Film / Saw 3D

aka: Saw The Final Chapter

WARNING: All spoilers from previous films in the Saw franchise are unmarked here. Read on or go back — make your choice.

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Will you survive until the end?

"You have amassed wealth, fame and notoriety based upon your story of survival. Many have aided in your cause, but few know the truth: you are a liar. You and I both know you have never been in a trap, nor have you ever been tested. Today, these lies will come full circle and you will learn if you truly have what it takes to call yourself a survivor."

— Jigsaw to Bobby

Saw 3D (titled Saw: The Final Chapter for its home video release) is the seventh film in the Saw horror film series, released on October 29, 2010 and directed by Kevin Greutert. While plans for a Saw VIII were pre-existing, Saw VI's decrease in box office returns led to Saw 3D becoming the planned series finale, with its plot carrying over concepts from Saw VIII.

Picking up right where VI left off, Detective Mark Hoffman has managed to survive his predecessor's final game for him. Now seeking revenge on Jill Tuck, who placed him in the trap according to John's will, he proceeds to go on the warpath to find her.

All the while, a man named Bobby Dagen, who falsely proclaimed himself as a survivor of one of Jigsaw's traps and became a local celebrity selling his story, becomes the center of his newest game, which forces him to try to save the people who participated in his scams.

Preceded by Saw VI. Followed by Jigsaw.

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Saw 3D provides examples of:

#-G

• Abandoned Hospital: The setting of the film's main game is an abandoned mental institution known as the Clear Dawn Mental Facility.
• Advertised Extra: Despite Tobin Bell receiving top billing and appearing in many of the movie's promotional material, John Kramer only has two minutes of screentime in the movie.
• Alas, Poor Villain: Even after deciding not to fight each other and leaving Dina to die in the "Lover's Triangle" trap (after realizing she played them both for fools and didn't love either), both Brad and Ryan are completely horrified and have to shove their faces into their arms at the sight of her gruesome death by giant circular saw.
• Alien Blood: When viewed in non-3D viewings, every character in the film appears to bleed pinkish blood. This is because the liquid used for the blood during filming (which is otherwise the same as in previous films) was changed to such color in order to normally appear red in 3D viewings.
• All Just a Dream: Jill's first "death" at the hands of Hoffman falls under this.
• Amoral Attorney: Since Suzanne was Bobby's lawyer during his scheme, handling the legal work, she counts as this as she knew she was defending his lies for money.
• And I Must Scream: At the end of the film, Hoffman is chained in the abandoned bathroom with no means of escape and will certainly suffer a slow, painful death. And it was confirmed that unlike with Adam, no one is coming back to put him out of his misery.
• Artistic License – Biology: At least one of the numbers on Bobby's wisdom teeth for the Wisdom Teeth Combination was etched onto said tooth's root, which is impossible to do without extracting it beforehand.
• Ax-Crazy: Hoffman becomes this by the time of this movie. With his identity as a Serial Killer known to the public, he sees no reason not to become a raging psychopath, killing anyone who is in his way for the remainder of the film as sadistically as he can (until he's finally caught).
• The Bad Guy Wins: Subverted. Hoffman wins as effortlessly as he has in the past two films, then gets captured and left to die by Lawrence as he was going to escape from the city. Given that Lawrence is now another Jigsaw accomplice, he's technically also a bad guy, but he's leagues better than Hoffman.
• Back for the Finale: Lawrence Gordon comes back for this film, which was planned to be the series' original finale. Up until this point, he hasn't been seen since the original Saw, six movies ago.
• Batman Gambit: A small part of Hoffman's plan to catch Jill is a pretty extreme case of this, as it requires the explosion he sets off in the scrapyard to distract every single officer present for several minutes while he opens up a bodybag, removes the body from it, moves it two rooms over, poses it and then crawls back into the bodybag, all without anyone noticing.
• Becoming the Boast: Bobby is a motivational speaker who falsely claims to have survived one of Jigsaw's death traps, in which he put two hooks through his pectoral muscles and climbed the chains attached to them in order to pull himself up to safety. Guess what his final test is when he's put through one of Jigsaw's trials for real, with his wife Joyce's life on the line? It's cruelly subverted when a Surprisingly Realistic Outcome occurs, as the pectoral muscles simply aren't strong enough to support Bobby's full weight, and the hooks tear right out of his chest as he tries to climb the chains. Thanks to his lies, Bobby is Forced to Watch as Joyce suffers one of the most brutal deaths in the entire series.
• Beneath Suspicion: Lawrence is an interesting variant. The previous films where he was absent had various small hints to him having become an accomplice behind the scene, but this film has no foreshadowing to it at all before his reveal; the closest thing that gets to a hint is him sarcastically praising Bobby's claims in the Jigsaw Survivor Group meeting.
• Big "NO!":
  • Most of the trap victims say this at some point.
  • Hoffman lets out several at the end of the film when Dr. Gordon leaves him chained up to die in the same bathroom he was in.
• Black Blood: An unintentional example. The film was made for 3D viewings, and it looks fine when viewed that way. However, no version of the film for non-3D viewings was made for formats where 3D isn't possible like the home video releases. When a film is shot in 3D, some colors have to be changed so that they'll show up properly when viewed through the 3D effect; in this film for example, numerous background colors were made lighter so that they could show up in the typical Saw visual tone in 3D. The liquid used for the blood during shooting is more of a hot pink color than red (which was also used for numerous other details meant to be in red color), and looks red in 3D but not in non-3D format. This means that the home releases feature victims bleeding what appears to be liquid cotton candy instead of actual blood, which can make the bloody moments look ridiculous and hard to take seriously.
• Blood from the Mouth:
  • After a chainsaw begins slowly cutting into Dina's stomach, this is one of the prime signs that she's dead.
  • Also happens (understandably) to Nina when Bobby pulls the fishhook from her throat, and Bobby himself when he has to pull out two of his own teeth.
• Bloodier and Gorier: Saw 3D takes the gore to new heights in the series. As well as finally showing what happens when the Reverse Bear Trap opens fully without the victim escaping, the film also contains the Horsepower Trap, which couldn't be included in any of the previous entries due to its sheer gruesomeness. The result of said trap is that a woman tied down with barbed wire has her head crushed under the wheels of a car, a man has his arms and jaw ripped off, another man is run over by the same car and the man in the front seat is sent flying through the windshield when the car crashes (and since he was glued into the seat, this causes a huge chunk of his skin to be ripped off).
• Bodybag Trick: Hoffman hides inside a body bag (which was previously used to store Dan's corpse) so he can sneak into the police station where Jill is inside and catch her.
• Bond One-Liner: Hoffman turns the series' Signature Line "Game over" into one following the Reverse Bear Trap finally claiming a victim in Jill.
• Bond Villain Stupidity: Averted by Hoffman. Once he gets Jill into the Reverse Bear Trap, he stands there and watches until she dies, which she notably didn't do when she put him in the same situation in the previous movie.
• Booby Trap: Hoffman, having completely abandoned even Jigsaw's twisted concept of morality, begins to use these again.
• Book Ends: Being the (former) Grand Finale, Saw 3D has several of these.
  • The series from the first movie to 3D begins and ends in that bathroom.
  • A more subtle one: the first time we ever see Jigsaw is the establishing shot of him posing as a corpse on the bathroom floor - which also happens to be the last shot we ever see of him in 3D.
  • 3D begins with a flashback to Lawrence sawing off his foot. At the end, one of the last things Hoffman sees before the lights go out is that same foot, skeletal, badly decayed and still resting in its shackle.
• Brick Joke: The Reverse Bear Trap is arguably the most iconic trap of the franchise, seeing as how two people (Amanda and Hoffman) survived it. The trap was bound to kill someone in this film, and when it does, it looks awesome. Hoffman even uses the original model of the trap — the one Amanda survived — instead of the newer-looking model that he escaped.
• Bullying a Dragon: Bobby to John, emphatically so. Impersonating a victim of a serial killer who victimizes frauds was only ever going to end one way.
• Bystander Syndrome: Exaggerated with the Public Execution Trap, where a huge crowd of pedestrians stand around the display window and only two of them make an attempt to do anything; one tries to bash the glass with her briefcase and another calls the police. Some are even filming it.
• By-the-Book Cop: Gibson is one of the more upstanding cops seen in the series. He previously turned in some of Hoffman's cronies for corruption and is reluctant to help Jill unless she follows the rules. Due to his selfless nature and history with Hoffman, he's the only police officer who Jill believes isn't complicit with Hoffman.
• The Can Kicked Him: Hoffman gets his ultimate comeuppance when Gordon locks him in the Bathroom from the first film and leaves him to die.
• Car Fu: The Horsepower Trap, in which a group of skinheads will be killed in various ways when a car is released from the two jacks holding it and speeds forward. Which it does.
• Central Theme: Lying is bad, and it will have harsher consequences if it persists.
• Chained to a Railway: Kind of. Jill is suspended in the air with a vehicle with a giant blade on the front coming toward her. Unlike most examples of this Dead Horse Trope, this trap was actually terrifying, though it was All Just a Dream.
• Chainsaw Good: The Public Execution Trap involves three circular saws attached to a movable carriage on a worktable. Two of them are on opposite ends, aimed at Brad and Ryan, while the third is in the middle and aimed upward at a suspended Dina. The two men can either fight, each one trying to push the carriage to the other's end and cut him, or spare each other and let Dina be lowered onto the center saw. They spare each other, and Dina gets sliced in half at the waist.
• Character Blog: The main victim of this film, Bobby Dagen, has a Twitter page, a website (now defunct) and a Facebook page. The Jigsaw Survivor Group that Bobby leads has a Facebook page and a blog as well.
• Chekhov's Gun:
  • The note to Hoffman saying "I know who you are" in Saw V. At that point, it looked like it's from Jill; this movie reveals it was from Dr. Gordon.
  • And, of course, the note that Jill brought to the St. Eustace Hospital in Saw VI, revealed to be for Dr. Gordon in this movie.
• Chekhov's Gunman:
  • The film opens with Dr. Gordon dragging himself away from the first film's setting and cauterizing his amputated foot. He later shows up at a gathering of Jigsaw survivors. At the end of the film, it turns out he had been nursed back to health by Jigsaw, given a prosthetic foot, and trained as an accomplice. Gordon becomes the only truly faithful accomplice who doesn't go off the rails and abandon the Jigsaw code when Hoffman kills Jill Tuck—acting on Jigsaw's orders, Gordon captures Hoffman and leaves him to die in the same Bathroom from the first film.
  • Dan, one of the skinheads who died in the Horsepower Trap (specifically the one who lost his lower jaw and arms) later has his body used as a decoy by Hoffman.
• Cock Fight: The opening trap concerns Brad and Ryan, two friends who were dating the same woman (Dina) and are forced to choose between each other's lives or that of Dina. They spend a good minute trying to kill each other, until they realize that Dina was a two-timing, backstabbing adulterer who was playing them both, causing them to put Bros Before Hoes and get her cut in half.
• Company Cross References: The reality TV show that Bobby and his crew are seen at is named "Daybreak", likely a reference to a past film distributed by Lionsgate titled Daybreakers, which was released the previous year to Saw 3D's.
• Continuity Cavalcade: Two of them, as a matter of fact.
  • The Jigsaw Survivor Group, formed by Jigsaw survivors from the previous films.
  • The evidence room where Hoffman brings Jill to before killing her is full of sets and pieces from past traps, including those that were never used or were only seen in the background.
• Continuity Nod: Two photos nodding to Saw IV placed one above the other (specifically depicting Bobby the Puppet and the photo from the newspaper article of the Urban Renewal Group's construction of the Gideon Meatpacking Plant) can be seen on a photo board at the evidence room.
• Continuity Porn: By far the movie with the largest amount of this in the series. It starts with a flashback to Gordon escaping the Bathroom in the first film, and gets progressively more referential from there on out. The Jigsaw Survivor Group, the Reverse Bear Trap (which already appeared frequently throughout the series) and the final Bathroom scene just cinch it.
• Crucified Hero Shot: While chained up in the Pain Train, Jill appears to be doing one of these.
• Cruel and Unusual Death: Most of the trap victims who die in this movie suffer far more agonizing deaths than those from the previous installments, but Joyce getting roasted alive in a brazen bull likely takes the cake.
• Dead Man Writing: It's revealed at the end that what Jill sent to a hospital office in the previous film was for Dr. Gordon, where John instructs him about the final task he gave to him.
• Dead Star Walking: Linkin Park vocalist Chester Bennington makes a cameo as Evan, the leader of the group of skinheads in the Horsepower Trap and the one given the main objective to get them out alive. He fails, and everyone is killed.
• Death by Irony: In Saw VI, Jill intended to kill Hoffman in a newer version of the Reverse Bear Trap, but he managed to survive. Here, Hoffman ends up killing Jill by putting her in the original Reverse Bear Trap.
• Death by Racism: Evan and his skinhead friends in the Horsepower Trap.
• Desperate Object Catch: In his fourth test, Bobby has to guide a blindfolded Cale across some precarious planks, then toss him a key to unlock a cable that will otherwise hang Cale if the time runs out. He throws it just too high, and it bounces off Cale's chest and through the space between the planks, dooming Cale to hang.
• Didn't Think This Through: While Bobby's plan to make money isn't exactly terrible at a glance, he didn't make sure that Jigsaw was either behind bars or death before publishing his fake story. Even that would have been risky, since Jigsaw's accomplices (none of whom were known or identified by the police at the time) would have taken notice of him too.
• Digital Destruction: An inverted example where the lack of digital re-touching for the non-3D home releases made the film look far worse than the 3D viewings it aimed at. Due to the film being shot with lighter colors for 3D so the colors would appear darker when viewed in 3D as intended (including the blood being changed to a hot pink color), the non-3D home releases feature the entire film sporting a light, washed-out coloration and virtually no deep reds, including the aforementioned hot pink blood, a hot pink lightbulb which is supposed to be red that comes on during a particular trap, and a lot of hot pink scrawlings on walls, doors, and floors that are clearly supposed to be red. These coloration issues could have easily been solved through proper editing and retouching, but the film suffers greatly from a lazy, hastily-made home version.
• Disproportionate Retribution: While Joyce enjoyed the money from Bobby's false story, she didn't know he was lying. As a result, apart from being his unwitting wife, she literally did nothing to warrant being a victim of Jigsaw.
• Door-Closes Ending: Dr. Gordon closing the bathroom door on Hoffman, shot in a similar way as the ending of the first movie.
• Dramatic Unmask: Lawrence does it upon himself in his sudden appearance shortly after the climax, apparently in response to Hoffman's "What the fuck?"
• Eye Scream: The Impalement Wheel, which involves three rods designed to not only penetrate Suzanne's eyes, but also her mouth, which they eventually do. If any scene in the Saw franchise wanted viewers to see first-hand what being in a Jigsaw trap is actually like, watching that trap in 3D (as the film had intended) is it.
• Face–Heel Turn:
  • Lawrence was indoctrinated into Jigsaw's philosophy after John nursed him back to health.
  • Word of God claims that Brad and Ryan were the two pig-masked men who helped Lawrence in subduing Hoffman.
• Fan Disservice: With her tight-fitting shirt, which exposes her midriff and some of her bra, Dina in the opening is probably the biggest fanservice material in the whole franchise... until she's sawn in half and her intestines spill out, anyway.
• Final Girl: Subverted. Jill Tuck has an inevitable showdown with Hoffman at the police station. She dies when he puts her in the Reverse Bear Trap.
• Flashback Echo: The ending gives us Dr. Gordon closing the Bathroom door on Hoffman in the same manner as John did in the first film, complete with the "game over" Pre-Mortem One-Liner.
• Flayed Alive: In the Horsepower Trap, Evan is superglued into the driver's seat of a car. In order to save himself and his skinhead friends, he has to pull himself loose by ripping off the skin from his arms and back — in Hoffman's eyes, to illustrate how "we are all the same color on the inside."
• Fun with Acronyms: Bobby's book about his fake Jigsaw trap experience is titled "S.U.R.V.I.V.E.", which stands for each of the lessons he claims he learned from the experience: "Start your life anew", "Understand your problems", "Redefine your priorities", "Verify your self-worth through commitment", "Ignore your detractors", "Value your loved ones" and "Embrace every day as if it is your last". As an Ironic Echo, each of these phrases are written on walls, doors and even a staircase at Bobby's trial.
• Gas Chamber: There's a Booby Trap gas chamber for the SWAT team that raids Bobby's game.

H-Z

• Half the Man He Used to Be: In the Public Execution Trap, Dina, the girl who's cheating on Brad and Ryan, is dropped forcefully upon a rotating saw blade at her midsection when they agree that she is the one who should die in the trap.
• Happily Married: After getting fame for his false survival story against Jigsaw, Bobby has a happy marriage with Joyce. Too bad the "happy" part was short-lived after he and anyone associated with him gets captured for one of Jigsaw's games. Bobby ultimately fails at saving any of them.
• Happy Flashback: In a more depressing example than the trope's typical depiction, Jill hallucinates a series of these (involving her times with John before their divorce) just before her death.
• Hate Crimes Are a Special Kind of Evil: Hoffman abducts a gang of neo-Nazi skinheads in a trap he made himself, instead of him setting up one of the original Jigsaw traps that he was given control over after John's death.
• Heal It With Fire: The film reveals that after Dr. Gordon crawled out of the Bathroom sans a foot in the first film, he cauterized his bleeding stump by pressing it against a hot metal pipe.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: Bobby's final test — the "game" he must "win" to save his wife — is the same trap he made up in his lies about being a Jigsaw survivor. Bonus points for said trap literally involving hoisting yourself up. He tries to do it the way he described in his lies, by digging the hooks into his chest, but it turns out to be impossible to complete the trap that way. There were, however, several things he could have done instead that would have made the trap rather trivial to complete (for instance, the hooks were big enough for him to simply stand in), which was more than likely intentional on Jigsaw's part.
• Immediate Sequel: After the opening Public Execution Trap, the film begins with a brief replay of the ending of Saw VI, then starts the plot from it.
• Impromptu Tracheotomy: On his way to find Jill, Hoffman enters the body bag in which Dan's corpse was put. When Dr. Adam Heffner opens it, Hoffman kills him by stabbing him in the throat.
• Internal Affairs: The Metropolitan Police Department's Internal Affairs Division takes charge of the Jigsaw case when Hoffman is publicly identified as the wanted second Jigsaw apprentice. The three named members of the division seen in the film are Gibson (who had a backstory with Hoffman before being moved to the division), Palmer and Rogers.
• Ironic Echo: Bobby pretended to be a survivor of Jigsaw's games with a book, for which he created an acronym title (S.U.R.V.I.V.E.) that supposedly imparts the lessons he learned from his fake experience. When he actually takes part in a Jigsaw game, the phrases the acronym was meant to stand for are scrawled over various walls, doors and a staircase that he passes through, partially because they embody the values Jigsaw tries to instill in his victims.
• Irony:
  • In the first movie, Dr. Lawrence Gordon is questioned by the police because he's suspected of being the Jigsaw killer. In this one he is.
  • At the beginning of the movie, Bobby Dagen falsely claims to be a Jigsaw survivor, and by the end he actually is, but his wife, best friend, publicist and lawyer were all killed due to him failing to save them.
• It's for a Book: Inverted. After seeing people explaining their own experiences in Jigsaw traps, Bobby uses them to make up his own experience as the theme for a book, down to scarring his own pectorals like the scars of said victims to make it seem more real. The success of the book kickstarts the film's main game, where Bobby is put in an actual trial by Hoffman long after Jigsaw took notice of him.
• Karma Houdini:
  • Two subversions.
    • Although he lied about being a survivor of one of Jigsaw's traps simply to become rich and famous, Bobby survives his trial (which was the last one Hoffman ran) with only a few injuries. That being said, his incompetence at successfully completing most of the traps lead to the deaths of his staff, best friend and wife, and in all likelihood his career as a writer/self-help guru would be over with him being exposed as a fraud.
    • The climax makes it seem as if Hoffman is going to get away with all of his crimes at first, but in the end, John manages to outsmart Hoffman with the final task he gave to Lawrence: if anything happens to Jill, he is to capture Hoffman and lock him in the bathroom to die.
  • However, it's played straight with Brit and Mallick, two of the victims of the Fatal Five's trial from Saw V. Despite being involved in an arson and the fact that Hoffman left evidence of it at the scene for the FBI to find, both look to be walking free by the time of this film with no apparent legal punishment whatsoever.
• Karmic Death: Gordon condemns Hoffman to painfully starve to death in the bathroom he was tested in. Before he leaves, he also tauntingly disposes of the hacksaw previously used by Adam within Hoffman's reach.
• Karmic Twist Ending: After the climax, Hoffman managed to win over the police in his final schemes before escaping the city, including finishing with Bobby's game and killing Jill. Just as he was going to the airport, Gordon, revealed to be Jigsaw's accomplice, who he entrusted with a plan to take out Hoffman, captures him (alongside Brad and Ryan, the survivors of the film's opening trap), then locks him up to die in the bathroom where Gordon had previously been imprisoned in by Jigsaw during the first movie.
• Kick The Son Of A Bitch:
  • While most of Hoffman's victims were handpicked from John's will, one of the few he tests of his own accord is a gang of neo-Nazi skinheads for his Horsepower Trap.
  • Dr. Gordon does this to Hoffman by leaving him to die in the bathroom. It would be cruel if Hoffman wasn't such a murderous asshole.
• The Last Title: Some home video releases title the film as Saw: The Final Chapter.
• Liar Revealed:
  • Bobby is abducted by Hoffman and put through a trial previously planned by Jigsaw because he made up a story about surviving a Jigsaw trap to gain money and fame. After a trap of his own, Bobby is confronted with several tests in which he has to save his relevant staff and loved ones, including his best friend and wife. In the test with his wife, Joyce, he's forced to confess the truth to her (since she wasn't aware of what his false story was about), and, as an ironic shout to him, to try and recreate the trap he made up to hit a switch that will save Joyce from the trap she's in. While he survives, he fails to save everyone else in the trial, and it's likely that he was publicly exposed as a liar afterwards.
  • In the opening trap, Brad and Ryan are bound to a double-bladed bandsaw, and Dina is above a second saw jutting upwards. At first, both men try to kill the other by pushing the blade into the other one in order to save themselves and Dina...until Dina exposes through an Opinion Flip Flop that she's been playing both of them for money and comfort at the same time, thus cheating on both of them. Brad and Ryan decide to stop fighting in response, resulting in Dina's death.
• Locked Up and Left Behind: Dr. Gordon leaves Hoffman trapped in the Bathroom (specifically, he chains him to the same pipe he was chained to in the first film, and removes any means to escape from him), condeming him to a slow death. Word of God confirmed that Hoffman doesn't escape, but it's currently a case of Uncertain Doom due to discussions to bring him back in a later installment.
• Love Triangle: Brad and Ryan were both involved in relationships with Dina, so in the Public Execution Trap, Jigsaw gives them the choice to either attempt to kill each other with a table of saws in order to "prove who is the alpha male", or leave Dina to die. However, unlike most examples of this trope, the love triangle isn't resolved in favour of either "competitor", as when Dina's loyalty switches between whoever happens to be winning, both men are convinced to call it a draw and allow Dina to be killed instead.
• Magic Countdown: The 36 seconds that Bobby has to save Suzanne take about a minute and a half.
• Memory Trigger: To apply the use of some flashbacks about Bobby's upbringing to being tested, he reminisces their events through environmental props and text he finds throughout the abandoned asylum his game takes place in.
• Moe Greene Special: Hoffman kills Rogers by shooting him in the right eye.
• Murder by Cremation: Bobby's wife, Joyce, is burned alive in a Brazen bull when Bobby fails his final trap.
• Murder the Hypotenuse: Invoked and then subverted in the Public Execution Trap. Brad and Ryan, the men in the trap, can either fight to the death over the woman they both love, Dina, or let her die instead. Realizing that Dina doesn't care which one of them dies so long as one of them saves her, they agree to leave Dina to her death so both of them can survive.
• Near-Villain Victory: Just before the end, and in Hoffman's perspective, everyone who had opposed him was dead, and there was nobody left to stop him. It looks as if Hoffman had won in the end... until Dr. Gordon, Brad and Ryan show up to immobilise him, something that Hoffman never knew, let alone suspected would happen.
• Neck Snap: Hoffman does this to Palmer during his rampage through the police precinct.
• Never Sent Any Letters: A variant involving an anonymous letter. In Saw V, Hoffman received a letter in his office that only reads "I know who you are". Hoffman likely believed the letter came from Strahm (with Jill also being a potential suspect for the viewer), but it's revealed in this film that it was actually sent by Dr. Gordon.
• No One Could Survive That!: The ending, in which Hoffman is left chained up in the Bathroom with no readily apparent means of escape, acts as if it's a guaranteed death sentence. If the fact that Eric previously managed to free himself bothers you, Word of God confirmed that Lawrence anticipated this and took more care to make things inescapable for Hoffman, aside from throwing the one unbroken hacksaw out of the Bathroom.
• Offscreen Inertia: When Hoffman is captured by Lawrence, Brad and Ryan, he's trapped inside the Bathroom (next to Adam's corpse, no less), but with all possible methods of escape removed. The film ends with him being left to stay there until he dies, though his fate remains ambiguous due to production-related issues.
• Once More, with Clarity: Aside from his two apprentices, Jigsaw had one more major accomplice, the only one he completely trusted—and it was Dr. Gordon. This reveal is accompanied by a flashback montage of him setting up various past traps in ways that Jigsaw (a mechanical engineer) and his apprentices couldn't pull off, but a surgeon could. These include the key for the Death Mask in Saw II and Trevor's sewn eyes in the Mausoleum Trap of Saw IV.
• Only in It for the Money: The reason Bobby published his false story about being a victim of Jigsaw is that it would allow him to earn quick cash.
• Opinion Flip Flop: When Brad starts to get the upper hand in the Public Execution Trap, Dina roots for him to kill Ryan. When Ryan starts to turn the tables, she starts rooting for Ryan. This gets them to see that she really doesn't love either of them, which prompts them to let her die.
• The Pen Is Mightier: When Hoffman finds Jill's cell, she stabs him in the neck with a pen in an attempt to escape from him. It doesn't hinder Hoffman at all.
• Pre-Mortem One-Liner: Said by Ryan in the Public Execution Trap, after he realizes that Dina doesn't love either him or Brad, and convinces Brad to give up the struggle and let Dina die.
  Dina: WHAT ARE YOU DOING, YOU FUCKING ASSHOLES?!
  Ryan: I think we're breaking up with you, Dina.
• Previews Pulse: Used in this trailer.
• Punctuated Pounding: Hoffman, while bashing Jill's forehead against a table:
  Hoffman: You. Fucking. CUNT!
• "Rashomon"-Style: Averted with Gibson. Although a little suspicious of Jill's story, he still follows standard procedure to keep her safe and investigate Hoffman. Fat lot of good it does him, or her for that matter.
• Retcon: Ever felt sorry for Lawrence Gordon? Think again...
• Removing the Rival: The Public Execution Trap is set up so that two men (Brad and Ryan), both vying for the affections of a woman (Dina), will have to attempt to kill each other so that when one of them dies, the woman can live. However, this is subverted when Dina's loyalties rapidly switch between whoever's winning the struggle, which proves she doesn't love either man, so both refuse to kill each other over her, and she is killed instead.
• Sarcastic Clapping: Dr. Gordon does it (along with sarcastic verbal applause) at the Jigsaw Survivor Group meeting after Bobby gives a particularly dramatic, self-serving speech to its members.
• Saw Blades of Death: The main components of the Public Execution Trap are a pair of circular saws, one within the range of injuring and potentially killing Brad and Ryan on the table they're on opposites sides of, and another pointing at Dina, which will rise to her if Brad and Ryan don't move their saw to fight each other. Although Brad and Ryan initially fight (with Ryan landing a brief hit on Brad), they ultimately let Dina die instead once she exposes her infidelity to the two of them.
• Saying Too Much: In the Public Execution Trap, either Brad or Ryan must fight to push a spinning saw onto the other man and kill him, or allow Dina to be killed by a saw instead. Initially, both of them struggle over the saws and are set to try to kill each other, but Dina makes a mistake that proves fatal to her: she first cheers for Brad when it looks like he might win, but then when Ryan starts winning, she immediately switches and starts cheering for him. The fact that Dina is willing to "love" whichever man kills the other causes Ryan to realize that she doesn't genuinely love either man (or she would have been cheering only for the one she loved), so he voluntarily gives up the struggle and convinces Brad to do the same, and Dina is killed instead.
• Screw This, I'm Out of Here!: Hoffman tries to pull this off at the end of the film — the keyword being tries. He accomplished his goal of killing Jill, and with his identity known to the public, there was no reason for him to stick around. After packing a lot of cash, a gun and setting his lair on fire, he makes to leave. Whether he was planning to get a new identity and put his Jigsaw life behind him or just wait until the heat had died down will likely never be answered, since Lawrence took care of him.
• Sealed Room in the Middle of Nowhere: Dr. Gordon chains Hoffman to a pipe in the same bathroom where the events of the original Saw occurred, and removed his only means of escape (the saw). Word of God originally confirmed that Hoffman died there, but this may now change in a future sequel.
• Seamless Scenery: Surprisingly enough, this happens throughout the film despite not being directed by Darren Lynn Bousman, whose previous films in the series (II, III and IV) were the main users of this.
  • Exaggerated when the camera constantly pans between Bobby pulling his teeth and Gibson's squad raiding the asylum where Bobby's game is taking place.
  • It also happens when Gibson finds the back room of the garage, which pans to Bobby finally reaching Joyce.
• Sentry Gun: One of these planted by Hoffman as a Booby Trap takes out Gibson and two uniformed cops when they search around the office at the auto junkyard.
• Series Fauxnale: It was treated as the Grand Finale of the series, and even given the alternate title of Saw: The Final Chapter, until Jigsaw was announced and then came out in 2017.
• "Shaggy Dog" Story: Bobby survives to the end of the film (mostly because none of the tests ever placed him in direct danger), but fails to save anyone, including his wife whose trap involves the made-up trap Bobby lied about having experienced. He doesn't put the hooks deep enough into his body for it to sustain his weight, and they rip through.
• Space Whale Aesop: Always tell the truth and don't make up lies to get attention, especially if it's about having survived a serial killer's deadly trap when you actually didn't. If you do lie about that, said serial killer will likely kidnap your wife and friends, put them in lethal traps, and put you in not one, but two traps yourself, including the kind of trap that you lied about surviving. And then all you'll get for your troubles are physical and psychological scars from having failed to save your friends and your wife.
• Spikes of Doom: Bobby wakes up suspended above spikes in a cage, the bottom of which flips open after he pulls a chain above him. He's able to swing out of their way pretty easily.
• Spree Killer: Seeing as his cover as a Jigsaw killer is blown, Hoffman decides to go all-out against the police force in this film, killing everyone he comes across with either his bare hands or any weapons he can get his hands on, eventually ending with him locking Jill in the original Reverse Bear Trap, which goes off successfully.
• Swallow the Key: In the Silence Circle, Bobby has to free Nina with a key in her stomach, which he has to pick with a fishhook. Due to this, he has to be careful when pulling it out, as the hook can tear her apart from the inside.
• Tempting Fate: Gibson returns to the Horsepower Trap's scene when Rogers tells him over the phone that an explosion just happened there. The moment he enters, Gibson asks if anyone got hurt, to which yet another explosion goes off almost immediately. Downplayed in that the cops at the scene dodge both explosions in time to avoid any injuries.
• Token Trio: The three main Internal Affairs officers form one. Gibson is the white male, Palmer is the white female, and Rogers is the black male.
• Too Dumb to Live:
  • Had she not rooted for Brad and Ryan to kill each other, Dina may have lived.
  • Bobby wrote a book about how he was a Jigsaw survivor, only he never actually escaped a Jigsaw trap. This wouldn't have been a completely terrible idea... if he had started doing so after the events of Saw III (where Jigsaw was no longer alive) instead of before. Did Bobby really think Jigsaw would just let the lie slide?
    • Even if he had done that, Hoffman (or Gordon) may well still have taken offense.
    • Speaking of Bobby's team, Suzanne and Cale could also count, as they should have known taking part in this scheme would also make them targets of Jigsaw.
  • Nina's trap, in which Bobby must retrieve a key from inside her body via fish hook, advances faster if she screams during the allotted time. She has a right to be afraid, and is in excruciating pain (considering the trap revolves around her getting an internal injury which only keeps getting worse), but Bobby repeatedly tries to keep her quiet and actually manages to pull the hook out of her. She keeps screaming regardless and promptly dies, causing Bobby to call out her idiocy post-mortem. That being said, preventing yourself from screaming in response to pain is very hard to do.
    Bobby: Why wouldn't you just shut the fuck up?! You just needed to shut up!
• The Tooth Hurts: One part of Bobby's game late in the film requires him to simply put in a combination so he can get through a door. However, the combination has been etched on two of his wisdom teeth, and he must extract them using a pair of locking pliers without any anesthetic to get the combination and move forward. He extracts one on his own, but resorts to throwing himself against a wall to force the second one out.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: A deleted scene shows that Cale was the one who suggested Bobby to pretend to be a Jigsaw survivor, thus kickstarting the movie's main game.
• Video Wills: A tape that was first seen in the previous film as one of the contents inside the box John gave to Jill is explicitly shown here in a flashback during the climax. John left the tape for Dr. Gordon, in which he instructs about the final task he gives to the latter.
• Was It All a Lie?: Joyce has this reaction when she finds out that Bobby was never in a trap, asking him if their marriage, helping Jigsaw survivors — everything he's done — was a sham. Bobby's response?
  Bobby: I love you. I never lied about that.
• We Used to Be Friends: Brad and Ryan's friendship was fractured by Dina's deception towards both of them, but they reconcile after their test.
• Where It All Began: After being absent since the first movie, Lawrence makes a return in this one, and the climax reveals that the reason for his survival was because he was nursed back to health by Jigsaw to aid him as an accomplice (though not an official apprentice). His final task was to lock Hoffman in the Bathroom previously seen in the first three films.
• Worth Living For: Subverted in the Public Execution Trap. Both men discover that they've been dating the same woman and are challenged to kill the other to save her or allow the trap to kill her. They initially try to kill each other, and Ryan does hit Brad with the saw (albeit non-fatally). Despite saying she loved Brad earlier, Dina immediately switches to Ryan's side and roots for him when he has the upper hand. Ryan, instead, forfeits the fight, realigns his side of the trap so it targets Dina, and convinces Brad to let her die instead because she's disloyal to both of them and not worth killing for since her feelings for them are actually selfish and insincere.
  "Is the chick that fucked me in your bed two days ago worth one of our lives? She's not worth it, man. She's not worth it."
• Wrap It Up: The film was originally drafted by Executive Meddling to wrap up the series after Saw VI underperformed at the box office, namely by condensing two planned films into one. However, further installments were released years later, starting with Jigsaw in 2017. To be fair, that film focuses on John's very first apprentice, and only features John in flashbacks without any other previously-seen characters; 2021's Spiral features a Jigsaw copycat and doesn't have any appearances of previous characters (including those from Jigsaw), just a glimpse of John's picture and discussion of his methods; and 2023's Saw X is an interquel set in between the first and second films. So for all intents and purposes, the two films that came after and take place afterwards chronologically are pretty much stand-alone films.
• You're Insane!: Gibson is exasperated when he finds out Jill's role in placing the Reverse Bear Trap 2.0 on Hoffman.
• Your Head A-Splode: Kara has her head obliterated in the Horsepower Trap when the car, one of the wheels of which was positioned directly above her head, falls on top of her head and revs up.

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"The last piece of the puzzle is you."

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