call, wherein he's attacked by a former patient of the then-recently shut down Clear Dawn Mental Facility. Gibson is saved by Hoffman, but tries to report the latter back at the department due to him perceiving that Hoffman is engaging in police misconduct. The department ends up tranferring Gibson to the Internal Affairs Division while Hoffman remains in the Homicide Division with a promotion.
- Jill becomes pregnant with a male child, expected to be born on the Year of the Pig. The child is named "Gideon" by John after the Gideon Meatpacking Plant. When he gets a new workshop, John surprises Jill there with a harlequin doll he had made for their child, known as "Bobby the Puppet".
- The Homeward Bound Clinic is filled with dysfunction among the patients, starting with a brawl between Gus Colyard (another of Eric's frame-up victims) and Cecil Adams that had to be stopped by Jill. It culminates in Cecil accidentally causing the miscarriage of Gideon when he unintentionally hits a doorknob against Jill's stomach while in a hurry after being sent in by Amanda for a robbery. John, who had witnessed the incident, brings Jill to the Angel of Mercy Hospital in an attempt to save their son to no avail.
- Following Jill's miscarriage, John gets flooded with depression. He stops working on the Urban Renewal Group's latest project, divorces from Jill to move to another house, and rejects help from both Jill and Art when the two come to visit him in his workshop.
- Some time later, John gets an X-ray diagnosis. An accidental switch between patient names by Logan, now a medical examiner, causes the diagnosis of a brain tumor John had from colon cancer to be held back; by the time it's actually diagnosed by oncologist Dr. Lawrence Gordon, he declares the tumor to be inoperable.
- John finds out about a new experimental therapy developed by a Norwegian doctor, and calls Umbrella Health if they could give him coverage so he can take the therapy. After repeated rejections, John personally asks William at his office, and leaves furious when the latter replies that they can't spend their money on it due to its low probability of success.
- Feeling down from being unable to get treatment for his cancer, John attempts to commit suicide by driving his car off a cliff, only to miraculously survive and gain a new will to live.
- John witnesses his next-door neighbor, Anna, smothering her baby with a pillow in a fit of rage from its crying. Anna would later trick her husband Matthew into thinking he did it by accident, causing him to be brought to a mental asylum and hang himself there at an unknown point.
- With a new self-imposed goal in life before he dies from cancer, John starts to build devices with the function of testing other people's survival capabilities. He uses the first one of these on Cecil, whom he abducted at a Year of the Pig street festival using a pair of pig masks, one to disguise himself and another to knock out Cecil. The device comes off with bad results when it breaks before Cecil can reach the goal John meant him to, and he dies while trying to attack John, who would cut a jigsaw puzzle piece out of his skin before disposing of his corpse.
- When the police find Cecil's corpse, the then-unknown culprit is given the nickname of "The Jigsaw Killer", abbreviated to "Jigsaw", by the press, which the police themselves later pick up for the case.
- Finding a newspaper regarding the case, Jill comes to John's workshop and angrily confronts him about her suspicions of what he might have done to Cecil, to which John simply tells her that he "told him to not take his life for granted." Jill decides to leave the dispute there with his claim.
- At some point, Lawrence gets in an affair with one of his students, Carla Song, unknown to his wife Alison.
- Carly, a purse snatcher, accidentally causes the death of an ashmatic woman after taking the inhaler with her purse. Although it was unintentional on her part, she decides the leave the woman to die as she takes her money for herself.
- A vehicle vendor, Mitch, deliberately sells a motorcycle with faulty brakes to a young man who's a nephew to John and Jill. Not long after, the man dies when he's unable to brake against an incoming truck.
[folder - Jigsaw (flashback storyline)]
- John sets up his first full-term game at the barn area of an abandoned farm that was once owned by Jill's family. For the game, he abducts Anna, Ryan, Carly, Mitch and Logan.
[folder - Saw]
[folder - Between Saw and II]
[folder - Saw II]
[folder - Between Saw II and III/IV]
[folder - Saw III and IV]
[folder - Saw V]
[folder - Between Saw V and VI]
[folder - Saw VI]
[folder - Saw 3D]
[folder - Between Saw 3D and Jigsaw (present storyline)]
[folder - Jigsaw (present storyline)]
[folder - Between Jigsaw (present storyline) and Spiral]
[folder - Spiral]
Game over.note
Recap - Saw I
Freelance photographer Adam Stanheight awakens in a bathub inside a dark room. As he panics and pleads for help, he meets oncologist Dr. Lawrence Gordon, who appears to be a fellow prisoner in the room. Eventually, Lawrence finds the switch for the room's lightning; once he turns it on, the two men find out that they're chained by one ankle each to pipes on the opposite sides of what is clearly an abandoned industrial bathroom. Between them lies a corpse with a gunshot on its head, holding a revolver and a recording tape.Immediately upon seeing the setting around them, Adam figures that they've been kidnapped by an organ theft group, deducing that his and Lawrence's kidneys are being sold on eBay. Lawrence tells him that's impossible due to him showing no signs of health problems, arguing that the kidnapper may have wanted them to know the time due to the presence of a fresh clock on one of the walls. At the same time, Adam finds a tape in which a distorted voice tells him to find a way escape from the Bathroom. Lawrence also has his own tape, which, in contrast, instructs him to kill Adam before 6:00; if he doesn't do so, his wife Alison and his daughter Diana will be killed. Adam gets shocked upon hearing Lawrence's tape.
Following a hidden line in Adam's tape, Lawrence tells Adam to examine the toilet close to him. In the lid, Adam finds a bag with hacksaws, one of which he throws to Lawrence. When the two try to use the hacksaws to cut the chains of their shackles, Adam's hacksaw ends up breaking, to which Lawrence realizes that they were actually meant for cutting off their chained feet. He comes to the conclusion that they were kidnapped by a serial killer dubbed as "the Jigsaw Killer", so Adam asks him who that killer is.
As Lawrence explains, the film delves into a series of flashbacks that show how he got involved in the investigation about Jigsaw. Five months ago, Lawrence introduced a group of medical students to a cancer patient named John Kramer. His lesson was interrupted when Detectives David Tapp and Steven Sing asked him to come to the police station for an interrogation, where they told him that they had found his penlight at the latest scene of the case at the time. With help of his lawyer Brett, Lawrence managed to clear his innocence, though he later agreed to listen to a testimony from Amanda Young, the only known survivor of Jigsaw's "games". Several more of these games are briefly explored between these flashbacks. Lawrence then explains in the last flashback what he remembered from his last night before he got here, when he tried to put Diana to bed and had an argument with Alison. When he left the house, Alison and Diana were abducted by an unknown person.
The film returns to the present in different locations. The first of these is Lawrence's house, where Alison and Diana are being held hostage by a captor who's watching Lawrence and Adam through a camera in the bathroom. The house is in turn watched by Tapp, who had rented an apartment after being discharged from the police department for a bungled raid and experiencing a mental breakdown from Sing's recent death. He's now obsessed with apprehending Jigsaw, and has come to consider Lawrence as the primary suspect of being the killer.
Tapp's shot is followed by a flashback explaining his circumstances. A while after interrogating Lawrence, Tapp and Sing found Jigsaw's lair at an abandoned mannequin factory, a location that they figured after examinating the video tape used for Amanda's game. They met Jigsaw, and while they were able to save a victim (named Jeff Ridenhour), they weren't able to capture the killer, with Tapp getting injured and Sing being killed by a booby trap in the process.
Back at the bathroom, Lawrence finds a box inside an "X" mark on a wall. The box contains two cigarettes, a lighter and a one-way cellphone, alongside a note subtly hinting to Lawrence that the cigarettes could be poisonous and he "[doesn't] need a gun to kill Adam." Another flashback montage occurs as Lawrence and Adam remember that they were kidnapped by a pig-masked figure the previous night before, at his apartment in the case of Adam and at a parking area in Lawrence's case. Returning to the present, Adam smokes one of the cigarettes, and makes a rather poor attempt at pretending that he died from getting poisoned by cigarette.
Lawrence picks up the phone when it suddenly rings. From the phone, Alison tells him that he shouldn't trust Adam, since he already knew about him before. When Lawrence confronts Adam about this, the latter claims that Tapp had hired him to watch after Lawrence, which he proves by showing him a series of photos inside the same bag that the hacksaws were in. Adam tells Lawrence that he knew the latter tried to have an affair with one of his students (Carla Song) on the night of his abduction. Eventually, Adam finds out that one of the photos wasn't taken by him, because it shows Alison and Diana's captor at a window in Lawrence's house. Once he sees the photo, Lawrence identifies the captor as Zep Hindle, an orderly from his hospital.
Shortly afterwards, the clock strikes six, to which Zep prepares to kill Alison and Diana; however, Alison frees herself and fights back against him. Tapp approaches this moment to shoot Zep, allowing Alison and Diana to escape. With Zep now running to get to the bathroom through a tunnel network, Tapp chases him on the way and beats him up, but is killed when Zep shoots him in the chest. Lawrence breaks down after witnessing what happened there through audio. In a desperate attempt to save his family, Lawrence saws off his chained foot and shoots Adam with the corpse's revolver, making him collapse.
At that moment, Zep enters the bathroom holds Lawrence at gunpoint. Before he can shoot Lawrence, the still-living Adam gets up and attacks him. The two have a brief fight, which Adam ends by bludgeoning Zep in the head with the toilet's lid. After seeing the fight, Lawrence promises Adam farewell as he crawls out of the bathroom to find help. Adam searches for a key to his shackle inside Zep's body, but only finds a tape instead, revealing that Zep was just another victim in the game. When the tape ends, the corpse arises and reveals himself to be the actual Jigsaw killer, with his identity being that Lawrence's patient, John Kramer. He tells Adam that the key to his shackle was in the bathtub, but went into the drain at the beginning of the film. Deciding that Adam had failed, he leaves the bathroom and closes the door on Adam with the lights off, as Adam is left desperately struggling to stop his oncoming fate. Adam lets out a final scream before the film ends.
Recap - Saw II
The film opens with Michael Marks, a police informant, waking up to find himself in a game set up by the Jigsaw Killer. A videotape instructs him that he has one minute to get the key (which is located behind his right eye) that will unlock the spike-filled metallic mask attached around his neck with a scalpel. Unable to do the task due to experiencing pain, Michael ends up dying once the mask closes on his head.The film cuts to Michael's employer, Detective Eric Matthews, arguing with his son Daniel shortly after signing some papers. The argument culminates with Eric telling Daniel to just leave him when the latter says that he should come to see his mother.
When the scene of Michael's game is found by the police, Eric is called to come to it by Detective Allison Kerry, and confirms Michael's identity by checking one of his tattoos. Kerry tells Eric that there's a written text on the ceiling mentioning him, which he doesn't really take as something important. Kerry calls him out for it when he later shows his reluctance in participating in the investigation while she analyzes Michael's video tape.
That night, Eric figures where Jigsaw's current hideout could be after remembering that the engraving on Michael's trap mentioned the abandoned Wilson Steel Plant. The next day, he carries out a raid at the plant with Kerry and Sergeant Daniel Rigg's SWAT team. After going through a series of booby traps, they find the Jigsaw Killer, John Kramer, whose health has been severely deteriorated by his cancer. Just when the officers are about to arrest him, John says that he already knew it was coming, and shows a surveillance set. On the monitors, they witness eight people trapped inside a house, two of whom are Daniel and Amanda Young, the only known Jigsaw survivor — the other six are Xavier Chavez, Jonas Singer, Addison Corday, Laura Hunter, Obi Tate and Gus Colyard. The victims are breathing a deadly gas, and have two hours before dying to find syringes with the antidote to the gas. John assures Eric that he will see his son again if he agrees to talk with him alone during the two hours.
Amanda finds a video tape informing the house victims about the gas and the antidote. One of the antidotes is inside a safe in the room they woke up and are currently in. According to the message, the combination's numbers are "in the back of their minds," and the order of the numbers is "over the rainbow." The victims also find a key and a warning message, which tells them not to use the key on the room's locked door. Xavier and Gus refuse to go along with the warning and go to the door; as Xavier tries to unlock the door, Gus is shot in the eye and through his head by a booby trap attached to the lock while he was looking through an eyehole. Pressured by Kerry, Eric decides to go along with John in order to give time for a police tech team to arrive and look for the surveillance set's signal, but not without being told by John that the rest of the cops have to leave the area they're at.
The door to the room in the house eventually opens, so the victims proceed to go down a hallway. Midway through, Xavier finds and picks up a baseball bat with nails on it. When Jonas takes notice of this, Xavier tells him that he'll try to do anything to get out of the house, even if Jonas comes up with a "game plan" for the prisoners to follow. Xavier then finds a door with "EXIT" written on it and attempts to open it with the same key as the first door to no avail.
Meanwhile, Eric leaves a walkie talkie on the floor so that the rest of the police team can hear what John is saying. While questioning Eric's experience as an officer, John asks Eric if he could give him a glass of water. The film immediately cuts to Xavier still attempting to open the door, this time by smashing the baseball bat into it, only to find that there are metal bars behind it. Addison tries to fight Xavier, but Jonas separates the two, reminding them that they should focus on what the tape said. Laura finds a door that leads to a staircase into a basement.
In the basement, they find a furnace with a tape that states there are two antidote syringes inside it, and it will activate once someone crawls into it. The tape also reveals that Obi assisted in kidnapping the others, leading to everyone turn against him, though he remains calm even when Xavier threatens him. Obi enters the furnace to get the antidotes, but he's unable to get out of it even with the help from others, so he ends up being burnt to death.
At the same time, John spends the time engaging in a cryptic discussion with Eric, who's beginning to show signs of frustration. Upon asking him about he said to his son the last time he saw him, John tells Eric about how the diagnosis of his cancer made him attempt suicide, yet the unsuccessful results led him to actually appreciate life. From there, he had been trying to get others to think the same by "testing" them.
Back at the house, Daniel asks Amanda if everything she said about herself was true, and why she was tested. Amanda's response allows him to remain hopeful that they'll survive, though he still questions why she returned here, to which Amanda doesn't give much about other than that she "wasn't being good to herself". She quickly changes topic by stating the she was in jail, and answers Daniel with "possession" when he asks her for the reason. A pair of brief flashbacks with little detail accompany this moment.
Jonas announces them that they found another door upstairs. After some struggle, Xavier opens the door, and they find a tape specifically made for him, telling him that there's a key to an antidote lying in a pit full of used syringes; Xavier has a timer of one minute, which already began when the door was opened. Even though the others quickly find the pit below a carpet, Xavier refuses to get into it, having Amanda do the task instead. Amanda gets the key, but Xavier accidentally drops it and fails to open the safe with the antidote in time. Frustrated, he leaves the group and returns to places they've previously been at.
Eric becomes more frustrated and tries to relief himself by destroying papers about plans John had left. At the same time, John tells him that they both know he's the kind of person who wouldn't wait, and taunts him with a number of events that he presumes had happened to him from what he knows so far before Eric shouts at him to shut up. At that moment, the tech team arrives, and John reveals to Eric that the all the victims in the house aside from Daniel were people whom he framed for crimes they didn't commit; Kerry finds documents in one of the drawers at the area with the surveillance set that proves it.
Xavier re-enters the first room the house victims were at, and finds a number written on Gus' nape, realizing that each number with the safe's combination is written on the back of a victim's neck. He gets desperate to get the combination, killing Jonas when he comes to see him and going after the other prisoners. Meanwhile, Amanda and Addison leave Daniel when they find a photo of Eric, though Amanda quickly reunites with him as Xavier chases the two of them down.
Seeing that his son is in danger, Eric begins to beat up John, asking him for the location of the house. Addison finds another antidote inside a glass box with a pair of holes lined with razor blades. She eventually finds herself trapped when she puts her hands through the holes. She pleads for Xavier to help her when the latter comes to the room, but he leaves her to die after reading the number on her neck. Eric forces John to take him to the house; John allows him with the request of going there alone with him. The tech team find a feed, which Rigg decides to follow with his SWAT team.
The scenes begin to skip between Daniel and Amanda, John and Eric, and the SWAT team. Daniel and Amanda find a tunnel that leads them to the bathroom seen in the first film, with remains from the events that happened there being present. Daniel passes out from the gas shortly before Xavier enters the bathroom too. When Amanda tells him that he can't read the number of his nape without help, Xavier simply cuts off his nape skin to get it, and attempts to kill Amanda. Daniel gets up and slashes Xavier's throat by surprise with one of the hacksaws.
Just as the three groups are about to meet, it turns out that none of them are in the right place or time. Rigg and his men find out that they're not in the right house, and discover another surveillance set that reveals to them that they had been merely watching a recording of the game (which had already happened by then) the whole time. At this moment, Kerry finds Daniel trapped in a safe that just opened. In the actual house, Eric is abducted by a pig-masked figure when he enters alone. When he wakes up in the bathroom, he finds a tape that reveals that Amanda (who's the one speaking in the tape) was an accomplice of John all along; she promises that she'll continue his work once she dies. At the same time, one of the previous flashbacks with Amanda re-appears with John showing up. When the tape ends, Amanda herself shows up and closes the door on Eric. The final shot of the film that zooms out shows John in Eric's van, slowly giving a smile.
Recap - Saw III
The film starts off from the ending of Saw II, with Eric Matthews trapped in the Bathroom after being abducted by Amanda Young. After hesitating to attempt it with a hacksaw, he eventually manages to free himself by breaking his chained foot with the toilet lid, allowing him to slip the foot through the shackle.The scene immediately cuts to a much later time, where Allison Kerry and Daniel Rigg find the scene of a Jigsaw game in a elementary school classroom, with a forensic named Mark Hoffman intervening in the investigation. Base on the prominentevidence they have, they figure that the game's victim, Troy, was restrained by a number of chained barbells pierced through the skin of various parts of his body, and had to rip them off in order to free himself and escape the room before a nail bomb exploded. However, Kerry deduces that the trap couldn't have been escapable due to the door having been welded shut for the SWAT team to open by force, so she thinks John Kramer isn't responsible for setting up this game.
When she returns to her apartment at night, Kerry is abducted by a pig-masked figure and finds herself in a trap of her own upon waking up. She has one minute to get a key inside filled with acid, which will dissolve it once the time runs out, in order to free herself from the device attached to her chest. She manages to get the key in time, but finds out that the trap was rigged much like Troy's, and she gets a brief sight of the one who did just before the trap rips her ribcage apart.
The film then cuts to a surgeon, Dr. Lynn Denlon, finishing a work shift, with two flashbacks to her at an affair with a man (named Chris) and her trying to treat a child, respectively. She's abducted by Amanda, who takes her to her and the now-bedridden John's current hideout inside a meatpacking plant. John tells Lynn that she must keep him alive until a man, mentioned by Amanda, makes it through a series of tests. At the same time, Amanda locks a collar connected to John's heart monitor around Lynn's neck; should she let John die or move out of range, the collar will detonate and kill her. Lynn is thoroughly confused, believing that John wants to be treated even though there isn't anything to treat his condition.
Somewhere else, the aforementioned man, Jeff, wakes up inside a hanging crate, with a tape telling him that he has to go through several tests in order to find "the man responsible for the loss of his child". Just after Jeff breaks out of the cage, there's a flashback that explains he had been in grief since the death of his son Dylan three years ago, keeping Dylan's original bedroom and properties under security, as shown when he takes one of the toys that his daughter Corbett was holding. The flashback ends with a pig-masked person abducting Jeff. In the present, Jeff gets up and, while walking through the hallway, finds a box containing a message telling him to open a door and a cut piece from a photo featuring him.
John suddenly gets a cerebral seizure that Lynn stops before it risks his death. Lynn tells Amanda that he needs to undergo brain surgery in order to survive, to which Amanda replies that she must perform it herself at the plant.
By then, Jeff finds a woman, named Danica Scott, chained in the nude at a freezing room. A tape explains that Danica was the only witness present in Dylan's death, who refused to testify about what happened at the incident; this led to the drunk driver responsible for killing Dylan receiving a rather light sentence at court. In the game itself, Danica is progressively sprayed in cold water that will quickly freeze and encase her body in ice; Jeff can either let her die or save her by getting a key behind several metal bars. Danica convinces Jeff to save her, but due to the late timer he's unable to stop her from being frozen to death, even though he's able to get the key after suffering a mild injury. After exiting the room, Jeff finds another box, this time with the message "One bullet will end it all." and a piece from a photo of Dylan.
Lynn tries to convince Amanda to allow John to be brought to the hospital to no avail. Therefore, she decides to tell her that, among other tools, she would need anesthetics and a drill to perform the surgery, so Amanda leaves to get such supplies.
The film cuts to a montage of flashbacks when Amanda picks the Reverse Bear Trap midway through. First, John is seen making a copy of Billy the Puppet, with a photo of Amanda being briefly seen. The second flashback sees John setting up Amanda's game from the first film, and the third shows John meeting Amanda for the first time after the game. After the montage, Amanda closes a box and brings the supplies to Lynn.
As he continues walking, Jeff finds a copy of Billy lying on the floor. In the next room he enters, he encounters Halden, the judge who presided at the drunk driver's court trial and have his sentence. Much like the previous one, the tape for this test tells Jeff that he can either let Halden die by being submerged in liquefied pig intestines, or save him by getting the key to his shackle; to do so, he has to incinerate Dylan's possessions this time. After a considerably long period of hesitation, Jeff turns on the incinerator and saves Halden just before he completely drowns.
Lynn begins the brain surgery on John as Amanda watches in fear. During the surgery, John hallucinates and begins to think about a woman he loves, whom Amanda mistakes for Lynn as he professes a love speech. Several flashbacks show John spending time with said woman, who's named Jill. Another series of flashbacks begins as Amanda returns to the room with the box she previously picked up before and begins to cut herself. These flashbacks include a "ceremony" being held by John to convert Amanda to his ideals, Amanda kidnapping Adam, and her setting up the Bathroom game with John. In the latter, it's revealed that Amanda had deliberately placed the key to Adam's shackle in a way that it would get into the drain no matter what happened.
Back to the present, Amanda covers the wound she just made on herself and goes back to see how Lynn is going with the surgery; it had already ended, and John had to sleep until he recovered. Amanda immediately gets angry with Lynn and grabs her by the throat when she tells her that he couldn't notice her during the surgery. Upon loosening her grip on Lynn, Amanda leaves once again as another flashback begins: shortly after the ending of the first film, Amanda, inside a lair with John, feels wracked with guilt about leaving Adam to die, so she returns to the Bathroom to give him a mercy kill.
Meanwhile, Jeff walks through another hallway with Halden following him. He finds another box with the message "One step closer to your revenge." and a third photo piece featuring Corbett; he's able to put the three photos together into one larger part, which shows that it's a family photo. The mother, however, only has a brief part of her shown through Corbett's piece. In the room of Jeff's third test, he and Halden find Timothy Young, a former medical student and the drunk driver responsible for Dylan's death, strapped to a device. The tape on Timothy's neck instructs that the device will slowly twist his limbs before passing on to his neck; should Jeff decide to save him, he has to get a key connected to the trigger of a shotgun that will shoot anyone in the line of fire. Due to Jeff's sheer hatred of Timothy this time around, Halden has to convince him to get the key, but the latter is killed by the shotgun when he walks in front of it. Timothy isn't fortunate either, since Jeff is unable to find a keyhole that would deactivate the trap.
Amanda, who had watched the test through camera, goes to tell John and Lynn that Jeff had finished the test, but not before finding a letter on a desk that gets her worried. John orders Amanda to unlock the collar from Lynn, but she refuses to do so, holding Lynn at gunpoint instead. As John tries to calm her down, Amanda tells him that she does not believe in his philosophy, admitting that she was the one who had manipulated the first two traps in the film. A flashback also reveals that following the opening scene, Eric tried to fight back against Amanda until the latter left him to die for good.
Jeff finds a fourth box with the message "Last chance." and a pistol that he picks up. Amanda ultimately shoots Lynn in the back just a she sees and runs up to Jeff, who in turn shoots Amanda in the throat. As Amanda falls to the floor, John tells her that Lynn and Jeff are married, and he hid that fact from her to test her, as he had already known what she did before. This is accompanied by a montage of flashbacks featuring Amanda, Jeff and Lynn, ending with Amanda succumbing to the gunshot.
Jeff attempts to shoot John too, but finds out that the pistol had already run out of ammunition. John tells Jeff that he promises to call an ambulance for Lynn should he pass a final test: Jeff can either kill John or allow him to live if he "forgives" him. Vengefully, Jeff sarcastically tells John that he forgives him before slashing his throat with a buzzsaw. As Lynn yells Jeff's name, a brief flashback montage featuring events from the previous films happens before the collar detonates and destroys Lynn's head, followed by the door in the room automatically closing. A final tapenote informs Jeff that he had failed the test, revealing that Corbett is also locked somewhere else in the plant, and her place was only known by John. Jeff lets out a scream at John's corpse as the film ends.
Recap - Saw IV
The film opens with Dr. Adam Heffner performing an autopsy on John Kramer's corpse at a morgue, following his death at the end of the previous film. He finds a recording tape covered in wax (which is revealed to have been swallowed by John in the previous film via flashback), so he tells another forensic pathologist to call Detective Mark Hoffman to hear it. The tape, featuring a speech from John himself, tells Hoffman that he may be the last man standing, but the games aren't over yet and he'll be tested later.The film then cuts to a mausoleum, where two men, Trevor and Art Blank, have their necks chained to a strangulation device; Trevor's eyes and Art's mouth, respectively, have been stitched shut. Trevor immediately panics due to his inability to see around him, and tries to attack Art before the latter kills him with a sledgehammer. The scene ends when the stitches on Art's mouth rip open and he screams in agony.
Daniel Rigg's SWAT team, accompanied by Hoffman, shows up to the scene of Allison Kerry's game, about four days after the game had happened. After the scene is secured, FBI special agents Peter Strahm and Lindsey Perez, whom Kerry had been an informant to for the FBI's involvement in the Jigsaw case, introduce themselves to Hoffman. Strahm tells him that they had received a mysterious message from Kerry before her death, alongside a key whose purpose is unknown. While they figure that the trap was inescapable, they believe that some else other than Amanda Young was also involved due to Amanda not being strong enough to carry Kerry by herself.
In the meantime, Rigg is watching a video tape of Hoffman interrogating John's ex-wife Jill Tuck and looks around several books about the Jigsaw case and John himself. In the time Eric had been missing, Rigg remained hopeful that he'll find him one day, despite Hoffman (who had entered the room) telling him that he should just stay at home with his wife Tracy instead. Tracy eventually leaves the house when Rigg returns and argues with her about that. Strahm and Perez continue with Rigg's job afterwards, which they communicate to Hoffman at the police station.
Meanwhile, Rigg goes to his bedroom at night to sleep, only to turn back as he perceives suspicious sounds and some plastic curtains before he's subdued. At the same time this happens, Hoffman is briefly seen leaving a letter in a drawer and making a phone call at an unknown place. Eventually, Rigg wakes up in his bathroom. He finds a video tape that tells him that Eric is, in fact, still alive, and he has 90 minutes to "save himself", with a shot of Eric and Hoffman trapped in a room. The tape tells Rigg that their survival depends if he gets out of his obsession to rescue people. After that, Rigg finds a woman named Brenda restrained to a chair in the living room, and saves her from a contraption that began tearing her scalp when he entered, after a tape asks him if he's going to do so. A brief scene between this has a forensic officer give Fisk a document about fingerprints.
After telling her to stay in a safe place, Brenda suddenly attacks Rigg and the latter kills her in self-defense. Rigg finds a tape for Brenda herself, indicating that she was the one actually being tested. Fisk goes to inform Strahm and Perez about the fingerprints before an officer tells them that there was a shooting at the address of Rigg's apartment. Rigg finds a box with a message reading "One saves a life... One takes it away." and key before leaving his apartment. As the film cuts to Eric and Hoffman, a flashback shows that after what happened to him in the previous film, he was imprisoned in a room for the previous months before being put in his current situation. A SWAT team accompanied by Strahm, Perez and Fisk raids Rigg's apartment; while they find plenty of evidence leading to Brenda's crimes as a pimp and deduce that Rigg is being set up as another Jigsaw accomplice, they take their attention to some particular photos featuring Jill, so they decide to interrogate her again.
Art enters the room Eric and Hoffman are in and sits down at a desk to watch a set of surveillance monitors. Meanwhile, Rigg shows up to his second location at a motel and finds a tape telling him to abduct the propietor, Ivan Landsness. Back at the interrogation room, when Strahm and Perez ask Jill about her drug recovery clinic's motto, a flashback ensues, where one of the clients, Cecil Adams, causes a fight at the clinic before being stopped by Jill and called out by John. Jill refuses to answer when Strahm asks her why John would recycle the motto for himself, deciding to talk about John's workshop instead when Strahm tells her that she'll become a suspect if she doesn't answer. She says that John had been planning the birth of their son Gideon, up to making a doll (named Bobby the Puppet) that would later become the basis for Billy the Puppet, as seen in a flashback.
At the motel, Rigg soon learns from scattered pieces of evidence that Ivan is a wanted serial rapist who managed to evade justice numerous times, which encourages him to outright force Ivan into a previously set up trap. In the trap, Ivan has to gouge his eyes out with a pair of blades in 60 seconds, with a tape saying that he can choose whether to give his eyes or his body. While Ivan gouges his right eye, he hesitates to do the same with the left one as the trap ends up dismembering his body. When Rigg exits the room, he finds a message that reads "Become the teacher and save a life. Go back where it all began."
A flashback shows that at the beginning of his career as a police officer, Rigg once attacked a man named Rex at an elementary school, suspecting him of physically abusing his wife Morgan and their daughter Jane; Hoffman had to stop him from harming Rex any further. Back to the present, Strahm asked Jill what led to her and John breaking up, to which she responds that it was John the one who decided to end their marriage. She proceeds to narrate that one night, she suffered a miscarriage with Gideon when Cecil accidentally slammed a doorknob to her stomach while robbing the clinic, and John had carried her to emergency in an attempt to save Gideon to no avail. Fisk calls Strahm that a crime scene had been found at the motel, so Strahm decides to show up in response.
At the scene of Ivan's game, an officer informs Strahm and Perez that the bedroom was previously rented by Art, who was reported to be missing two weeks ago, to which Strahm orders him to find Art's address. As he discusses with Perez, Strahm deduces that, judging from a pattern the scenes follow, Rigg is being recruited by Jigsaw, and he presumes that he's already been converted. At the motel's basement, Strahm and Perez find a pair of messages and a camera watching them, making them realize that they're being targeted as well.
When Eric attempts to kill himself with whatever he has access to inside the room, Art calms him down. At the same time, a flashback where Art discusses with Hoffman shows that Rex had become his client to sue Rigg for the latter's accusations. Rigg is seen witnessing the discussion. Returning to the present, Rigg shows up to the currently closed elementary school. There, he finds a deceased Rex and a barely living Morgan in a classroom. A flashback shows that the two were captured for a test mainly centered around Morgan; both were impaled with spikes between them, and Morgan had to pull out the spikes while ignoring her husband's situation (the way the spikes pierced through him would make him die if they were pulled), so as to get out of his physical abuse. Morgan still had one more spike to pull by the time Rigg discovered her, which he does by himself as a favor to her while also setting off the fire alarm to make sure that she's found. Eric still tries to get himself to die by asking Art to kill him.
When Strahm and Perez show up to the classroom's scene, Perez receives a call stating that all the victims in the trial so far were successfully defended by art. One of the spikes inside a harpoon gun that a forensic is examinating is suddenly shot. Strahm manages to avoid Perez from getting hit by the spike, but it ends up impaling the head of a photographer. Strahm and Perez leave the class, and as they discuss where the trial could end, they find a copy of Billy in the principal's office on a chair with candles around it. A tape tells Perez that "her partner will soon take the life of an innocent man", and "her next move is critical." Ignoring the tape, Perez decides to enter the room only for the puppet to explode shrapnel on her face. As she's taken to the hospital, Perez gives Strahm that Kerry originally gave them. Art tries to restrain Eric as much as possible in order to prevent him from doing anything to kill himself.
Furious, Strahm returns to the police station and finds a newspaper article about John and Art being part of an "Urban Renewal Group". Suspicious, he goes to ask Jill about where Art has been and his relation to John. A flashback shows that John experience a harsh emotional detachment from everyone around him since Jill's miscarriage, which led to Art leaving him and tell him to let him know when he felt better. Jill also tells Strahm about John's attempted suicide after his cancer diagnosis, and when Strahm asks her if she ever tried to contact John afterwards, she states that "a new person came out of the wreckage." Another flashback features Jill entering the Gideon Meatpacking Plant to find photographs of Cecil, drawings, a newspaper and a tarp in one of the rooms. John shows up to tell her that he asked her not to come, to which Jill replies if he did anything to Cecil. John simply answers by saying that he told him "to not take life for granted." A further series of flashbacks with a layered tape shows how Cecil was John's first victim as the Jigsaw Killer, alongside the first pig masks he used and the first Jigsaw trap overall. As the montage cuts out, Jill leaves the plant with John unveiling the tarp to reveal a glass box filled with glass shards inside.
Strahm, unsatisfied with the information Jill gave him, simply asks her the address of the Gideon Meatpacking Plant and goes there. Rigg, who happens to be entering the plant through a back door, finds a box with the message "Patience, remember WHO you are saving... time is on your side." Eric is holding a loaded revolver that Art gave him. Strahm follows Rigg on a car and enters through the same door as he pursues Rigg. In one of the hallways Rigg finds all the previous messages he saw during the trial, Hoffman's detective badge on the floor and the message "Have you learned HOW to truly save a life?" Meanwhile, Strahm finds a keychain with a family photo of the Denlons from the previous film. A flashback shows that just after killing Trevor, Art found a message and a tape telling him to set up the traps in the trial.
It eventually turns out that Strahm is following Jeff Denlon, revealing that the film's events are taking place at the same time as the previous one. Art begins to panic as Rigg is reaching his room. Strahm witnesses Jeff's final test. Just as Rigg enters in his sight, Eric shoots him in the chest in an attempt to prevent him from going further, and his head is smashed by two hanging ice blocks. At the same time, Strahm shoots Jeff when the latter tries to shoot him, and sees the aftermath of what happened in the sickroom. Believing Art to be an full-on accomplice, Rigg shoots him in the head, but not before Art plays a tape that tells him that he entered in under ninety minutes. As Rigg lays down on the floor with a flashback montage of the film's events, Hoffman unties himself from the chair he was strapped to; a flashback shows him putting on a pig mask and then abducting Rigg, revealing him as a Jigsaw accomplice. Hoffman leaves Rigg where he is and goes to lock up and shut the lights in the sickroom, trapping Strahm.
Before the credits roll, the film cuts back to the opening scene, this time featuring a more detailed version of the tape that Hoffman was listening.
Recap - Saw V
The film opens with a trap at an unknown room, consisting of a table and a pendulum blade. The strapped victim, Seth Baxter, who's a convicted murderer recently released from prison due to a technicality, is told by a video tape that he has to crush his hands with a pair of vises on his sides in order to stop the blade. Even though he does so without hesitating, the blade doesn't stop, and just before it cuts him in half, Seth notices someone watching him.After the opening title, the film briefly repeats the events of Saw IV with Peter Strahm shooting Jeff Denlon and getting locked inside the sickroom. Strahm then finds a door and a tape that warns him to not proceed to it until reinforcements arrive. Nonetheless, Strahm tries to enter, and is abducted by Mark Hoffman. Eventually, Strahm finds himself with his head trapped inside a glass cube that slowly fills with water. Once the cube is full, Strahm picks his pen and uses it to perform a tracheotomy to himself and breathe. Just by then, a police squad arrives with Hoffman exiting the Gideon Meatpacking Plant with Corbett Denlon. When Fisk asks him if they were any other survivors, Hoffman denies it, until the two notice Strahm being carried into an ambulance.
The film then cuts to a law office reception, where two elderly people are seen reading a magazine issue about the incident at the plant. Jill Tuck is in the reception too, and is called in by her and John Kramer's executor Bernie Feldman. At Feldman's office, he gives Jill a videotape with a farewell message from John and a black souvenir box. Jill appears surprised upon seeing the box's contents, but leaves without saying anything to Feldman. Meanwhile, the Metropolitan Police Department's chief of police announces that the Jigsaw killings have ended and Hoffman will be promoted to "detective lieutenant" at a ceremony to the officers that died in the case so far. Among the officers in the audience, there's a reporter, Pamela Jenkins, who's trying to get as much information from the chief for her planned article about Jigsaw.
Later at his office, Hoffman finds a suspicious-looking anonymous message. Believing that Strahm was the one who wrote it, he decides to steal a bag containing the phone Strahm had been using from an evidence room. Immediately after doing so, an officer calls him that Perez had died, so Hoffman goes to the hospital to find a depressed-looking Strahm beneath her (accompanied by a brief flashback of the explosive Billy exploding in front of her). When Hoffman tries to console him, Strahm abruptly shows suspicion towards him, telling him that Perez' last words were "Detective Hoffman" and that he doesn't believe his story of what happened to him back at the plant. Hoffman promptly leaves over this, followed by Strahm's superior, Dan Erickson, entering to tell him that he has ordered to take him off the case.
Hoffman walks into an underground catacomb area, with a set of monitors showing a new game that's about to begin, a miniature model of said game, and a number of papers with evidence scattered across the room. At the room shown by the first monitor through camera, five victims — Brit Stevenson, Mallick Scott, Charles Salomon, Ashley Kazon and Luba Gibbs — wake up to find themselves between various columns with collars with cords strapped around their necks. A video tape introduces them to the game, telling them that they've used "advantages of others" to push themselves at the expense of other people and "today, five will become one with the common goal of survival." They have to get keys from five glass boxes in front of them that will unlock their collars; if they don't manage to get the keys in a minute, they'll be pulled into blades and beheaded. Soon, they notice that there are also nail bombs around the room that will explode in 15 minutes. All of the victims except Ashley are able to pick their correspondent keys in time.
At the time the first test was happening, Hoffman, who had left the area and is now in a car at the FBI headquarters' parking lot, tries to call Strahm to no avail. He then tries to contact Erickson through the switchboard operator Cowan with the same result, so he writes Erickson's name in a logbook for later. The scene cuts to Strahm leaving the hospital, determined to take the case in his own hands. At the headquarters, Strahm enters the FBI's criminal database on a computer at the research lab to search for criminal records from Hoffman, only to find no results. He then retorts to looking through a file in the archives room regarding the found Jigsaw victims and related investigators; from there, he sees that Hoffman was involved in every crime scene after Seth's murder. Returning to the computer while bringing the file with him, Strahm looks up Seth's name on a news database and finds a newspaper article explaining that Seth had murdered his girlfriend, named Angelica Acomb, over a domestic dispute. On another article about Angelica's burial, Strahm sees that Angelica was Hoffman's sister. Before leaving again, Strahm sees a third article about Seth's body discovery. Just as he's about to exit, he crosses Erickson's path, who asks him what he's doing in the headquarters, to which Strahm makes up the excuse of wanting to pick up stuff from his office.
Now with Erickson out of his way, Strahm shows up to the scene of Seth's murder, where he finds a peephole on the entrance's door. When he turns around the door and looks through the peephole, a flashback sees Hoffman doing the same, giving his identity as the person whom Seth saw just before his death. A second flashback has Hoffman show up to the aftermath when Fisk calls him. The film cuts to the present with Strahm saying that he's got Hoffman. Back in the catacombs, the remaining victims enter the second room, where they see 16 glass jars in the ceiling, more nail bombs and four locked doors leading to tunnel-shaped chambers. After going through a discussion about why they're in the catacombs, the second tape tells them that the nail bombs in the room will explode in a minute and they have to get keys in order to enter the chambers and avoid getting killed; only three of the keys fit in the chambers' locks. Immediately after the tape ends, Charles grabs a metal rod in the room and knocks out Mallick, saying that one of them has to die in order to continue. As he breaks the jars, Brit and Luba grab a key each. When Mallick regains conciousness and Charles gets the third key, Luba grabs another rod and knocks Charles into unconciousness with it. Mallick grabs the key and he, Luba and Brit enter a chamber each. By the time Charles gets up again, the nail bombs explode, blowing him up.
Returning to the headquarters, Strahm looks up a file of Seth's scene. The moment he looks at a photo of a jigsaw puzzle piece carving on Seth's skin triggers a flashback at a time when Kerry became the lead investigator in the case; as Fisk tells him about it, Hoffman asks him to still keep him informed about any new discoveries, to which Fisk concedes. Another series of flashbacks happens when Strahm looks at another file involving Paul Leahy's scene. First, Hoffman finds an anonymous letter that reads "I know who you are" at his office. The second flashback has Hoffman enter an apartment building, where he shows a notable paranoia over the letter, leading him to do reckless acts like trying to prepare to attack against a door only to almost shoot a barking dog. Eventually, Hoffman enters an elevator from which all of its occupying people leave, with exception of who appears to be a disguised John. After Hoffman asks him if he's also going up, he notices that only his floor has been selected, and asks John what floor he's going to while grabbing his pistol again. John quickly neutralizes Hoffman with an anesthetic from a syringe.
The flashback cuts to Hoffman waking up in a chair with a shotgun attached to it, pointing at his chin. John, who is in front him, shows him a newspaper article of Seth's body discovery as he goes to say how bothered he is to find someone else trying to imitate him. As Hoffman struggles to free himself from the chair's restraints John places a mirror in front of him, showing that they're connected to the shotgun's trigger. John goes on to recap all the things Hoffman did previously, to which Hoffman attempts to argue back by saying that Seth didn't deserve to live, before he's abruptly cut off by John. As John goes to pull the shotgun's trigger by himself, Hoffman gets desperate at his death coming, only for the shotgun to turn out to be unloaded. Thus, John explains that it was a showing of his MO, and offers Hoffman a choice: either he arrests him, or tries to use the method himself. The flashback ends after Hoffman tries to argue again.
Strahm looks up a photo of the Razor Wire Maze's crime scene before cutting to Erickson going to his office to call Hoffman. During the call, Hoffman asks Erickson if Strahm told him about his suspicion that there's a second Jigsaw apprentice on the loose, to which Erickson replies that he didn't, and in turn asks Hoffman who Strahm is suspecting. When Hoffman tells him that he believes the suspected person in question is someone with access to information about the investigation, Erickson closes the call by saying that they'll talk further about it later. Now growing worried about Strahm, Erickson goes to the research lab to find the shelf where the Jigsaw victims file was kept empty. Back at the catacombs, Brit, Luba and Mallick exit their respective chambers and briefly argue about Charles before proceeding to the next room.
Meanwhile, Strahm shows up to the scene of the Razor Wire Maze, where three flashbacks play, the first two consisting respectively of Paul Leahy being abducted by John and Hoffman and John watching Paul through a peephole before the latter wakes up. In the third flashback, which takes place while the game was going, Hoffman tells John about David Tapp, who could be a potential threat to him. In reply, John instructs Hoffman to track Tapp to Lawrence Gordon with penlight that Tapp had presented to Lawrence in the first film. In another flashback that begins when Strahm looks at the photos of the Nerve Gas House's victims, Hoffman is seen placing a dormant Obi in the starting room with the other victims before telling John that he's only expecting everything to come out the way he wants, and questions about Amanda's purpose in the game. The flashback ends with John setting up the Magnum Eyehole (with Hoffman in front of this trap as a placeholder subject for its placement) and placing the first tape inside the brick wall.
The film cuts to Brit, Mallick and Luba (who has brought her metal rod with herself) entering the third room in the Catacombs, where they find a bathtub at first glance. They stop to discuss about what they did before, starting with Mallick claiming that he unintentionally caused eight people to die; Luba says she used bribes as an employee of the city's Department of City Planning, and Brit explains that as the vice president of a real estate corporation, she saw the need to order the demolition of older buildings to allow space for new ones, which has caused a number of people to lose their residences. They're interrupted by the room's correspondent video tape, which instructs them that they have to find a way to connect five electric cords (which aren't long enough for a normal outreach) to the bathtub before the door to next room becomes permanently locked with an electric current. When Mallick suggests the others for a plan, Luba repeatedly threatens him to get in the bathtub and connect the cords to his body, a lethal danger that Mallick is aware of. As Mallick refuses, Luba gets into a fight with him and attempts to kill him with the metal rod until Brit stabs her with one of the cords, prompting the remaining two victims to continue connecting the cords to Luba's corpse and flee away afterwards.
At Erickson's office in the FBI headquarters, Erickson is visited by Jill with Cowan on her side, who tells him that she suspects that a special agent is watching her. When she clarifies that it was the one who interrogated her earlier, Erickson acknowledges that the agent is question is Strahm, who at the same time returns to the sickroom where he's been at the beginning of the film. A flashback in the sickroom immediately plays, in which John gives him a file folder containing information and plans about the ongoing game in the Catacombs before Amanda shows up with Lynn, previously seen in Saw III. Strahm gets angered when he realizes that Hoffman had been using the events at the meatpacking plant to his advantage in order to keep his public reputation. In the headquarters' parking lot, Hoffman uses Strahm's phone to perform a bait-and-switch call on Erickson, who had just exited the building and entered his car at a different side of the lot. In response to this, Erickson orders Cowan to track the location of Strahm's phone. Hoffman leaves Strahm's phone on the table with the monitors at the catacombs.
Shifting into one of the monitors is a view of Mallick and Brit, who had just entered the room shown by the monitor and see a machine with five holes filled with circular saws, followed by a video tape telling them that they have to their hands into the holes and spill ten pints of blood into the machine's containers in total. Seeing the design of the machine, Brit and Mallick realize that Ashley, Charles and Luba could have lived with them if they had worked together, retroactively pointing at the designs of the previous traps as proof. As they prepare themselves to put their hands into the machine, Strahm comes to the Nerve Gas House, which was recently renovated by Hoffman. Not long after, Erickson comes to the entrance to the Catacombs, having already received the address of Strahm's phone. By the time Brit and Mallick had just put their hands into the machine, Strahm finds an underground room with a glass box filled with shards and a tape on the inside being held up (the same one that John had taken the tarp off from in Saw IV). Strahm plays the tape for a moment before pausing when he hears Hoffman, who has also entered the basement and is getting near him.
Erickson enters the Catacombs' surveillance room, where he sees the monitors, Strahm's phone and a still-hot coffee cup left by Hoffman, alongside plenty of other evidence. By the time Hoffman enters the room with the coffin-like box, Strahm had hidden for a surprise attack, which boils into a brief fight ending with Strahm shoving Hoffman into the coffin. When Erickson discovers Brit and Mallick, he calls for paramedics. Strahm, finding no way to pass through the coffin after putting Hoffman in there, asks him how to open it, to which Hoffman simply points at the tape he had left behind. As Strahm plays the rest of the tape, the room's walls begin to move and enclose the area while a flashback montage begins playing at the same time. A last shot at the Catacombs sees Erickson calling Cowan and ordering her to put an APB alert for Strahm. The film cuts into the credits when Strahm ends up being smashed between the coffin room's walls.
Recap - Saw VI
The film begins with a woman and a man, Simone and Eddie, waking up in an abandoned area on opposite faces of a metallic grate. They have identical headgear with screws piercing a bit of their temples, and on their respective spaces are tables with cutting tools (a regular knife and a meat cleaver) on them. A video tape from Jigsaw on a television states that they're loan sharks who ruthlessly predated on clients' money, and it's now their goal to give their own pound. They have to cut out flesh from their own bodies and place it on their correspondent scales in a one-minute timer; once the timer ends, the one who had given out the larger mass of flesh by then will survive while the other dies. Being overweight, Eddie starts to cut fat from his stomach, while the slim Simone goes for her left forearm after seeing that she couldn't do the same. As Eddie places pieces of fat on his scale, Simone becomes more and more desperate until eventually, the screws drill further into both's heads and Simone switches her knife with her cleaver and quickly cuts off her forearm for once. With the scale on Simone's favor upon the timer's end, Eddie ends up getting killed by his headgear as Simone can only watch in agony.Following the opening title and a flashback featuring Cecil Adams in a car with Amanda Young, the movie continues the ending of the previous installment, in which Hoffman uses a remote to move the Glass Coffin from the room Strahm was killed in to an adjacent one, wherein he deactivates the aforementioned room's walls. When Hoffman comes back to see Strahm's remains he notices something on the ceiling's grate that catches his attention before the film cuts to the outside of a building.
This building is the headquarters of health insurance company Umbrella Health, inside which the screen pans across its various employees until it reaches the office of William Easton, the company's vice president of claims. There, William is seen talking to his sister about cancelling his appointment to have dinner with her on her birthday because the company's head lawyer, Debbie, set up a meeting on the same day during which he had to prepare himself against a lawsuit filed by the wife of one of a longtime client of Umbrella Health who had recently died. As William discusses his testimony to Debbie, a flashback plays of him talking to said client, Harold Abbott, about how the company couldn't cover his cardiac disease, which he says might have been caused by a gum tissue after a cyst removal surgery, something that Harold hadn't told him about by then; Harold ends up leaving angered over how coverage has been denied to him for the first time since he had become a client ten years ago. Cutting back to the present, William is seen briefly watching a news report of Pamela about Jigsaw on his office's television before Debbie asks him who noticed a mistake in Harold's later claim, to which William tells her that it must have been one of his six most renowned insurance inspectors (which he calls the "Dog Pit"). Ending the conversation William leaves his office to briefly meet up with Dave, one of said inspectors who's currently "Terminator of the Month", before leaving him too.
William's exit from the headquarters cuts to Hoffman listening to a voice recording of Simone and Eddie's game at a surveillance room, until he's interrupted by a call from the police to go to the game's crime scene. By the time he arrives, a local officer appears to tell him that the FBI was now in charge of the Jigsaw case and were the ones who made the call. Hoffman meets Dan Erickson, who informs him that strange fingerprints identified as those of Strahm were found on the trap's scale and Eddie's corpse; although he's dismayed about the identification, he ensures Hoffman that they had already prepared their own surprise for Strahm, at which he leads Hoffman to another room. To Hoffman's shock, he sees Lindsey Perez (who supposedly died back in Saw IV, as a brief flashback to that moment emphasizes the fact) actively working with no sign of injury. Erickson subsequently explains to him that he assisted Perez in faking her death to ensure her safety until the second Jigsaw apprentice's identity was uncovered. Furthermore, Perez tells Hoffman that she and Erickson previously worked on the arson case the Fatal Five's victims were connected to, which they stopped doing when the only witness they had for the crime disappeared; because of this reason, Strahm is their primary suspect, as they concluded that he might have targeted the victims out of revenge. Erickson asked Hoffman to join in their investigation, which the latter reluctantly accepts at Erickson's claim that he'll keep him updated on future found evidence and FBI activities in the case.
Some time later, Hoffman enters a hospital, wherein he bumps in with Pamela Jenkins, who came to meet a hospitalized Simone and interview her about her experience in a Jigsaw game, and anticipated Hoffman's arrival as well. As she tries to talk to Hoffman about what she's doing, Hoffman calls Pamela out and deems her irresponsible for twisting facts about Jigsaw in order to make her planned book regarding the case more appealing. Pamela interjects by claiming to only report real facts to the public and knowing more about Jigsaw than Hoffman would think; to prove him that, she mentions that she was present at a probate court trial, where she learned about the box John had left to Jill at the time of his death in Saw V. When Hoffman asks her what she wants from him, Pamela says that she'd like for him to arrange an interview with Jill, promising to him that she'd be less sensationalist to him afterwards. To get Pamela off her chest, Hoffman tells her that he'll see what he can do before closing the door to Simone's room in front of her. At said room, Hoffman asks Simone if she had learned anything from her game, following a brief explanation from the latter about the situation she was in (including a small flashback). Simone replies by angrily telling him to look at the stump on her left arm, questioning what she'd be supposed to learn with a self-mutilation. Hoffman simply leaves as Simone continues her tirade while a couple doctors come to calm her down.
Next, Jill is seen at her apartment watching a video tape of an ultrasound examination of Gideon (the one where John came up with his name). Following a brief flashback to her miscarriage, Jill looks at the black box's envelopes while crying for a moment (alongside another flashback to the moment she got the box). She then notices that she has a missing call on her phone's mailbox, coming from Pamela (who wanted to message her that she had found something interesting about John's death and invited her for a dinner), as she unveils a photo of the latter in one of the envelopes. She decides to ignore the call anyway, since she's displeased with Pamela's obstrusive behavior.
Cutting to various flashbacks to John's autopsy, Hoffman is seen again at the morgue where that happened with Perez and Erickson, after being called to see some new information found by Adam Heffner. Heffner shows them that the jigsaw puzzle piece carved from Eddie's skin had abrasions around its borders, unlike previous pieces, which made him deduce that it must have been cut with a serrated blade rather than the usual surgical one; Seth Baxter's piece is the only other one that shares this attribute. Because of this connection, Erickson and Perez decide to reopen the investigation of the Pendulum Trap's crime scene with an analysis to the trap's video tapes, as they think it could have also been recorded by someone else if he blade used was different.
Afterwards, Jill enters her clinic and runs into Hoffman, who was waiting for her after he left the morgue. She brings him to her office to state that she was surprised to see him at her clinic. Hoffman explains to her that he's seeking to start the next Jigsaw game tonight because Pamela (whom he doesn't specify to Jill) knew about the box and could try to look for more information about it, so he demands her to give him the box's envelopes. Jill gives him five envelopes while assuring him that's all the box has (there were actually six envelopes alongside some other items). When Hoffman looks at a photo of William in one of the envelopes, he asks Jill who he is, to which she merely states "unfinished business"; he then leaves, telling Jill that he'll no longer see her again once he's done with all the remaining Jigsaw work. At that moment, Jill reminisces the time John presented Amanda after the latter's initial test to her as proof that his "method of rehabilitation" works, which is displayed in a flashback; this convinces her to carry out John's final request.
That day at night, William is alone in his office at the Umbrella Health headquarters, watching another news report of Jigsaw, where his identity as John is first explicitly mentioned to William, who gets nervous in reaction before a blackout suddenly happens. William briefly runs out of his office before seeing a dark, hooded silhouette holding a pistol behind an adjacent window. In response, William takes out his own pistol from one of his desk's drawers and tells the silhouetted man to freeze before shooting him; when he holds him up, however, he realizes it was a mere security guard, who tries to warn him of someone approaching behind him while apologizing at the same time. William doesn't appear to understand what the guard's referring to until Hoffman grabs him and renders him unconscious with an anesthetic.
In the game's place at the Rowan Zoological Institute, William wakes up to find himself restrained on a large contraption with a breathing mask and a pair of clamps aimed at his thorax. A television screen turns on with a video tape of John, wherein he chastises William for his policy and states said policy will be put to test; he begins explaining the game by saying that William has four bombs strapped around each of his limbs that will explode if he doesn't complete his four-test trial in an hour (while a mannequin showing the explosion's result is depicted on the television), which would mean he'll "never see [his] family again." At the same time this is happening, a woman and son duo, Tara and Brent, wake up in an animal enclosure somewhere else in the zoo with a timer; when Tara tries to ask Brent where they are, the latter tells her to look a camera screen to where William is at.
Just as John begins to give the instructions for William's first test, a spotlight reveals Umbrella Health's janitor Hank, who is in an identical contraption to William and whom John compares his health history to that of William's; whereas William's health places him in "the highest category of success," Hank is a heavy smoker who kept smoking after he contracted high blood pressure and heart disease, which John denounces as "the very lack of appreciation for the blessings of his own life." John instructs that once the test starts, both must hold their breath as best as they can, lest their thoraxes get crushed by the clamps contracting in response to any trace of air they breathe in; the only way for the test to end is for one of the two to die from the clamps. As the video tape closes and Tara and Brent watch it unfold, the test quickly turns in favor of William's, because Hank's respiratory condition repeatedly forces him to briefly breathe when he tries to hold himself (despite William's attempts to help Hank get the lead); because of this, Hank dies in almost no time, while William only gets insignificant injuries on his own ribcage. Once William is freed from his restraints, he notices an unusually large scar on the right side of his torso, and gets a key that allows him to take off the strapped bomb on his left wrist.
Meanwhile, as Tara is panicking over seeing Hank's death, Brent notices a hydrofluoric acid tank on their side, with a lever with the words "LIVE" and "DIE" writte on it, plus a contraption connecting to it outside the room's cage and what seems to be a board of sprinklers above the cage. Brent tries to set the lever to "LIVE", but Tara interrupts him by telling him to leave it, stating that the lever and the timer must be correlated to each other in some way. As Brent says to her that he doesn't even know why they're in the situation they're in right now, Tara ensures him that it's "because of your father," while Brent looks at a camera on the same monitor featuring William walking down a hallway. This moment transitions to Hoffman watching the mother and son through a one-way window at a surveillance room, as he looks through photos of them, followed by one of Pamela.
Pamela's photo cuts to her coming to Jill's apartment after receiving a letter with its address, much to Jill's chagrin when she sees her. Jill quickly shrugs Pamela off and tells her to leave when the latter shows her a different anonymous message and tries to ask her if she knows what it means. As Pamela returns to the elevator she came from, she feels weirded out at the fact that its control panel is not working; when she decides to go down a hallway instead, Hoffman appears out of nowhere and anesthesizes her, a moment that cuts to Pamela laying unconscious on another animal enclosure to the one Tara and Brent are at. Hoffman puts Tara, Brent and Pamela's photos alongside several others on a billboard before the film jumps back again to William.
William notices that the words "THE PARTY" are written on his left wrist. This begins a flashback to a charity party at Jill's clinic sponsored by Umbrella Health, wherein John first met William and had a conversation with him. John's initial gratitude for William giving out money to support the clinic quickly plummets when William explains his formula for granting claims to clients, which John responds by berating that he basically decides which clients live or die and never took their survival instinct (the human being's most important element to him) into consideration. In the present, William appears to be remorseful of that event and the long time he's been using that formula, but he continues advancing through the zoo.
At an aquarium section, William sees a darkened glass pane with a control panel in front of it, consisting of a pair of chained handles and two screens that read "TAKE THEM". William initally ignores this sight as something unimportant for the game and continues walking, until a beeping sound from one of the straps prompts him to go back and grab the handles. At that moment, a Billy the Puppet hanged by a wire appears when a spotlight lightens up, followed by a woman and a man standing in platforms apart from each other with barbed wire nooses around their necks, gags and shackles on their wrists. A tape played from Billy (plus various photos from the screens) explains who they are, alongside the instructions for this test: the man, named Allen, is a young, healthy fellow without living relatives who works as William's file clerk; the woman, Addy, is William's personal secretary and a middle-aged diabetes patient, who has a whole living family carrying diabetes too. William has to decide which of the two should die by letting go of their correspondent handle; Jigsaw puts a reflective message by stating that following William's formula, Addy would be the one "less worthy to survive" because of her health conditions, but Allen has no relatives or close friends to mourn for him at all, closing by saying the choice is not clear when William is "face to face with the people whose blood will stain [his] hands" before the Billy goes up and away with its signature laugh. Once the test begins, William does his best to fight in a struggle to not let go of either chain as Allen and Addy grow panicking, but eventually ends up letting go of the handle linking to Allen's noose, which frees Allen from his shackles. Allen angrily yells at William with unintelligible words before he's hanged and pulled up by the noose with bloody results. Following that brief moment of horror, Addy's shackles are deactivated too, and she pulls off her gag to thank William in tears for saving her, to which William tells her to be careful finding a way out of the zoo.
Tara, who was watching the second test, suddenly notices acid leaking from the tank, and tells Brent that they could use the acid to dissolve the cage's grid; Brent, looking at the window from which Hoffman had watched them, reminds her that they have no means of changing the direction the acid spills into in order to avoid causing harm to themselves. When Tara notices the window and asks Brent what he's staring through with it, he states that someone's been watching what they were doing the entire time, leading Tara to get startled and yell at the glass in an unsuccessful attempt to get a response from somebody outside. In the other enclosure, Pamela has already woken up and is panicking, until she notices an acid tank identical to the one in Brent and Tara's enclosure, only with an audio tape on its plate. She plays the tape to listen to a short message of John stating that she's going to see the consequences of people who "unjustly hurt others" for, according to him, exploiting his life and message for her benefit.
The screen transitions back to Hoffman watching the game and compiling photos before being interrupted by a call from Erickson, who informs him that the Pendulum Trap's tape had been found and tells him that he has something to discuss to him, so he should come and meet him as soon as possible. Hoffman's reply that he promises to come is immediately followed by a cut to the Saint Eustace Hospital, which Jill enters carrying an envelope to send it through a door's mail slot. As she's walking to the door (including asking a working janitor to pass through where he was cleaning), the film cuts to a flashback set before Saw III.
Said flashback opens with Hoffman carrying an unconscious Timothy on a wheelbarrow (with a flashforward to Timothy in the Rack during III). Shortly after he enters the Rack's room, Amanda appears driving John on a wheelchair, briefly heard telling John that Hoffman would "fuck with it" during what is supposed to be "last-minute tweaks". In the middle of switching the Rack's gear ratio and asking John how many times he has to go to the room, he forcibly flips Timothy out of the wheelbarrow, to which John questions to him if he likes the feeling of brutality. With a noticeably angry tone, Hoffman interjects that he (John) wants to see Timothy suffer as much as he does and he should be honest about it, before Amanda asks him when his test is going to happen, to which he says he doesn't need one because he, as he claims, never took his life for granted, using one of Amanda's scarred wrists to give a point. Amanda mockingly asks him what he knows about life, telling him that he should get used to her because she won't go away (a statement Hoffman himself questions if she's sure about it); this hints at a rivalry between Amanda and Hoffman in earning John's respect.
At some point not long after, Amanda brings John at an open space in the Gideon Meatpacking Plant for a last meeting with Jill, who wanted to plead him to stop his murderous crusade. In response, John simply promises her that he'll provide her a way out once he's done with his killing career, and gives her the key to the black box (juxtaposed by a flashforward of her opening the box in Saw V). The flashback ends at this moment as the film cuts back to Jill putting the envelope through the mail slot (an act that's filmed by a security camera) and heading on her way to leave the hospital.
Back at the zoo, William is walking through a hallway leading to a boiler room when he sees that on his right wrist is written "FINAL DECISION". This triggers a flashback wherein John, having become a client of Umbrella Health at some point beforehand, talks to William about an experimental cancer therapy developed by a Norwegian doctor named Cecilia Pederson; specifically, John wanted to see William because he's interested in getting the therapy with coverage from Umbrella Health, which he had been denied several times before, so he personally requests it to William. In response, William tells him that the reason he wouldn't be covered is because it would be an unfeasible decision for the company, due to John's age and the way his cancer developed; he adds to John that he'd be entirely taken out from the Umbrella Health clientele if he goes ahead with the treatment anyway, since it's considered a breach to the company's policy. In anger, John stands up and looks at the Dog Pit doing their jobs in an adjacent room to William's office while going on speech that when it comes to health treatment and coverage, the West's situation is the reverse to the East (wherein he claims people continue paying their doctors while they're healthy); he deridedly says that in spite of politicians' statements that it's not the case, insurance companies have complete control over healthcare decisions, regardless if the patients, doctors or neither want them. John is quickly distracted by a piranha tank at William's office, to which William tries to reason with him that breaking Umbrella Health's insurance policy would be costly not only to him but also Jill, only for John to interject that he (William) might be wrong about his alleged thought of the living having all the judgment over him while the dead have none.
By the time the flashback ends, William has finally reached the boiler room, wherein he finds a tape for a third test and Debbie bound to a wall and gagged. The tape instructs him that, as a demonstration of "the extent some people will go to when faced with death", Debbie has to pass through the room's maze-like structure and meet him above at the catwalk with a timer of 90 seconds, which would cause a harpoon device attached to her chest to kill her if it runs out; William has to help her pass through obstacles until she gets to him, who's stated to be the one "who ultimately holds the key to her survival".
Debbie is automatically freed from her restraints when the tape ends, at which she begins to frantically plead for William to get her out. Following William's instruction of just going ahead and finding the way, Debbie eventually comes across a set of pipes blowing out hot steam that she can't pass by because of the heat. William notices a lever with the sign "RELIEVE HER", which he pulls to be met with steam burning his right arm, switching with the pipes on Debbie's way turning off. Due to William being unable to withstand the pain from the heat, there's a struggle between him and Debbie over the lever and the pipes, but after several pulls from William, Debbie manages to overcome her pipes regardless. William encourages her to continue until she passes through a tunnel with another cloud of steam blocking her way, making her stop before William tells her that he saw a ladder behind the tunnel. As Debbie climbs through the ladder, William pulls another lever to take the steam blocking a last passage, staying like that during enough time for Debbie to barely make it through and get to him. When William hurriedly tells her to look for a key, a lamp on the wall at Debbie's side turns up to reveal a billboard with photos of William's scar plus an X-ray featuring a key around its area, as well as a circular saw, to which the two realize the key is inside William. Although William promises to Debbie that he can use the saw to take the key out on his own, the latter panickedly tries to kill him off, forcing him to fight back against her, which ends up null when Debbie knocks him down with a kick to his groin. At least to his fortune, Debbie's final attempt to shove the saw against him happened to coincide with the timer running out, causing Debbie to die by the harpoon and fall from the catwalk back into the floor she initally was at, much to William's horror. Nonetheless, William proceeds to get another hanging key for one of his strapped bombs on the ankles and leaves the boiler room.
Meanwhile, as she watches William leaving the room on a camera, Pamela plays the tape she has in hand several more times before breaking it in rage, after which she notices a sign reading "SEE IT WORK" with a button below it. Said button allows her to change the camera displayed on her cage's monitor, which she does for a while until she gets to a camera showing Tara and Brent's enclosure. Tara, who had calmed down from her panic over the window, asks why someone would set up a room like their cage, to which Brent says that the one who kidnapped wanted to see them choose a decision over their lever, grabbing it to give his point. He lets go off the lever when Tara tells him that pulling it at either direction would be too risky because they don't know what it'd cause, but not without screaming in frustration.
The film cuts to Hoffman entering the FBI headquarters to be greeted by Erickson, who brings him to Perez sitting in front of a computer with information about Strahm's fingerprints on its two screens. Perez explains that, based on a lab report they received beforehand, the fingerprints were contaminated with a chemical named Dichlorodifluoromethane R-12 or Freon, which hasn't been produced anywhere in the city since 1994; Erickson adds that they currently plan to investigate what the factory where Simone and Eddie's game was set at produced, before being interrupted by a phone call. Hoffman takes this moment to ask Perez if there's something new found about the Pendulum Trap tape, which Perez confirms as they figured the voice on the tape wasn't that of John following an authentication, so they sent it to the FBI's technical lab to analyze it and find how the speaker's actual voice sounds like. Perez offhandedly notices that Hoffman is wearing a running stopwatch, so she questions to him if he's scheduling something; Hoffman claims to have set the stopwatch before receiving Erickson's previous phone call without elaborating further. At that moment, Erickson, who had ended his present call, goes to tell Hoffman and Perez that the tape was already prepared for decrypting and they should come with him to the technical lab.
Next, Jill is seen taking the sixth envelope and several other items from the black box to put them in a bag as she drives away to an unknown location.
Jill's car running away from the camera is quickly cut by William finding a door with a red spiral painted on it at an unspecified area of the zoo. He hears noises from behind the door, part of which he recognizes as the voice of Shelby, one of the insurance inspectors in the Dog Pit, to which he tries to ask about the situation she's in (if she's even there in the first place). Confirming her presence, Shelby tells him that the other five Dog Pit members are with her; she says they're strapped to what she thinks it's some sort of carousel, which she can't affirm due the darkness in their place making her unable to see. The room lights up as William enters through the door, revealing the Dog Pit inside an animal enclosure while being spinned on an automatic carousel similar to their operating table at the Umbrella Health headquarters. Just as they ask what got them in their current situation, a TV in front of them plays a tape of Billy, giving out William's instructions for the test: his goal is to "analyze" and "find [the] errors" of the inspectors, only two of whom can be spared by him, which isn't obligatory in the first place, as he can let all of them die if he wishes to; a mounted shotgun with six rounds will fire in intervals until it's completely spent, regardless of the decisions he makes for the inspectors (the only difference being whether the rounds will kill them or not). In order to spare a person, William has to "give a sacrifice of [his] own" with "the blood on [his] hands" by pressing the two buttons on a metallic, grate-like box beside him at once.
Soon after the TV turns off, the carousel stops for a moment to position the first inspector, Aaron, in front of it. Aaron perpetually tries to convince William to save him because he's "the one who should live" according to the Umbrella Health customer policy (thus begging him to "follow [it]"), but William does nothing to act even as Aaron grows panicking to the shotgun being armed, leading Aaron to become the first to die in the carousel. The second inspector positioned against the shotgun is named Shelby, who succeeds in convincing William to use the box to save her when she reminds him that she has two children who can't grow up without her. When William presses the box's buttons with his left hand, a metal spike pierces through said hand, making him scream in pain, though the shotgun responds by firing at a direction out of Emily's reach to spare her. Although she isn't freed from her restraints, Emily thanks William for saving her.
As the carousel continues spinning, Shelby tells William that her parents are sick and need her because she's "all they have", to which her adjacent fellow Dave quickly counterargues by saying that she's lying and claiming her parents actually hate her; Shelby interjects by saying his statement is not true, and to only thing he can back up against her is that he "[sits] right next to [her]". They're quickly intterupted by a female member named Gena, who suddenly says that she's pregnant, an obvious lie that every other Dog Pit member sees through as Shelby and Josh (the self-proclaimed most loyal employee of William's) repeatedly tell William that she's lying while Gena only repeats her statement over and over. William doesn't act for Gena either, but not without saying "Oh God, no!" out of shock and a lack of focus before the shotgun kills Gena.
Dave desperately mentions to William that his parents would pay him as much as he'd like if he lets him (Dave) live. Josh and Shelby respond by yelling that Dave's been stealing money from Umbrella Health without being noticed for years. Dave starts crying to William when the carousel responds with him in front of the shotgun, but William decides to let him die. At that moment, William is left to choose between Shelby and Josh, who start badmouthing each other in their respective attempts to convince William; Josh says that Shelby is a untrustable liar, while Shelby claims Josh is only loyal to William simply because he wants to take his position and could backstab him at any moment. When Shelby is put on line with the shotgun, she succeeds in pleading William to use the second and last chance to use the box in order to save her.
Seeing that he no longer has the opportunity to make it out alive, Josh goes to deliver an aggresive speech to William about how he simply acts without thinking for a single woman who begs for him, adding that his policy is bullshit and that he did everything he could do to him. Just as he's faced with the shotgun, Josh tells William (who's already staring at him) to look at him when he dies; he noticeably whimpers seconds before he ends up as the last inspector to die in the carousel. It's at that moment that Emily and Shelby, still restrained, burst out crying to William and giving him further thanks. After wrapping his necktie around the wound on his left hand, William simply continues moving on as he follows a red arrow that just lightened up and finds the key to deactivate his last strap through the room's exit.
The screen cuts to the FBI headquarter's technical lab, where an audio technician named Sachi (the one who called Erickson shortly before) is analyzing the line "Right now you're feeling helpless" on the Pendulum Trap's tape (with a flashback to said trap briefly occurring) as Perez, Erickson and Hoffman enter to meet her. Perez greets Sachi while she's still processing the tape into the original voice, a time Hoffman to fill a cup of coffee from the lab's coffee machine. When she notices that Hoffman's getting nervous, Perez asks if he's alright, to which Hoffman only says he's anxious about the tape. Perez continues by telling him there are some aspects about the hypothesis of Strahm being the new Jigsaw that she doesn't understand, such as Strahm's motivation; she knew him since he was her partner for five year, and never saw him nor thought of him as psychotic or vengeful. Erickson gets into their conversation by adding to Hoffman about how the results of a full analysis of Strahm's fingerprints came out with inconsistent uric acid levels and eccrine gland residue for Strahm (who had an active epidural metabolism), which means that Strahm must have been already dead by the time he left his fingerprints in the last few crime scenes.
In the following few seconds, Sachi finishes restoring the tape to reveal Hoffman's tape, to which Hoffman immediately gets into combat before any of the others at the lab can react, namely by slashing Erickson's jugular vein with a knife from his pocket (causing him to fall on the floor) and throwing the coffee cup's content at Perez to distract her with the coffee burning on her face; Sachi screams in feat at this sight. Hoffman then grabs a defilibrator to break the source of the lab's power, triggering an emergency alarm in the process. Just as Perez aims her pistol at Hoffman, the latter grabs a running Sachi and uses her as a human shield against Perez's shots before grabbing her by the arm and stabbing her repeatedly while asking about anyone else who knows about him (without the "if" part, as if he's certain someone else is aware of him too); Perez only says "everyone" as she dies slumpìng into the floor with Hoffman saying that she's lying in response.
Hoffman gets out of the lab to pick a cooling box in his car, inside of which is a mutilated hand. A flashback to the beginning of the movie back at the Glass Coffin room plays, this time panning into the hand as it's revealed to be from Strahm's remains. Hoffman is seen taking the hand out by using tongs to pull on its fingers before switching to him smearing it in brief touches around Eddie's corpse and some objects in the Pound of Flesh game's aftermath, and then putting the hand inside a freezing container. Returning to the lab with the hand and a gas canister, Hoffman comes back to place fingerprints on the objects he had used during the fight and douse gasoline on the audio analysis equipment, the dead Perez and Sachi, and the still-living Erickson. He then tosses a match and leaves the lab to burn down.
Meanwhile, Jill had come to the surveillance room at the zoo and looks around what's going on, seeing that the game is ending with only two minutes left. This is juxtaposed with Hoffman returning to the zoo as Jill leaves the bag inside a locker and the anonymous message (this being accompanied by a flashback to Pamela giving the letter to Jill) in front of the monitors before going somewhere to hide herself from Hoffman. At the same time, Brent grasps the lever at his and Tara's enclosure once again, telling the latter to do her best to stay away from the sprinklers; when Tara interjects, Brent tells her that they have to make one decision or another since there isn't much time left. As Tara allows Brent to go ahead with pulling the lever and prepares herself by standing in a corner of the enclosure, Brent pulls the lever to the "Live" direction, to which nothing happened to his surprise, leading him to break down in anger and then sadness. Tara goes to calm him down and states that she knows what the lever is for.
The film cuts to Hoffman entering the surveillance room, and is shocked when he sees the anonymous letter. The ensuing flashback montage — with a voice-over of what the letter reads in Hoffman's voice — reveals that Hoffman had written the letter as a blackmail to Amanda, as shown by a scene to their prior flashback confrontation before Saw III; this is followed by scenes from Saw III and IV switching back and forth between Hoffman writing the letter and placing it in a drawer (to switch John's letter with it, which isn't actually shown), John telling Amanda to read his letter, and Amanda finding Hoffman's letter. The screen switches to the flashback with Cecil and Amanda to reveal it's actually an extension to the flashback of Cecil causing Jill's miscarriage in IV; Amanda is seen goading Cecil into getting drugs for her from the clinic while giving him a kiss, then witnessing Cecil accidentally hitting the doorknob against the pregnant Jill's stomach with a shocked face. Lastly, a flashback to Amanda shooting Lynn Denlon and then getting shot to death by Jeff in III plays, briefly juxtaposed with the VI flashback. The blackmail's purpose was forcing Amanda into killing Lynn, with Hoffman threatening her to tell John about her involvement in the stillbirth of the latter's unborn son if she didn't do it. After the montage ends, Jill returns to the room to electrocute Hoffman with a remote to a mechanism she put on the chair Hoffman was sitting on at the moment.
William runs desperately as his timer is running out. Going through a series of arrow signs up to one accompanied with the word "FAMILY" written on it, he quickly goes through a doorway with a timer on top of it, just as said timer was down to a single second. As William yells in triumph that he made it and a flashback to his first tape's part referring to his family, a pair of walls open up to reveal the enclosures with Tara, Brent and Pamela at his sides. William is initially surprised when he sees Tara and Brent, but quickly goes for Pamela as she calls him out, with a flashback to William talking to his sister on the phone during his introductory scene clarifying that Pamela was the sister in question. William quickly yells that Pamela should be let go because he already won his game, just as Tara calls him a "son of a bitch". Part of the flashback with Harold plays again, only with the extension him going to talk to Tara and Brent while the latter two look at William, which the latter notices — it's revealed that the mother and son are Harold's relatives. William is then seen staring at Tara and Brent again in the present as Brent says that he's the one who killed his father.
Consequent cuts between the two major scenes begin to happen constantly at this moment. Jill straps Hoffman's wrists to his chair. A video tape with John plays on the monitor at Tara and Brent's enclosure, in which John delivers an apology to the two before instructing that they have to make a choice between getting their revenge on William by causing his death or letting him live; William reacts to this by asking "It's not my game?" There's a flashback to Jill looking at the black box in Saw V with one of its objects more visibly shown, before cutting back to the present with Jill placing the object, which turns out to be a new model of the Reverse Bear Trap (with a reprise to the flashback to John putting the original trap on Amanda taken from Saw III happening alongside it), on Hoffman's head. William is seen walking up to Tara against the enclosure cage to try to convince her to not kill him, thereby stepping on a pressure plate that activates the acid contraption. Taking out the sixth envelope Jill shows Hoffman that she didn't give it to him because John meant it for her, while unveiling the envelope to display a photo of Hoffman at the latter's face, much to his shock.
Pamela joins in William's begging for Tara to not kill him, which ends with Tara arguing that she's considering to do it not because she forgives William, but rather because she can't forgive herself of William dooming any further people. Although she does grab the lever, she eventually lets go of it as she can't bring herself to cause William's death. However, Brent runs up and yells to William that he'll burn in hell after killing his father pulls the lever to the "DIE" direction, triggering the acid contraption and causing the sprinkler board to hit William's back and inject hydrofluoric acid into him, which ends up mutilating his body in half as Brent, Tara and Pamela all watch in horror.
While William's death is shown in a few more separate shots until finally stopping at the last couple minutes (with a few flashbacks to previous events in the movie focused on him), Jill says "game over" to Hoffman before exiting the surveillance room and triggering the Reverse Bear Trap 2.0. As a series of flashbacks with him across Saw IV to this movie begins to play between various shots, Hoffman desperately tries to get out of the test Jill put him in, first by banging the trap against his left wrist to break it and get it out of the strap it was in, then using the correspondent hand to undo the other strap, Hoffman gets up and picks a screwdriver in an attempt to pry the trap open, until he runs up to the door's window and promptly avoids letting the trap from opening completely thanks to the window's bars. He's left with a torn right cheek, though, and a series of flashbacks of a person closing a door on someone else throughout the series' endings (including the first film, Saw II, IV and even Jill closing the room's door in this one) before the final shot of Hoffman letting out a skyward scream shows up.
Director's cut post-credits scene
In the director's cut, there's a final scene after the ending credits taking place at some point during the events of Saw III, where a distressed Amanda walks to the door to the room Corbett Denlon was being held at, speaking to her through a keyhole that she shouldn't the man who's going to save her. This quickly cuts to Hoffman carrying Corbett just before the two get out of the Gideon Meatpacking Plant, as seen in Saw V.Recap - Saw 3D
.Recap - Jigsaw
.Recap - Spiral (2021)
.Recap - Saw X
.Yuko Tatsushima
Yuko Tatsushima (born 1974) is a Japanese painter, puppet artist and performer. A graduate of the Joshibi University of Art and Design, she was diagnosed with borderline personality disorder following the death of her mother. Most of her works of art are meant to deliver a message against rape and other sexual crimes, and she has stated that they were largely based on her own life experiences.From the known dates of her paintings, she was active in making artworks from 1996 to 2003, at which she hasn't made any new painting afterwards.
Although only available in Japanese, Tatsushima owns a site featuring images of her works and information about her, which can be visited here.
List of paintings:
- "Red Laugh" (date unknown)
- "Original Sin of 8 Seconds" (date unknown)
- "VELVET" (date unknown)
- "Ikueda's Coffin" (date unknown)
- Untitled painting (date unknown)
- "Kyoto Mandala" (date unknown)
- "Misato Self-determination" (date unknown)
- "Crime and Punishment" (date unknown)
- "Pomegranate Kannon" (date unknown)
- "Flower of Evil" (date unknown)
- "I" (date unknown)
- "Mother and My Portrait" (1996)
- "Monochrome Kannon" (1997)
- "July" (1997)
- "August" (1997)
- "End of the Flower" (1999)
- "White Thread" (1999)
- "I Can't Be a Wife Anymore" (1999)
- "Pedantry" (1999)
- "Snake" (1999)
- "Decapitation" (2000)
- "Loving You" (2000)
- "Hole" (2000)
- "Maria of Guraund Zero" (2000)
- "Brain Plasma" (2001)
- "Lookout of Blood" (2001)
- "Feathered Dancer" (2001)
- "Your Bullet" (2001)
- "Bubble Flower" (2001)
- "Endless Cycle of Rebirth of Blood" (2002)
- "Six-String Strelitizia" (2002)
- "White Prison" (2002)
- "Divine Comedy" (2002)
- "Insect's Dream on a Spring Night" (2003)
- "Girl in a Box" (2003)
Yuko Tatsushima's works provide examples of:
- Blank White Eyes: Plenty of characters in her paintings display this kind of eyes, such as the woman in "White Prison".
- Design Student's Orgasm: While most of her paintings are easily comprehensible even with the rather huge amount of detail, some are so complex that they cross the line into this. "End of the Flower" and "White Thread" might be the most egregious examples, being near-indistinguishable aside from a toothed vulva and a penis (alongside the correspondent legs and butts) in the latter.
- Eyes Do Not Belong There: In "White Thread", there's what appears to be a pair of eyes on the buttocks above the toothed vagina.
- Long Neck: Some of the characters in the paintings have rather long necks, although they distinguish themselves from the usual comedic use for the trope, since it makes them look creepier on par with their general aesthetic. The most infamous example is probably the woman from "I Can't Be a Wife Anymore", which is arguably Tatsushima's most well-known painting overall.
- Minimalism: Many of Tatsushima's artworks use little detail with at least one major element in order to carry out a certain meaning. For instance, "I Can't Be a Wife Anymore" only uses a hurt-looking woman to presumably deliver a message over Domestic Abuse.
- Vagina Dentata: "White Thread" features a vagina lined with teeth.
YMMV examples (to be included in a YMMV page):
- Misaimed Fandom: Since the Internet began associating it with "Tomino's Hell", "I Can't Be a Wife Anymore" has garnered a lot of this, and not just from people comparing it or trying to relate it to the aforementioned poem; some even believe it's some sort of illustration of a victim punished in Hell. Fortunately, it doesn't apply much with the rest of Tatsushima's work.
- Overshadowed by Controversy: "I Can't Be a Wife Anymore", which was supposedly meant to be a depiction of Domestic Abuse, is nowadays mostly thought to be connected in some way to the poem "Tomino's Hell", thanks to a Colbert Bump on the Internet.
Indexes:
- As if the entire premise wasn't frightening enough, Steve's appearance is modeled after the woman on Yuko Tatsushima's painting "I Can't Be a Wife Anymore", which you might already know from its association with the "Tomino's Hell" poem on the Internet. In case you don't know it, however, it's best for you to not google it if you plan on living without sleep paralysis.
- Discussed in-universe by John Kramer, better known as the Jigsaw Killer, to Mark Hoffman, who at the time had recently made a copycat Jigsaw scene as part of his plot to murder someone else for revenge. John utters the "imitation is the sincerest form of flattery" phase word by word before saying that he despises other murderers giving him credit for something he didn't do at all, much like how Hoffman did with his fake scene. (Saw V)
- Salvaged Story:
- One of the major criticisms leveled at Jigsaw, the franchise's previous attempt to re-launch itself, was that it tried to cram even more backstory into the already full-to-bursting timeline (not to mention that it was previously wrapped up well by Saw 3D, the original Grand Finale), culminating in the divisive reveal of yet another Jigsaw apprentice who turns out to have been waiting in the wings the whole time; this not only made the film less accessible to new viewers, but also alienated older viewers who didn't like the liberties the film took with these new additions. This film — while acknowledging those that came before — goes for a more standalone story that avoids becoming too convoluted, with the killer ultimately being exactly what the film sets them up as: a copycat killer inspired by Jigsaw's trap-themed MO but pursuing their own agenda.
- After Leigh Whannell left as a writer from the third film onwards, the executives tried to portray John as a sympathetic Tragic Villain whose brutal worldview and methods were shaped by a history of trauma and a genuine, if severely misguided, desire to help people improve themselves, in contrast to Whannell's intended portrayal of him being a hypocritical, vengeful person who only had the aforementioned intentions as a mere façade. However, given how by Saw 3D he had victims thrown into traps for reasons as petty as smoking, or even to simply punish other people for their crimes, audiences weren't exactly buying it. Logan's motivation in the previous film, while better received, was still seen as rather generic (namely being mere vengeance towards the guilty). This film, while still very much portraying Schenk as the villain, does a better job of making those in the traps full-tilt Asshole Victims, with crimes ranging from lying under oath to outright cold-blooded murder (all of which helped to prop up the city's corrupt police force), meaning that the flashbacks that try to humanize him land somewhat more naturally.
- Kidnap:
- Terry and Margo Vickey are a villainous couple who kidnap children and sell them off to customers for a large amount of money, something they are implied to have been doing as far back as the early 2000s with at least a dozen victims (as seen in documents at a police station that Karla Dyson enters). Terry and Margo's first act in the film is taking Karla's son Frankie to their SUV when Karla loses sight of him at a park. As Karla gets into a car chase with them, they try their hardest to lose her, by means such as throwing things at her vehicle, causing her to crash into a van (which turns the van upside down with no indication of the driver surviving), and killing a police officer by running him off the road. Eventually, they threaten Frankie's life unless Karla gives them $10,000 and follows them so that they can ensure she won't attempt to break the deal; when Karla complies under Margo's watch, the latter tries to kill her anyway once they reach a tunnel. The moment Karla finds Terry again after going to the police station, he runs over a lady who just happened to be in the way, as well as killing a man who Karla hitched a ride with. Terry and Margo are also shown to be abusive with their captive children, keeping them inside a hidden attic at their house while Margo casually talks to a customer on the phone about upping the price, proclaiming it's 100 grand or they get nothing.
- The unnamed "neighbor" to Terry and Margo is their secret partner and ringleader of their child trafficking ring, serving as the middleman connecting them with larger operations overseas. When Karla comes to Terry and Margo's house to save Frankie and two other girls who were being held captive alongside him, the "neighbor" confronts her, acting as a concerned bystander, before Karla realizes he's in on the scheme, at which point he quickly attempts to kill her.
Terry and Margo are a villainous couple who use human trafficking on children. Kidnapping the children and selling them off to consumers for a large grand, they are implied to have been doing this for quite a while. One day Karla takes her son, Frankie to the park in which Terry and Margo kidnap him while she's on the phone, Karla looks around for her son but can't find him anywhere, eventually she turns her head just in time to see Margo take Frankie inside their blue SUV. Karla is downright terrified by this and runs into her red van and chases them.
At one point, in an attempt to lose Karla they throw objects onto the road, including a spare tire causing Karla to accidentally hit a white truck while she was avoiding the tire, making the truck flip over in the middle of the road. They show how low they are willing to go to get Karla off their tail when they threaten Frankie putting a knife to his throat unless she stops chasing them so she makes them think she's ditching them by driving her van into the grass but she later sneaks behind them while they are not paying attention.
When Karla manages to attract a police officer on a motorcycle to their location The couple runs the police officer and Karla off the road and into the grass along with their car. The police officer dies from this. Karla gets out of her wrecked van and Terry gets out of his car, Terry then comes at her with a knife when she asks what he wants. She then tries bribing him offering up all the credit cards in her purse in exchange for her son. Margo then comes out of the car and goes up to Karla stating that what they want is 10,000 dollars in exchange for her boy, however if she doesn't give them the money she threatens to have him killed by Terry, under these threats Karla lets Terry's wife into her van and she tells Karla to follow Terry's car.
When they reach a tunnel Margo hits Karla over the head from the back seat, almost knocking her out and tries to take the wheel, Karla tries to fight her off then Margo gets a belt and wraps it around Karla's neck attempting to choke her to death. Karla manages to press a button that opens the back door, bites her leg and shoves her out the door.
When Karla drives to a police station to report her missing son, she sees a wall with about a dozen missing children flyers supposedly children the couple has kidnapped. When Karla find Terry, this time in a black truck she continues chasing him which he responds by running into her at which point he runs over a lady. When Karla steps out of her van and catches a ride with a man telling him the situation, Terry runs them off the road killing the man. Terry then starts shooting at Karla with his shotgun, Karla hides in her van, Terry then breaks the windows and puts his hand through them in an attempt to unlock the door, Karla then pulls on his arm opens the back door and reverses the car with most of his body hanging out of the door causing it to crash into a tree and kill Terry.
Karla then takes Terry's license from his dead body and finds where they live. She sneaks into their home where Margo is seen making a deal with a consumer on the phone where she says they caught "another one" telling him it will be a hundred grand or he gets nothing. Karla sneaks into a room where she finds Frankie in the ceiling roof along with two other kids. When she gets Frankie out she attracts Margo's attention her and Frankie manage to hide underwater before Margo could shoot them. Margo then walks along the bridge Karla grabs her by the leg and into the water before she spots her. Karla and Margo then get into an underwater fight which ends with Karla drowning Margo to death.
- The Loud House: In "White Hare", Belinda, one of the sisters of Lincoln's rabbit counterpart Warren, is themed around the concept of romance. She wears a pink shirt with a red heart pattern, has a heart-shaped hair clip, carries a bow like Cupid, and plays matchmaker with Warren and the new girl.
- In a meta sense, while the actual song being performed is documented, the specific source of the performance is completely unknown.note
- Extra-Long Episode: Whereas the previous Saw movies sat around the average runtime of one hour and a half, Saw X is the first that's close to the two-hour mark, making it the longest film in the series overall.
- Heartwarming Moments: The overall tone of the trailer is very clearly a love letter to the fans of the franchise, as if the producers are going out of their way to say "Yes, fans, we know what you want and you're gonna get it", especially after two notoriously failed attempts at modernizing the franchise. And even despite that, fans have noticed that more production value clearly has been poured into the film- but not at the cost of the franchise's identity.
- The Scrappy: In his debut, Chandler was hated by the fandom because he was not very nice to begin with, being a jerk who used Lincoln to get free food from the Arcade. For a long time thereafter, many fanfics flanderized him into a full-blown bully (sometimes even a Barbaric Bully) who loves to beat up kids and frequently targets Lincoln. Even his second appearance in "Jeers for Fears", where his jerkass nature is toned down and he gains new respect for Lincoln and Clyde at the end of the episode, was not enough to redeem Chandler's character in the eyes of fans, and it seems that, from the Season 5 premiere onward, the writers decided to play into the fanbase's hatred for Chandler and depict him as the bully he's popularly portrayed as.
Mark Hoffman: I'm not. It's a short story, believe me.
- Saw IV: Jigsaw's autopsy tape is made significantly longer between its first play in the opening and its reprise at the ending (although the latter only repeats part of the original script).
- Opening:"Are you there, detective? If so, you are probably the last man standing. Now, perhaps you will succeed where the others have failed. You think you will walk away untested? I promise that my work will continue. You think it's over, just because I am dead? It's not over. The games have just begun."
- Ending:"Are you there, detective? If so, you are probably the last man standing. Now, perhaps you will succeed where the others have failed. You feel you now have control, don't you? You think you will walk away untested? I promise that my work will continue, that I have ensured. By hearing this tape, some will assume that this is over, but I am still among you. You think it's over, just because I am dead? It's not over. The games have just begun."
- Opening:
- Advertised Extra: A rare fandom-related variant, overlapping with One-Episode Wonder and Ensemble Dark Horse. Fans of the show have taken notable attention to plenty of minor, one-shot or background characters. The droves of fan works involving these characters, alongside a surprising amount of traction with ships, would make a person outside the fandom think that they're at least frequently recurring characters (among other misconceptions based on how fans portray them). Some of the biggest examples are Maggie from "Funny Business", Rocky from "Back in Black", and the love interests from "L is for Love" who didn't re-appear afterwards (Francisco, Silas, Skippy, Winston and David) or at least didn't have significant further development (Paige).
- Content Leak: In late November 2022, actor Tommy Crowder posted an Instagram story of him in the film's set. In said story, he mentions that the Bathroom would be seen again, wherein he'd apparently play Adam Stanheight's corpse as a Fake Shemp. Crowder would later delete the story, but his photos were leaked on Reddit. The film's trailer would properly confirm the Bathroom's return.
- The Other Darrin: Apparently, Tommy Crowder will replace Leigh Whannell as Adam Stanheight from Saw and Saw III.
- Extra-Long Episode: Saw X is significantly longer than all the other Saw films, with its runtime clocking at almost 2 hours, making it about twenty minutes longer than Saw III, the longest film before then at around 1 hour and 40 minutes.
- The Artifact: Lincoln himself has become this by Season 3. The original premise of the show was about Lincoln dealing with the craziness of having 10 sisters, with the plots following his perspective accordingly. Then Season 3 came and Lincoln is now occasionally absent, with his sisters being more than capable of starring in their own plots without depending on him. It's to the point that Lincoln-centric episodes now tend to explore his relationships with other people besides his family.
- Crowley stated in another tweet that Sid was meant to be Korean-American before being changed to Chinese-American, with her surname similarly being switched from Kang to Chang. In a bit of irony, Korean-American Ken Jeong was chosen to play Sid's father Stanley. (The Loud House)
- David Near, the man who created frightening head-canon voices for the Five Nights at Freddy's characters, has now began portraying this series' characters, and the result isn't pretty at all.
- Siply_Makasin, the leader of the development team who earlier this year had released an extended demo of their version of the canned One Week At Flumpty's, has now released an final trailer and an release date (probably.) Needless to say, it's an horrifying look into what the later nights will be like. (One Night at Flumpty's)
- Author's Saving Throw:
- One of the major criticisms leveled at Jigsaw, the franchise's previous attempt to re-launch itself, was that it tried to cram even more backstory into the already full-to-bursting timeline (not to mention that it was previously wrapped up well by Saw 3D, the original Grand Finale), culminating in the divisive reveal of yet another Jigsaw apprentice who turns out to have been waiting in the wings the whole time; this not only made the film less accessible to new viewers, but also alienated older viewers who didn't like the liberties the film took with these new additions. This film — while acknowledging those that came before — goes for a more standalone story that avoids becoming too convoluted, with the killer ultimately being exactly what the film sets them up as: a copycat killer inspired by Jigsaw's trap-themed MO but pursuing their own agenda.
- After Leigh Whannell left as a writer from the third film onwards, the executives tried to portray John as a sympathetic Tragic Villain whose brutal worldview and methods were shaped by a history of trauma and a genuine, if severely misguided, desire to help people improve themselves, in contrast to Whannell's intended portrayal of him being a hypocritical, vengeful person who only had the aforementioned intentions as a mere façade. However, given how by Saw 3D he had victims thrown into traps for reasons as petty as smoking, or even to simply punish other people for their crimes, audiences weren't exactly buying it. Logan's motivation in the previous film, while better received, was still seen as rather generic (namely being mere vengeance towards the guilty). This film, while still very much portraying Schenk as the villain, does a better job of making those in the traps full-tilt Asshole Victims, with crimes ranging from lying under oath to outright cold-blooded murder (all of which helped to prop up the city's corrupt police force), meaning that the flashbacks that try to humanize him land somewhat more naturally. (Spiral (2021))
- Stock Parody Jokes:
- Jigsaw inviting a victim to play a regular game (such as soccer, video games or board games).
- Jigsaw kidnapping Angus MacGyver and then getting his ass kicked by MacGyver as a result, often via his signature MacGyvering.
- Billy the Puppet becoming sentient.
- French audiences mocking the title of Saw VI.Explanation
- Better Than Canon: Some could argue that the Caillou in the "Grounded" videos is a great deal more entertaining than the original show, thanks in part due to their So Bad, It's Good nature as well as Caillou's seemingly godlike powers until karma catches up to him. Compare that to the original Caillou, who's considered by many to be much more annoying and an immature Spoiled Brat (at least in the early seasons).
- Better Than Canon: It's much easier to find a random fanfic made by the fans of this series and accept it as canon rather than simply waiting for a new flipdeck to explain a customer's origins. Some fanfics are considered better than Flipline making the lore.
- Darker and Edgier/Lighter and Softer:
- In the Staley era, their full-length studio albums are the former and their EPs are the latter. The LPs are all heavy metal-style albums that become gradually heavier.note The two acoustic EPs (Sap and Jar of Flies), on the other hand, are more folksy and blues-inspired.note
- Strangely, Facelift alone manages to fit this description. The first half, "We Die Young" through "Love, Hate, Love", is the dark and heavy style familiar to AiC fans that was kept for their following albums. The second half, "It Ain't Like That" through "Real Thing", has an extremely noticeable glam sound left over from their predecessors Alice N Chainznote .
- It's also visible in the lyrics depending on which member is writing them. Layne's lyrics were by far the darkest, often being about hopelessness, depression, and suicide. Jerry's tend to be more about failed relationships and introspection. Duvall's, while not light-hearted by any stretch, seem to be more standard metal lyrics, full of Badass Boasts and the like.
- Improved by the Re-Cut: A notable inversion. The film is the only installment in the Saw series whose theatrical version is regarded better than any Director's Cut/Uncut versions of it, due to the former version being notably more polished with exclusive shots that make some scenes more coherent (such as Hoffman actually being seen untying himself from his chair at the end). Saw VI was the only other installment that got close to this reception, mostly because its Director's Cut made a change to the ending that was considered unnecessary.
- Meta example: Those traps are terrifying by themselves. What's more terrifying is that someone in the real world had to make sure they are somewhat plausible.
- Most (if not all) of the traps are based on actual torture or death devices. Leigh Whannell described it as "only scratching the surface of how horrible human beings have been to one another for all eternity."
- Body Horror:
- The old animatronics have been scrapped and left in a state of disrepair, replaced by the new ones. Boy oh boy, does it show. All of them are missing hunks of their hides — exposing machinery or just vacant space underneath, and are damaged in ways that make them look far more unnerving than before.
- The prime example is Bonnie, who comes after you with his freaking face ripped off! You'll be so freaked out that you probably won't notice that he's also missing his entire left arm, as well as the suit of his remaining hand and — if you catch him in the Parts and Service area or one of the party rooms — a foot.
- Foxy was already deteriorated in the first game. Now his ears are pretty much bald.
- Chica appears to be vomiting up her endoskeleton and has had her eye sockets seemingly carved to be even wider than before. She also has no hands left — just wires sticking out of the wrists.
- Even Golden Freddy gets in on the act, with a missing ear and wires coming out of said ear's slot, his shoulders and his right eye socket.
- Perhaps the worst of all is Mangle. You will first notice it in pieces on the floor in a new room named Kid's Cove, and when it becomes active, it'll crawl around the restaurant, mostly on the ceiling, letting its wires and mixed-up parts dangle. And... well, take a look at the beginning of the trailer. You see those two pictures that look like it's getting torn apart by the kids? Phone Guy outright confirms it was the kids who did it — the staff tried to fix Mangle, but eventually gave up and made the area into a disassemble-reassemble-at-will area for the kids.
- Toy Chica chooses to come after you minus her eyes and her beak for some reason, exposing a hole in which endoskeleton teeth can be clearly seen. What makes it even more disturbing is that she is otherwise kitted out in her... rather attractive suit.
- The old animatronics have been scrapped and left in a state of disrepair, replaced by the new ones. Boy oh boy, does it show. All of them are missing hunks of their hides — exposing machinery or just vacant space underneath, and are damaged in ways that make them look far more unnerving than before.
- On the reverse side of that, said health insurance executive summing up why Jigsaw is full of bullshit and extremely narrow-minded.William: Everybody thinks we're the bad guys. Nobody mentions the millions of people we help every year without incident. Or the millions of dollars we donate to charity every year. Or all the free clinics we support.
- Foil: To Jacket. Both of them are masked killers with psychotic tendencies, but whereas Jacket invokes Leave No Survivors and is motivated by revenge, Biker kills only because he finds it fun, yet can spare a whole lot of people. Furthermore, Biker openly talks and is rather forward, while Jacket is silent. Most importantly, however, Biker found out the truth about the phone calls and pulled a Screw This, I'm Out of Here! upon getting his answer, while Jacket falsely concluded that the calls came from the Russian Mafia and slaughters its leadership instead, further advancing 50 Blessings' goals. Jacket then lets himself get caught by the police without ever learning the truth, dying in custody thanks to a nuking brought by an organization whom he unwittingly helped. By contrast, Biker may have survived the nuking while hiding in the desert, as he knew the implications of the truth.
- Hoo boy, Lawrence's anticipated return really had him turn into a walking can of narm.
- The backstory of how Lawrence became Jigsaw's most renowned accomplice can come off as pretty nonsensical (such as being too out-of-character to how Lawrence developed in the first film) with how little of it is shown in relation to the film's runtime. Even though we do see a flashback of John healing Lawrence back in form, we don't get a view of the moment he was actually recruited or how he could have become a willing accomplice. What's more, even if such a shift could have been possible for Lawrence, it could be unbelievable that it could have happened in the span of about two months, if Lawrence's smiling expression whilst he's placing the key behind Michael's eye in the flashback to Saw II is any indication.
- He doesn't make any mention of Adam, his family, Zep or Carla throughout the film whatsoever, even at the Jigsaw Survivor Group's meeting, where it could have been the most logical moment for him to speak about them. The slightest thing he brings up about them is when he looks at Adam's corpse rather dully in the bathroom. Word of God's explanation about this issue (namely, that he did want to return and rescue Adam before Amanda got to him) doesn't help much either.
- Speaking of the Jigsaw Survivor Group's meeting, he delivers a cheesily villanous-sounding monologue to Bobby, which everyone else in the group seemingly follows without feeling weirded out by that as they clap to Bobby alongside him."Bravo. To be able to sustain such a traumatic experience and, uh, and yet find the positive in that grisly act. It's a remarkable feat indeed. Remarkable. If not a little perverse. I'm sure I speak for everyone here when I say how grateful we are to be a part of your... promotional... DVD."
- The very first clue that Lincoln was now Linka were that her toenails were painted. Though she's shown wearing shoes and socks in the original concept art◊.
- Thursday, August 15, 2013
- Cool Old Guy: It's commonly accepted that Metallica handled their aging pretty well. James Hetfield in particular has embraced the "Papa Het" persona in later years. In particular, the photos in the packaging of 72 Seasons are starkly-lit black and white portraits of the members with absolutely no retouching or other editing, demonstrating that they're all in their late 50s to early 60s and not afraid to admit it.
- Ray Burton, Cliff Burton's father. He appeared in various media related to the band up until his death in January 2020 at the age of 94, and looked remarkably cheery despite his often depressing life (he outlived his two sons and his wife).
- Torben Ulrich, Lars Ulrich's father. A former tennis champion and now in his nineties, he has since ridden his son's success into a musical career of his own.
- During Ramsay's last speech before walking out, she just sucks on her drink and ignores him, even though they're sitting at the same table.
- The Result: Tapp fails to finger John Kramer, one of Lawrence’s patients who fits the Jigsaw killer’s profile (rich, smart, mechanically inclined, likely to have a grudge against people like junkies or be obsessed with people "wasting their lives.")
Cut page Mood Whiplash.Film was created on Dec. 3rd, 2010.
- Saw has had several examples in its detective pairings.
- Saw: David Tapp is the Black Brotha to Steven Sing's White Bread (although Sing is Asian rather than white). Both initially act within the parameters of police procedure, but Tapp's growing obsession with catching Jigsaw (especially after he pins Lawrence Gordon as the suspect he's looking for) prompts him to become more and more reckless, causing Sing to question what he's doing. Tapp drags Sing into his riskful attempts regardless, which inadvertently leads to Sing's death and Tapp's discharge from the Metropolitan Police Department.
- An inversion manifests in Saw II between the white Eric Matthews and the black Daniel Rigg. Eric is a Hot-Blooded, Jerkass detective with a Hair-Trigger Temper who has had a history of corruption (much of which he did for his personal benefit) and brutality, even though he's completely on board with stopping Jigsaw (and even then, his personality affects his efforts severely). On the other hand, Rigg is a more focused and ethical SWAT captain who's bothered by Eric's behavior alongside their fellow colleague Allison Kerry. As explored later in Saw IV, Rigg has had attempts at violence and recklessness too, but they were due to pressure with time and his moral standards (which are much more positive than Eric's) rather than his own will.
- Saw 3D: Inverted and downplayed with the white Matt Gibson and the black Rogers. Although the two are By-the-Book Internal Affairs officers (with Gibson having a reputation as one of the MPD's most upstanding officers), Gibson takes their mission of getting Hoffman personally and quite aggresively due to his past history with him, while Rogers is far more laid-back.
- Spiral: Once he's assigned to be the latter's partner in the Spiral Killer investigation at his request, William Schenk becomes the White Bread to Zeke's Black Brotha, taking the role of the By-the-Book Cop who often objects to Zeke's Cowboy Cop tendencies and awkward quirks. This is to hide his true Faux Affably Evil demeanor as the Spiral Killer himself; he's always genuinely friendly towards Zeke, but when he offers him to join him by the time of The Reveal (pointing out their shared history as victims of police corruption in the process), Zeke is too staggered by Schenk's betrayal and standards to even agree on his intentions.
Suggestion for Wrong Restaurant:
Caption: "WHY ARE YOU BUYING CLOTHES AT THE SOUP STORE?!"
For Franchise.The Powerpuff Girls or The Loud House S 3 E 2 White Hare Insta Gran:
Characters.The Bad Guys (2022) (Mr. Wolf and Mr. Shark's folders):
Friendship Is Magic: Pinkie Pie:
(Caption: "Excuse me, where did she get that unicorn horn? Isn't she supposed to be an earth pony?")
Trademark Favorite Food.Web Original:
- This has nothing to do with the Saw films directly, but the public perception of the Saw series (i.e., from people who never watched it). I'm trying to figure out exactly why these people loathe the series to such a degree. Yeah, you can debate the films may not be fantastically produced, but since when did gratuitous violence single out an entire horror series as utterly deplorable torture porn (which doesn't accurately classify the series, since there's no real torture performed), and its viewers as sadistic perverts? Hollywood is built on showcasing graphic violence, especially these days, yet Saw gets singled out as THE point where it goes too far, and is an indication of the impending apocalypse? Hello?! Ever heard of Marquis De Sade, whose literature jump-started the concept of sadism? Hell, before De Sade, public brutality (a la Gladiator) was a staple of entertainment. Human brutality has always been around, and even with new technology, people have always discovered awful ways to kill each other. Even more ironic, when the Saw video games were released, hardcore gamers saw it as an abomination. To say nothing of the survival horror genre, Grand Theft Auto, Gears of War, and especially Rockstar's Manhunt, which predated the first Saw movie, AND even made people who're used to violent video games very uncomfortable. So why single out the Saw series to this extent? It's one thing to dislike a film series, but to absolutely trash it for simply being malevolent comes off as absurd and hypocritical.
- It set a terrible trend in horror movies, that's all.
- Which doesn't accurately classify the series, since there's no real torture performed: So people getting slowly crushed to death, injected with large amounts of acid, slowly getting cut in half by a pendulum, their limbs twisted and broken, and their scalps torn off for the sake of punishing them for crimes they have committed doesn't count as torture?
- This is probably splitting hairs, but that depends on your definition of torture. Torture, to me at least, means slow and painful. With very few exceptions, most of the deaths in the films are actually quite quick, if gruesome. Most are under a second (RBT, Angel, Shotgun Collar, Garage, etc.), and almost all are under a minute. Granted, that is an extremely unpleasant minute (The Rack comes to mind...)
- The time it takes has nothing to do with whether something is considered torture or not.
- However, as implied above, there are exceptions. The Freezer (III), and starving in the bathroom (I) are definitely torture. Of course, neither is particularly gory, and neither is what people are talking about when the describe the series as Torture Porn.
- Original poster here. With few exceptions - like The Rack from III and Scalping Seat from IV - many of the gruesome deaths don't exactly seem like torture in the traditional sense. Hostel does, but most of Saw's tests involve lots of self-mutilation and the occasional murder. While the victims were highly coerced to harm themselves, what with the threat of impending death, they still have some control instead of being bound, helpless, and getting tormented by some third party. This pretty much classifies every death in the first two movies, and most deaths within the entire series. Hell, even The Passion of the Christ fits the torture porn bill more accurately than Saw does.
- There are plenty of forms of torture where the perpetrator never lays a finger on the victim. The United Nations Convention Against Torture defines torture as 'any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as...punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person'. So torture is the use of pain and injury, or fear of pain and injury, to force another person to behave in a certain way or perform a certain action (ie the self-mutilation in Jigsaw's traps), or punishing someone for a perceived crime through severe mental or physical suffering (Jigsaw's entire reason for his actions).
- Also, saying that because the victims are merely "highly coerced to harm themselves" is ridiculous as in pretty much every trap the victims are FORCED to MUTILATE themselves, there's no other solution. The fact they're not tied up means nothing- they have no control, since the absolute only thing they can do to save their life is what their capturer wants.
- Popularity is the answer. Why do you think people raged about GTA San Andreas having the "sex scene" (through hacking and it was pretty lame anyway) when Indigo Prophecy had a sex scene you could control with the analog stick (and necrophilia in a cutscene)? GTA: SA was far more popular, that's why.
- People being killed quickly= okay-ish. People suffering for a minute or 2 before death= OH MY GOD THIS IS DEMON I CAN DEVIL AND IS THE END OF CINEMA!!!!!!!
- For those at least casually familiar with the films' content, and not just their reputation, the distaste may stem from the presentation of Jigsaw's philosophy. Although Jigsaw is obviously a hypocrite and a murderer, the films rarely explicitly highlight those aspects of his character, preferring to focus on his charisma and sympathetic backstory. This may leave viewers with the impression that the films excuse or even endorse his philosophy and the horrific violence it entails.
- Absurdly Short Production Time: Among a series in which most movies are shot in less than three months, Saw X is the first exception, taking about four months to film between October 2022 and February 2023, which makes it the installment with the longest filming time (and surpasses Saw 3D's time of 63 days in that regard).
- Surprisingly Improved Sequel: Saw X was released to an 86% Rotten Tomatoes score (making this the first "Fresh" film in the franchise, and the first to be Certified Fresh) and a 7.3 out of 10 on iMDb, with many critics not only heralding it as a return to form, but the best film since the first (which was itself generally considered by fans and non-fans alike to be "the genuinely good one"). Points of praise include making the story an early interquel — conveniently sidestepping the franchise's later Kudzu Plot and giving an opportunity for the beloved Tobin Bell a return to the spotlight as a compelling Villain Protagonist after spending over half of the series dead — as well as stronger character focus and a surprisingly poignant script, balancing out the terrifying traps with sincere character drama and emotional stakes.Rotten Tomatoes critics' consensus: Led by a franchise-best performance from Tobin Bell, Saw X reinvigorates the series with an installment that has a surprising amount of heart to go with all the gore.Click here, click here
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Well then, just click right HERE... - Ass Pull: The trailer reveals that Branch has four older brothers that have been never mentioned before, despite the fact that it was previously stated that his grandmother took care of him as a child without the presence of other relatives.
- During the film's first few minutes, the Trolls and the Bergens (after John Dory interrupted the wedding) reveal
- The name Still Alive also ends up being associated more with Nemao's (free to watch, though he runs a Patreon for funding) fan episodes because of that. Once the episodes were available, the whole collection caused a Broken Base as well and, with no official news (except for a single promise dropped by Mondo that new episodes are still being worked on), ended up being more well-known as a blip in the show's history than as something worth announced/published with fanfare.
- :
- Nemao's "No Blood Allowed" shorts are quite popular for this reason. note
- Ironically, Nemao can sometimes go even darker than Mondo themselves, for example in Spring Cleaning, there is a scene where Fliqpy brutally kills Handy. note
- Speaking of Nemao, it appears that as of the late 2010s, newer fans are more gravitated towards his fan animations and artworks than the official episodes (not helped by the show not releasing anything after 2016 until The Crackpet Show collaboration). Case in point: The show's Discord server, despite aptly named (before being renamed "Arc-en-Reve" and then deleted entirely) and being the largest and the most active HTF-related server (thus, first-timers may think this appeals more to HTF fans in general), has dedicated channels for giving suggestions and feedback for Nemao's works and lacks canon characters for its emojis (instead, most of them are of his fan character Snowers).
- Ironically, Nemao can sometimes go even darker than Mondo themselves, for example in Spring Cleaning, there is a scene where Fliqpy brutally kills Handy
- Nemao's "No Blood Allowed" shorts are quite popular for this reason. note
- The fact that popular HTF content creator Nemao made the Cuddles and Toothy pairing somewhat popular among the fandom certainly helps contribute to this.
- Never Live It Down: Giggles' diner getup of red skirt and rollerblades from "Concrete Solution" did not mean anything until she was prominently depicted this way in Nemao's fanworks for fanservice. Since then, aware fans came to associate this particular Giggles appearance with Nemao.
Saw X:
- The Eye Vacuum Trap seen in the first ten minutes is nothing but an Imagine Spot by John when he witnesses a custodian stealing from a patient, who changes his mind when he notices John watching. It's obvious that the only clear purpose of this scene is to spice up the first act with some gore, as the movie has an otherwise low-key dramatic start, unlike most other Saw films.
- My Chemical Romance tries new things on every studio album they make, but compare their debut I Brought You My Bullets, You Brought Me Your Love to their sophomore Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge. The difference is astounding: every member had improved and it gave the band the sound they're best known for.
- John is a Benevolent Boss who treats his apprentices like good people unless they try to defy him, even having a family-like relationship with one of them. Cecilia, on the other hand, is a Bad Boss who doesn't care about her subordinates' well-being, implicitly giving them very small parts of her group's overall earnings and not hesitating to kill them if doing so gives her a personal advantage.
- Developer's Foresight: An In-Universe example. Upon learning that swearing isn't possible in the Amazing Digital Circus, Pomni tries every swear word that she could possibly think of. They're all censored.
- Ironic Name: The word "pomni" can mean "remember" in several Slavic languages (помни), yet it becomes her name because she can't remember her original one. Caine's first suggestion "XDDCC" means "out" in Caesar cipher translation which reflects her desire to leave.
- Fan-Preferred Couple: Pomni's two biggest ship targets are Ragatha and Jax by a landslide. With Ragatha, fans pair them because she's the only one who treats Pomni with genuine kindness and has a few Les Yay moments with her sprinkled in the pilot, whereas Jax comparatively treats Pomni better than he treats everyone else, leading to shippers viewing it as a sign of Jax having a Hidden Heart of Gold and viewing the two as Opposites Attract material.
- Periphery Demographic: Despite being clearly aimed at something of a teen to young adult demographic who are fans of Psychological Horror and Black Comedy, Digital Circus can appeal to just about any age, ranging from toddlers to elderly people, due to its vibrant animation, lack of any swearing, and its style of horror not being a particularly gory one. As Caine himself puts it best: "The Amazing Digital Circus is a place to be enjoyed by all ages!".
- What Do You Mean, It's Not for Kids?: On the surface, it has the appearance of a children's computer game, and is technically clean of any adult content (enforced in-universe by Caine's insistence that the Circus be "a place to be enjoyed by all-ages"). However, what the show lacks in sex, violence or profanity, it makes up for in sheer existensial horror.
- Hypocritical Humor/Hypocrite Has a Point: He, the arguably least mentally sound character in the cast, suspects that Kaufmo has gone insane, and accuses Pomni of starting to go insane too after he heard both of them talking about an exit. Turns out, his fears were not unfounded, as Kaufmo had abstracted, and Pomni seems to be on her way to lose her sanity as well by the end of the Pilot.
- Corrupted Character Copy: Jax could be one to Bugs Bunny. Both are Rascally Rabbits who rely on Toon Physics, pranks, and deception to overcome obstacles. Unlike Bugs, who’s a Karmic Trickster Guile Hero that goes after those who wronged him or others (albeit to a point audiences find it cruel) and usually cares about those around him, Jax is a mean-spirited prankster who is intentionally cruel to those around him for his own amusement and has a general Lack of Empathy.
- Corrupted Character Copy: He's one to Bugs Bunny. Both are tall, skinny cartoon rabbits who enjoy pulling pranks and messing with people. However, unlike Bugs, whose targets were mostly aggressors to him and typically deserve what happens to them, Jax is just cruel and sardonic to whoever he crosses paths with.
- Bellisario's Maxim: The Maxim very much falls apart with the reveal that John and Amanda always knew that Sears is in on the plot; everything afterward is very clearly written to trick the audience rather than have them realistically act.
- Surprisingly Improved Sequel: Saw X was released to an 86% Rotten Tomatoes score (making this the first "Fresh" film in the franchise, and the first to be Certified Fresh) and a 7.3 out of 10 on iMDb, with many critics not only heralding it as a return to form, but the best film since the first (which was itself generally considered by fans and non-fans alike to be "the genuinely good one"). Points of praise include making the story an early interquel — conveniently sidestepping the franchise's later Kudzu Plot and giving an opportunity for the beloved Tobin Bell a return to the spotlight as a compelling Villain Protagonist after spending over half of the series dead — as well as stronger character focus and a surprisingly poignant script, balancing out the terrifying traps with sincere character drama and emotional stakes.Rotten Tomatoes critics' consensus: Led by a franchise-best performance from Tobin Bell, Saw X reinvigorates the series with an installment that has a surprising amount of heart to go with all the gore.
- Misaimed Fandom: People who saw the official pre-release video clip of the Eye Vacuum Trap early on YouTube have claimed that it's one of the easiest traps in the franchise to beat, saying that a bit of Fingore is nothing compared to the Life-or-Limb Decisions that define many of the other traps, and the victim should have just turned the dial straight to 5 to win. These people completely ignore that the poor guy is in shock (which anyone would be if they didn't have the Audience Awareness Advantage), and Jigsaw likely designed the trap so the dial couldn't be turned more than one increment at a time. And while yes, it is less painful than other traps, it's because those were particularly gruesome, not that this one is tame. Plus, if he did win, the same people (who are known for wanting to see victims failing in their tests to see the traps' outcomes) would probably complain about not getting to see the trap in action. The trap turned out to have been an Imagine Spot anyway, so it's a moot point how he would've reacted or how easy it was.
- Beyond Redemption: With regards to Jax being an apathetic jerkass rather than a full villain, Gooseworx has stated herself Jax is "irredeemable" and can't be softened into a Nice Guy, essentially meaning he'll remain a jerk to the bitter end.
- Pomni. She's a girl clearly filled with anxiety, and you never really know if she's about to have a panic attack or just completely lose her mind.
- When Ragatha points out the door to Pomni's personal room, Pomni stops her walk to briefly stare at the door's portrait, sporting a frozen face as she gets her first glimpse of her avatar's appearance. And once she sees her physical reflection for the first time, she needs time to consider the harlequin in the mirror is her, and looks like she's gonna snap at any second.
- After escaping Kaufmo, she finally finds the exit door... only to find it leads to an office room with an exit door, leading itself to an office room with another exit door, and it goes on and on until the final door which leads to... the Void. And the entire time she's pushing through the endless doors, she sounds like she's teetering back and forth between panicked gasping and sobbing uncontrollably.
- The best example of this is right at the end of the pilot, where while the rest of the gang chats with one another, Pomni just stares into space, as her face slowly changes to make a very forced smile. You KNOW the poor girl is crying on the inside.
- All of the characters names have 6 letters but two: Jax and Ragatha. Guess they chose their own names. Confirmed for Jax at least by Gooseworx at Glitch X.
- The normally threatening Disassembly Drones are not so scary when the even scarier Absolute Solver infected Worker Drones come into play. Uzi shows this best in "Cabin Fever" when she's corrupted to the point of behaving very identically to a Disassembly Drone with Absolute Solver manipulation powers overpowering V with little effort.
- Tear Jerker.Murder Drones: Without context and the caption (which even then does little to add to its weight), the image only shows a character doing a gesture of goodbye for the most part, with said character's surroundings not giving much detail to what's going on. Not to mention, the moment shown is likely a major spoiler, since it happens at the end of the series' current latest episode and involves a relevant character's possible death.
- Sad Clown: She is definitely more than just sad when all is said and done.
- (she does not use to hide sadness. she is clearly sad.)
- (* humor to hide her sadness. she is just a sad jester.)
- Hilarious in Hindsight: In this movie, Scott Patterson plays an authority figure whom a serial killer is trying to frame. Come Batman: Gotham by Gaslight, Patterson voices The Commissioner Gordon, who happens to be Jack the Ripper; therefore, he really is the killer unlike in this film.
- (Actor trivia shoehorn.)
- Re-adding the bottom line that Sugarp1e1 accidentally removed while creating the current Woolseyism subpage for the show. Said line was first added by Black Faith Star before then, so my re-addition can't be considered a case of starting an Edit War.
- The rivalry proceeded to worsen when a Twitter / X video titled "If TADC was written by VivziePop" featuring Pomni and Caine constantly swearing; mocking the excessive use of profanity in the Hellaverse.note The video went viral and inspired similar memes replacing Digital Circus with other shows. This barrage of mockery soon reached Vivzie herself and she responded in a manner many considered immature and childish, leading to fans of Helluva/Hazbin defending Vivzie but also more mockery from Digital Circus fans.
- Everyone Has Standards: When he saw Kaufmo being abstracted, he makes no joke about it, and even goes as far as to get Gangle and Kinger to safety while downplaying the situation to make sure they don't freak out.
- (Jax's first reaction upon seeing the abstracted Kaufmo after getting over his surprise is to sarcastically thank him for keeping an eye on his bowling ball. Likewise it would be exceedingly generous to describe his subsequent interactions with Gangle and Kinger as him trying to downplay the situation for their comfort, as he maintains his calm lack of empathy even after Kaufmo crashes into the Gloink Queen and his companions realize what happens, and physically abuses Gangle (whom he is supposedly "protecting" from distress) immediately afterwards no less. It's far more likely he simply isn't concerned because he isn't in danger.)
- Stylized Moon: She is a crescent moon that has eyes and lips.
- (Stylized Moon redirects to The Man In The Moon.)
- Re-ordering the Saw I Jigsaw Victims after Adam and Lawrence in accordance to their order of appearance (or relevanchy and screentime in Donnie Greco's case; his name is never even stated in the film itself).
- (he was killed by Zep months later, but not by John), (only to end up killing himself at some time between the events of the first video game and Saw V),
- (really exactly)
- The Baby of the Bunch: He's actually 22 years old, and is the youngest of the Digital Circus's current human (soul?) inhabitants.note
- Broken Aesop: The writer intended Monokuma to be a twisted Audience Surrogate, and for audience members to recognize the voyeuristic part of themselves that's impatiently excited and interested to see the next murder, the next case, the next execution reflected in the evil mastermind and be ashamed of it. But this rarely happens, not only because Monokuma is so over-the-top malicious and sadistic that relating to him is difficult but because the characters are almost always so interesting and likable that many fans would happily just hang out with them without the spice of murder mystery plots, and what fully breaks this aesop is that on some level the creators knew this because every Danganronpa game has an alternate post-game mode (and one of the spin-offs just involves) hanging out with the characters in a normal, wholesome manner, making friends and having fun getting to know them without any horrible violence at all.
- Belly Dancer: A few examples of this during the series:
- Erza performs a dance on her float during the Fantasia parade.
- Lucy dresses like one while in Edolas, right before her fight with Byro.
- The Celestial Spirit Libra has this as her main costume.
- Mirajane disguises herself as one in an attempt to free Lucy during the Grand Magic Games.
- Briar from Avatar dresses up like this.
- Virgo performs a dance for Team Natsu during their celebratory reception in the Celestial Spirit World.
- Word of God states that Jax and Zooble are the youngest of the characters, both being only 22 years old. Given that, aside from Pomni, all the characters have been stuck there for years, it's entirely possible that Zooble and Jax have been trapped in the circus since they were teenagers. This would help to explain Jax's rude and immature personality, with all the pranks and insults he spews at other characters, as well as Zooble's standoffish-ness and how their mismatched body parts represent how they didn't feel at peace with themself in their real life before they were trapped. If they've been stuck since they were teenagers and/or young adults, they never truly had a chance to grow up in life. You can't help but feel sorry for them, even though they're not exactly the nicest of people.
- From this, it follows that it's possible for Caine himself to Abstract (for example, out of despair that he can't preserve the sanity of the other performers). If that happens, the Digital Circus system would presumably detect corruption in the superuser process and hand admin privileges to another user, probably the next oldest user added. Ringmaster Kinger, anyone?
- Adding to that, Gooseworx has confirmed that Jax is only 22 years old, making him the youngest of the Circus's current human inhabitants. That would have to mean he was really young (likely a teenager or college age) when he first got trapped in there.
- This is assuming the avatars do age in the digital world.
- Gooseworx has stated that Jax was 14 when he entered the circus, which would mean that avatars DO age in the digital world.
- This is assuming the avatars do age in the digital world.
It could be in the form of one of Caine's "adventures" involving the performers falling through some endless pit or the like as a plot, or simply in a single scene or shot. It would be a nice little detail to add, now that Glitch has confirmed that more episodes will be produced.
Specifically, Pomni will suddenly wake up with a unicorn horn in one episode and everyone will act like it was always there, calling it her "iconic unicorn horn". Pomni will spend much of the episode freaking out over it and desperately trying to figure how to get rid of it. Then in the next episode, it'll be gone and no one will ever reference it again.
- Option 1: Ragatha has already forgiven Pomni. Her distance from her could be her trying to give her some space after such a hectic first day, and their relationship afterwards will continue as it was.
- Option 2: Ragatha doesn’t quite forgive Pomni for what happened in the first episode, and Pomni tried her damnedest to make amends. Ragatha will eventually forgive Pomni, but they’ll still be distant for a bit.
Caine admits that he created the Exit door on request by the players, but since he's an AI, he could not fully grasp how to do it, so instead, he did the next best thing: putting in the entire floor where the "Digital Circus" game was developed as a train of rooms.
Perhaps rendered into the computer as a test-run on how to make the graphics right for the actual circus, the data was left untouched in the program as reference material, something Caine had access to as an AI in the system and put behind the door. However, as a self-admitted perfectionist, he might have put in everything available on the entire floor inside the exit as a perfect recollection, meaning that behind the exit door, every single piece of data and information regarding the "Digital Circus" is fully available to the people entering it (without Caine even realizing the importance of it all).
If even one of the trapped players can grasp programming code, they might be able to read up on how the "Digital Circus" works/is written, find a computer, and resume work on the incomplete project right there. Basically, patching up/fixing the "Circus" from within the program itself.
That's where Pomni comes in. As a complete newcomer to the program who hasn't resigned herself to fate like the rest, Pomni might give it a shot and solve the problem after much trial and error. It comes with added symbolism, because she, a jester, is the only one allowed in the kingdom to throw a boot at the authority and go unpunished for it — she has an eternity to figure it out.
Toons are well-known for both being aware of the fourth walls of their media and being able to conjure anything they need into existence depending on what's convenient and/or funny. The same probably applies to Jax.
We already had "Gather the Gloinks" in the pilot, and we know for sure that the adventures are a routine thing at the Digital Circus, so perhaps it'll be like the Total Drama franchise, where we get a new challenge every episode as a lead-in to how the characters work with each other... for better or worse.
This would fit with the digital setting, and explain why some characters appear to have certain abilities that others don't (e.g. Jax having keys to everyone's room and being able to suddenly run away, Gangle and Zooble having somewhat deconstructable bodies, Pomni being able to stretch her face and eyes, etc).
As a further WMG, chess pieces like Kinger (and Queenie) are mods/admins.
and given how much of a Large Ham Caine is, it only makes sense that he'd decide to make an entire adventure where the point is "everybody sings".I'm thinking about adding this example to the Trivia page of The Amazing Digital Circus.
- According to a tweet from Gooseworx, the part of Pomni's Door Roulette scene at the Circus where a mannequin taking a bath launches a screaming theatre mask at her was added because Gooseworx found it hilarious.
Fan Songs
- THE AMAZING DIGITAL CIRCUS SONG - "RAG DOLL" by Chi-Chi, a good song for Ragatha showing her resilience against being trapped in the Digital Circus.
- and as for a villainous fan song, heres Amazing Digital Circus Animation | "No Exit" by longestsoloever, for the Ringleader Caine.
- The Show That Never Ends, also by longestsoloever, featuring the existential dread (and hope) of everyone's new favorite isekai jester.
- "Love-Hate Relationship", by Cam Steady, is a nerdcore rap from Jax's point of view that explains his cynical attitude, whilst also giving a bit of a Freudian Excuse for his Jerkass tendencies.
- "Day After Day" by RecD, a song that probably fits the show's tone the best out of most of the fansongs — a deceptively whimiscal and jaunty song focusing on Caine subjecting our heroes to various adventures.
Works with Trope Subpages
LGBT Representation in Media.Anime & Manga:
- The game literally cannot continue with the festival storyline after Sayori dies. It's thanks to Monika messing with the programming, but it hints that even in a meta sense, the player character cannot comprehend a world where Sayori isn't there.
- In a meta-scale, modders have dedicated their time to creating modded versions of the game, including ones that revolve around romancing Monika and restoring the club back to normal, leading happy lives. Despite how atrocious her actions were, many players did empathize with Monika's situation and believe she does deserve a second chance. And now she can.
Meta
- There is an Alternate Reality Game that took place within the code of the game, hinting at an upcoming game from Team Salvato that will star these same characters. The implication is that these girls were created for a different game - a horror game. The ending of the ARG involves the players finding a hidden letter, which is implied to be from Monika - still aware within the game and knowing that you, the player, are also there trying to figure out what's going on. She's deeply grateful that you have done so much to help her and is determined to make up for everything. It's a bit of a Tear Jerker because, as she tells you, everyone else is dead, but she is determined to make all of your effort not be for nothing and knows there's a way for you to Set Right What Once Went Wrong (keeping in mind we aren't sure if it's actually FROM Monika, but regardless of who it's from, SOMEONE in this game is still clearly determined to set things right.) The whole thing is read out extremely well here, by Stephanie Patrick of the GameTheory team.I guess I should... introduce myself, or something. Um... my name is... actually, that's stupid. You obviously already know my name. Sorry. Anyway... I'm guessing if you were able to put a stop to this, you would have done it by now.
I mean, I know you're not, like...evil, or anything... because you've already helped me so much. I should really thank you for that. For everything you've done. You're really like a friend to me. So... thank you. So much.
I think... more than anything else... I really don't want it to all be for nothing. - During his "Ask Me Anything" thread in the DDLC Reddit group, someone asked Dan Salvato who his "favorite girl" is. Dan's answer was... his sister! Awwwww.
- For Valentine's 2018, Monika uploaded official art of the girls making gifts on her Twitter. Natsuki's has her make chocolate, Sayori's has her wrapping a gift, Yuri's has her trying to write a love letter, and Monika's has her out on a date (with a unique outfit, no less). The last one also doubles as a Funny Moment, due to the fact that it's more detailed (because of course it is) and has the other three watching from the bushes with indignant envious expressions on their faces.
- In the game, Monika complained about how she was the only girl who only hasn't gotten to dress in any outfit other than her school uniform. In the artwork mentioned above, Satchely made it up to her.
- A closer look at the letter shows that all four girls signed it.
- For April Fools, the DDLC subreddit changed its aesthetic to that of Katawa Shoujo's subreddit. While there were mixed reactions ranging from loving the change to outright hatred, in the end both subreddits came out of it as even friendlier fandoms due to the event prompting more people on the DDLC subreddit to try out Katawa Shoujo for themselves and vice-versa. Some users were so impressed with the effort put into DDLC's change of aesthetic that they have requested that style be that of the Katawa Shoujo subreddit.
- Evil Counterpart: Ironically, Hoffman somewhat reflects a more twisted and evil version of John. Both were ostensibly kind men until the death of a loved one changed them for the worse. Like John, Hoffman's first victim was a man who killed his relative.
- Obscure Popularity: The franchise has a large and active fanbase that produces lots of fanart and fanfiction, and Nickelodeon considers it its second best-performing franchise (behind SpongeBob SquarePants) to the point of having a movie and two spin-offs. However, it's barely talked about among both mainstream audiences and the Western Animation community as a whole, largely due to a number of controversies surrounding its fans and its creatornote . In the rare event that it *is* brought up, it is usually done to mock the show or give unfavorable comparisons to the show's contemporaries. The show getting poor treatment and generally being overlooked by popular cartoon YouTubers and the Western Animation community's preference for serialized Dramedy shows doesn't help matters.
- Franchise Original Sin: A growing criticism of the franchise is newer media featuring more fantastical situations compared to Seasons 1-3 of the original animated series. There were already instances of unrealistic things happening in the show's prior seasons, like the extent of Lisa's intelligence and child prodigy nature, but these were forgiven for the most part because they were subtle, sporadic instances that rarely broke the Willing Suspension of Disbelief and mostly were just for quick gags and didn't dramatically impact the plot, and previous seasons at least had boundaries for the reality of The Loud House's world. In other words, reality was stretched, but it remembered to quickly snap back. As early as Season 3, however, one episode ("The Mad Scientist") had the conflict be resolved via time travel. By Season 4, many had begun to take notice of these instances happening practically several episodes and becoming far more zany and explicitly outside the realm of realism, with it getting seemingly more ingrained into the show's formula as Season 5 came around, and reaching its apex in the film The Loud House Movie, which features magic and dragons as relevant aspects of the plot (with the climax featuring a "dragon vs. magic" battle), and ghosts being major characters in the film who provide crucial plot information. This made people decry it as moving too far away from the show's original premise as a relatable, grounded series about a boy and his 10 sisters. And this criticism only got worse when the series' sixth season and later The Really Loud House only further cranked up the fantastical elements and scenarios, as does its spin-off The Casagrandes, which throws Mesoamerican gods into the mix, in both the series and the movie.
- Aluminum Christmas Trees: Adam considering the Exterminations to be entertainment is considered a sign of his own personal sadism. But there really are Christian philosophers who have argued that one of the greatest rewards of Heaven will be to see God's justice done by watching the punishment of the sinners in Hell.
- 'Homeward Bound' / 'Pressure Cooker' (TBA/TBA): When Lori takes a gap year from college, the Loud kids are determined to have her move back in with them. / Royal Woods' best bakers, Clyde and Nana Gayle, decide to get their own food truck together.
