For all of those moviegoers eagerly anticipating the release of SAW 3D, I prepared a synopsis of the entire Saw film series up to date. FOr those of you who need a refresher, or who may have missed one of the films, feel free to use this as a guide through the entire SAW timeline. Read through each film’s plot, or skip to the films you haven’t seen. ENJOY!
SAW
The Series begins with two primary characters: Adam and Dr. Lawrence Gordon. These two men wake up in a dark cold, filthy abandoned bathroom with little to no recollection of how they got there. In the middle of the floor lies the body of an older man, with blood everywhere, and a gun in his hand. It appears that the man has shot himself in the head. After talking and discovering clues around the bathroom, including the infamous audio tapes from the mysterious voice, they both learn that they are there because of their failure to cherish and take advantage of their lives. Dr. Gordon is a brain surgeon, married with a daughter, yet he does not appreciate his family, and he is secretly having an affair. Adam is a single man, and he lives his life as a voyeur, secretly taking pictures of others for money, instead of living a fulfilling life of his own. The tape tells them both that they are breathing in poison, and if they do not escape within 3 hours, they will die.
While in the bathroom, Dr. Gordon suddenly remembers hearing about a mysterious “Jigsaw Killer” who had been kidnapping victims; Jigsaw never actually killed the victims, he simply placed them in various traps and machines and booby-trapped rooms, forcing them to choose to live by inflicting some type of pain on themselves in order to be released, or to die. He knows about this, because he was once a suspect. An ink pen, with his name was found at the scene of one of the previous victims, and he was brought in for questioning. He had an airtight alibi, (he was with his mistress at the time of the incident in question), but he still was asked to listen to one of the victims. The victim was Amanda Young, a self-rehabilitated drug addict who told the story how she remembers waking up in a room with a jaw-clamp device attached to her head. She was told by the voice in a video that she had sixty seconds to find the key to unlock the device, before it snapped open and exploded on her head. The key was inside the stomach of a man lying on the floor in front of her. She took the scalpel that was placed in her hand, and began slicing through the man’s stomach until she found the key, and unlocked the device with just seconds to spare. When asked how she felt about the person who did this to her, the now-clean Amanda Young responded “He helped me.”
We then learn of a man who is responsible for placing Dr. Gordon and Adam in this bathroom, a man named Zepp. Zepp is an orderly at Dr. Gordon’s hospital. We observe Zepp watching Gordon and Adam through closed-circuit monitors. The police are quickly on his trail and soon catch up to him at the house of Dr. Gordon, where has also kidnapped Dr. Gordon’s wife and daughter. Zepp narrowly escapes the police and then retreats back to the secluded location to finish out the “game” with Dr. Gordon and Adam. Once in the bathroom, he is attacked, and killed by Dr. Gordon and Adam. Believing they had killed the culprit, they continue desperate attempts to escape. After many failed attempts and breaking his chains and cutting through the chains, Dr. Gordon realizes the poison has almost overcome his body. He makes one final desperate attempt to get out of the room, by taking a jagged hacksaw, and sawing his own chained foot off. Adam screams in terror as he watches Dr. Gordon saw his foot off and then crawl out of the room. Adam then discovers a tape in Zepp’s pocket, just like the tapes he and Dr. Gordon found for themselves. He plays the tape, and quickly realizes the truth – Zepp was an unwilling victim just like them, and Zepp was being forced to kidnap them and orchestrate this whole thing for the true mastermind. Before Adam could speculate who was behind it all, the “dead” man in the middle of the room slowly stands up, pulls the fake makeup off of his face, and Adam quickly realizes that he is indeed the true mastermind behind the whole plan. The man walks out of the room, and closes the door shut, leaving the shackled Adam to die.
SAW II
As SAW II begins, the police are hot on the trail of the Jigsaw Killer. Detective Eric Matthews and Detective Kerry have a close lead that finally brings them to an abandoned warehouse where they have tracked down the Jigsaw Killer. They arrive at the scene, along with Swat Commander Rigg, and breach the premises. They find Jigsaw inside. We learn that Jigsaw’s real name is John Kramer, a former patient of Dr. Gordon, who discovered that he had brain cancer. He was the same man who laid in the middle of the bathroom with Dr. Gordon and Adam throughout SAW I. Before they try to arrest John, he tells them to go into the room, where they will find something interesting on several monitors. They look at the monitors in the other room, and they see that a new set of “games” has commenced with several individuals trapped inside a house. One of those individuals is Det. Matthews’s son Eric. Jigsaw tells Eric that if he wants to see his son alive, he simply needs to sit down and talk with Jigsaw until the 3-hour timer runs up. Jigsaw tells Det. Matthews that if follows the rules, at the end of the time, he will have his son in a safe and secure location.
Inside the house, Matthews’ son is trapped with seven other individuals all who have something in common. They were all former felons, and his father obtained all their convictions through crooked tactics. We also see that Amanda Young, a former Jigsaw survivor is among the group. She states that although she survived his games before and it helped her turn her life away from drugs, she had made another mistake. She had begun cutting herself regularly, and now she was back to pay the price. The individuals go through the house, trying to find hidden antidotes for the poison running through them. One by one, they are killed by the traps, or by each other, until only Amanda, Det. Matthews’ son, and a crazed drug dealer named Xavier are left to fight for the final antidote.
Meanwhile, Det. Matthews has obliged Jigsaw, and he sits to talk with him. Jigsaw reveals that he is a cancer patient, and that upon receiving his diagnosis, he had given up on living. He tried to kill himself by driving into a tree, but he did not die. He had an epiphany at that point, causing him to cherish every moment of his life. He decided to devote the remainder of his life to “helping” others cherish their lives as well. Det. Matthews grew impatient with Jigsaw’s life story, only concerned about his son. After seeing the violence on the monitors and realizing that his son was in danger of the poison, the Jigsaw traps, and the violent Xavier, he decided to speed up the process. Matthews violently attacks Jigsaw until he agrees to take him to the house. When the officers aren’t looking, Jigsaw sneaks Matthews out of the warehouse via trap door. Meanwhile, SWAT believes they have found a signal from the house where the monitors were broadcasting. Believing they would find Matthews and Jigsaw there, they pursue. SWAT arrives at the house, but does not find Matthews or Jigsaw, or any of the victims. Instead they find a room with a TV and VCR and quickly realize the truth – what happened on the monitors has already taken place and was recorded and was being played back to them. They had been tricked by Jigsaw, and had no idea where he and Matthews had gone, nor where the other victims were.
Jigsaw takes Matthews to the actual house, although Matthews is still unaware that the events have already taken place, and he would not find his son presently there. Matthews leaves Jigsaw in the car, and he runs in the house. He proceeds down into the basement, calling for his son. He discovers a room which turns out to be the bathroom from the original SAW. Then out of nowhere, he is knocked unconscious. He wakes up in the bathroom hours later, and he is shackled to the wall. All of a sudden a tape plays, and he hears a woman’s voice – Amanda Young. She tells him that she has taken on the Jigsaw legacy after he helped her through her addiction. He realizes that she was a plant all along. Simultaneously, back at the warehouse, the timer goes off, and the remaining officers see an old safe open up, and inside is Matthews’ son breathing through oxygen. Had Matthews followed Jigsaw’s rules, he would have had his son at the end of the three hours as promised. Because he broke the rules, he was now thrust into a game. After hearing the tape, he sees Amanda Young appear at the door of the bathroom. In the same fashion as Jigsaw did in the original SAW, Amanda slams the door shut, sealing him inside. Jigsaw is then seen smiling, leaned up against the window of the car….
SAW III
We begin where SAW II ends…with Detective Matthews shacked in the bathroom. He desperately struggles to break free of the shackles but cannot. He then finds an old piece of stone, and then bludgeons his ankle until it breaks off, and he is able to crawl away from the shackles and out of the bathroom.
We then see the police, still on the hunt for Jigsaw and his newly discovered apprentice, Amanda Young. They are shown at various crime scenes of former traps where the victims have not survived. Detective Kerry is still on the case along with Detective Mark Hoffman. They observe something different about the crime scenes. The new crime scenes are much different from the older Jigsaw crime scenes in one peculiar way – all of the traps or “games” have become unwinnable. For example, one man is chained to a chair and must break free of each chain in order to become free before the timer is up and a bomb is released. But even if he had broken free, the door was welded shut and he would have never been able to escape. Detective Kerry becomes enthralled in the case, until one night, she is captured, and placed in a similar trap. She follows the rules in order to escape the deadly trap, but the trap does not release her, and instead she is killed.
We then see that Amanda has kidnapped her latest victim, a doctor named Lynn. Amanda brings Lynn to an abandoned warehouse where she meets an ailing Jigsaw. The cancer has spread and he is nearing death. Lynn is placed in a trap that allows her to move around, and she is told that she is there to keep Jigsaw alive just long enough for one more game to play out. The trap is a metal collar with bombs attached. The collar is synced with Jigsaw’s heart monitor, so if Jigsaw dies, the bombs will go off, killing Lynn. Lynn administers medicine, and even performs a backdoor bootleg brain operation just to keep Jigsaw alive long enough for his final game to play out. The game he is referring to is for Jeff, a troubled father and husband whose son was killed in a car accident. Jeff has been unable to let go of his son’s death, abandoning his wife and his other daughter because of his grief. Jigsaw seeks to help Jeff overcome his grief by teaching to appreciate his life and his family. For his game, Jeff must face his demons by helping those responsible for his son’s death, or letting them die. He faces one woman who was a witness but refused to testify – he lets her die. He faces the judge who released the driver of the car – he saves the judge, but the judge later dies in a booby trapped room. He then faces the driver of the car, the man responsible for killing his son, and after struggling with this confrontation, Jeff decides to help the man out of his trap, and to save him, but is too slow, and the man dies. Jeff must then meet his final test.
Meanwhile we learn from Amanda that she has been under Jigsaw’s training for some time. After surviving her trap, Amanda was secretly approached by Jigsaw to take up his work, and begin to help others in the same way he helped her. He taught her about the engineering of his traps, the art of kidnapping the victims, and giving them a chance to survive. Although grateful, Amanda has not fully learned everything Jigsaw has taught her, as she does not give her victims the chance to see the error of their ways. Jigsaw tells her that he despises killers and that what she does is not helping, it’s killing. Amanda tells Jigsaw how she killed Eric Matthews when he tried to escape. Jigsaw tells Amanda that he cleaned up her “mess” with Eric Matthews.
Amanda tells Jigsaw that Jeff has finished the three challenges. Jigsaw tells her that Lynn was there to keep him alive, which she did, so now she must be set free. Amanda refuses to release Lynn from her trap, despite Jigsaw’s urging. Jigsaw tells her that it is of grave importance to her that Lynn be released immediately. Amanda refuses. Instead of releasing Lynn, Amanda takes a gun and shoots Lynn, and she falls into Jeff’s arms, who just wandered into the room after finishing the last three challenges. He cradles Lynn in his arms. Amanda looks on confused, and then Jeff shoots her. She falls to the ground. Jigsaw, lying in the bed before her, tells her that the reason Lynn was so important is because she was Jeff’s wife, the one that Jeff had abandoned. He tells her that she should have released Lynn because when Jeff came in, he would do whatever he had to set her free. He tells Amanda that all along, this whole game was for her, to see if she truly learned to give her victims a chance. Had she followed her own rules, and released Lynn as promised, perhaps she would not have been shot, but she refused to give Lynn and everyone else a chance. Amanda dies. Jeff then stands up and realizes his wife is about to die. Jigsaw turns to Jeff and tells him that this is now his final test. Jeff can either go with his anger and pain and choose to kill Jigsaw, or he can put that aside for his family, by letting Jigsaw call for help so that Lynn can get a doctor. Jeff, unaware that if he kills Jigsaw that Lynn’s bomb collar will go off, killing her, decides to exact revenge first and he takes a power saw, and slices Jigsaw’s throat killing him. As Jeff swings the blade, Jigsaw presses play on a tape….the tape tells Jeff about failing to learn to forgive and move on for the sake of his family. The tape tells Jeff that he made a fatal mistake, because now he is trapped, his wife is dead, and Jigsaw was the only person who knows where his daughter is, and Jeff cannot help her. Jeff turns and sees the bomb go off, killing Lynn. He is left alone with a dead Lynn, dead Amanda, and a dead Jigsaw.
SAW IV
We begin with the autopsy of John Kramer aka Jigsaw. The coroner performs the autopsy, and once he cuts open Jigsaw’s stomach, he discovers a small tape, preserved in wax. The coroner calls Detective Hoffman to come hear the tape. Det. Hoffman, who is still on the case, appears and listens to the tape. The tape warns the detective that the games are not over just because he is dead, and that his work will continue.
We then see Det. Mark Hoffman and Rigg still investigating the disappearance of their fellow officers Det. Kerry and Det. Matthews. They discover the crime scene of Det. Kerry’s death. At that moment, FBI Agent Peter Strahm and Agent Perez show up and inform him they are now on the case. They believe that there is a third accomplice helping Jigsaw and Amanda Young. Rigg and Hoffman are not so sure. Rigg is still holding out hope that Det. Matthews is still alive, as his body was never discovered. He becomes overzealous, neglecting his wife, and his other cases for his chase of Jigsaw. Hoffman warns him of becoming so caught up in work, and tells him not to end up like everyone else has.
Later that night, Rigg and Hoffman are both kidnapped. Hoffman is placed in a trap alongside Eric Matthews, who has been found and rehabilitated, and kept in a hidden lair. Hoffman and Matthews are informed that they will be released as long as no one comes through the door within the next 90 minutes; otherwise Matthews will be crushed and Hoffman will be electrocuted. Rigg is kidnapped in his own apartment. He wakes up and is informed by a video of Jigsaw that Det. Matthews is alive, and he can help him by rescuing him in 90 minutes. Rigg goes on pursuit of Matthews, following clues along the way throughout the city, discovering numerous individuals in traps which he must either help or force them to help themselves. Jigsaw tells Rigg at each stop that he cannot save everyone, and that he must learn to let them help themselves.
Meanwhile, Agent Strahm and Perez continue their investigation, by questioning Jigsaw’s ex-wife Jill Tuck. Jill runs a drug rehab clinic. She reveals to the agents that Jigsaw and she where going to have a child, but in a robbery gone bad, one of her addict patients caused her to have a miscarriage. She told the agents that Jigsaw never recovered from the loss of his first son, and it was that loss which actually led to him beginning this work. Jigsaw became secluded from her and everyone else, focusing night and day on his warehouse and his traps. The Agents still suspect that Jill knows more, but are unable to prove anything.
As the 90 minute timer nears, Rigg finally reaches the warehouse where Matthews and Hoffman are being held. At this point, Agent Perez has been killed from a booby trapped bomb that she discovered while chasing after Rigg. Agent Strahm believes that Rigg is being set up as a new accomplice or being recruited. Agent Strahm reaches the warehouse from a different entrance. We then see Jeff from the previous film, wandering through the warehouse. Rigg finally reaches the room containing Hoffman and Matthews, just seconds before the 90 minute timer. But he failed to follow Jigsaw’s instructions, which told him to rescue them after the 90 minutes, but he was so eager that he burst in the room too soon, believing he could save them. As soon as he burst in the room, Matthews was crushed, but not before shooting Rigg, to try and stop him from coming in. Rigg falls to the ground, and the tape is played informing him of his mistake, as he looks up, he sees Det. Hoffman pull the shackles off, and stand up out of the trap. He realizes that Det. Hoffman has been involved all along, and that he must be the third accomplice. Det. Hoffman leaves the wounded Rigg for dead…
At the same time, Agent Strahm is still in the warehouse, and he discovers a room where he hears the voices of Jeff and Lynn and Amanda Young and Jigsaw. We then realize that all of these events with Agent Strahm and Det. Rigg have been occurring simultaneous to the events of Saw 3. Strahm hears everything, including when Jigsaw is killed. He runs in the room and shoots Jeff. He looks around and realizes that he has found Jigsaw and Amanda. Before he could get out, Hoffman sneaks up from behind and locks him inside the room.
We then realize the autopsy was a flash-forward scene. We are back at the autopsy, as Det. Hoffman listens to the tape, and we realizes the message on the tape is not for just any “detective” it was for him. The tape tells him that he will not go untested, because Jigsaw’s work will continue.
SAW V
In the opening scene, a man is placed in a trap and is instructed by a Jigsaw video how to escape. He does as instructed, but the trap continues to kill him. Right before he dies, he sees a hole in the wall and realizes that someone has been watching him as he dies.
Agent Strahm is trapped in the room where he was left at the end of Saw 4. He escapes through a trap door, only to be kidnapped immediately and placed in an inescapable water trap. He somehow survives the trap by performing a tracheotomy on himself by sticking an empty ink pen through his throat so that he can breathe. He is finally rescued by the police whom he had called for backup. Det. Hoffman is also “rescued” by the police, as he makes up a story about his trap malfunctioning and that being how he managed to escape. Det. Hoffman emerges from the ware house with Jeff’s daughter, and he appears to be a hero. Jeff’s daughter is in shock and doesn’t appear to know anything about what has happened. Agent Strahm remains suspicious of Hoffman’s story at the hospital, because Strahm knows that Jigsaw doesn’t make major mistakes like that. He begins to suspect Hoffman of being involved.
We then see Jill Tuck, John Kramer aka “Jigsaw’s” ex-wife, at an attorney’s office, for the reading of John’s will. He leaves her a video message, apologizing for any hurt that he has caused her. He then gives her a locked box, whose contents are of grave importance. He tells her to keep them, because she will know what to do with them.
Strahm checks himself out of the hospital the next day and begins to pursue an investigation of Det. Hoffman, although the FBI has instructed him to take a vacation. Hoffman realizes that Strahm is on his trail, and he begins a plan to frame Strahm. He plants suspicion in everyone’s mind at the FBI about the way Strahm is acting, and how he is disobeying the FBI’s orders by still being “involved” in an unauthorized pursuit of the case. The FBI believes Hoffman and begins to grow suspicious of Strahm. Their suspicions grow stronger after Jill Tuck, Jigsaw’s ex-wife mysteriously shows up at the FBI’s office and tells them that she suspects Agent Strahm has been following her. Meanwhile Strahm puts the pieces together about Det. Hoffman. He discovers that years ago, Hoffman’s sister was brutally murdered, and that Hoffman staged a fake Jigsaw trap to get his own revenge on his sister’s killer. Strahm discovers that Jigsaw captured Hoffman and recruited him to actually “help” these people, instead of using his traps to kill them. Hoffman is blackmailed into helping, but soon becomes a willing participant in the games.
Hoffman wants to make Strahm be the FBI’s main suspect, so he plants evidence at the scene of an ongoing Jigsaw game, and leads the FBI right to them. The FBI puts out an alert that they officially name Agent Strahm as a suspect. Meanwhile Strahm follows Det. Hoffman home, and tries to sneak up on him. Strahm follows Hoffman into his basement, where he discovers another secret lair. Hoffman then attacks Strahm, who he has known was following him all along. Strahm throws Hoffman into a trap, a box filled with glass. The door locks and they are both stuck in the room. Strahm believes he has captured Hoffman, until Hoffman points at a tape on the ground. Strahm plays the tape, which tells him that he is now the victim, who was given the chance to walk away and focus on his life instead of become so obsessed with the Jigsaw case. The box turns out to be an escape hatch, and the room itself begins to close in on Strahm. Hoffman escapes as Strahm is crushed to death. Hoffman will now be able to act as Jigsaw’s accomplice, while the FBI will continue to pursuit the “missing” Agent Strahm. Everything that Hoffman does, the FBI will assume it is Strahm.
SAW VI
Saw VI begins with Det. Hoffman recovering the crushed body of Agent Strahm. He takes Strahm’s broken fingers to use them to plant fingerprints at the scenes of various Jigsaw traps. The FBI continues to investigate Strahm, but Hoffman soon learns of a twist. Strahm’s former partner, Agent Perez (SAW III) is still alive. She tells him she faked her death in order to see what Jigsaw and his accomplice’s next move would be. She said that she figured they would try to frame Strahm. She says that Strahm is not the killer, but she doesn’t know who is…yet. Det. Hoffman says he is willing to do whatever he can to help her find the real killer.
Meanwhile, a new game has started. The head of an insurance claims firm has been thrust into a game which forces him to make the same life or death determinations that he makes on a daily basis, with little to no regard for the human impact of those choices. He encounters all of his co-workers and former clients and must decide which of them live or die in the traps. We see Det. Hoffman planning this game, and he has a new partner – Jigsaw’s ex-wife Jill Tuck. We learn that Jill ahs never been involved in the planning of Jigsaw’s games along with Det. Hoffman and Amanda Young, but she has stayed close to her ex-husband John aka “Jigsaw”. Now that he is gone, she is carrying out his final wishes. Det. Hoffman and Jill have a tense relationship as they put this game together. Hoffman tells Jill that he is done and that the games will end after this final game. Jill tells Hoffman that that wasn’t her husband’s wishes – but he tells her that her husband isn’t there anymore to call the shots, and that its time for his work to end. Jill continues to ponder what to do, whether she should see John’s wishes out as he intended, or if she should listen to Hoffman and end the games after this final game. She then opens the locked box Jigsaw left her in his will. The box contains a headtrap and six envelopes. 5 of the envelopes include names and pictures of the individuals in the current game. Jill hold’s the contents of the sixth envelope close.
We also learn throughout the movie that Det. Hoffman has many secrets of his own. We learn that the real reason why Amanda Young would not release Lynn in Saw 3 was because Hoffman was blackmailing her. When John aka “Jigsaw” and Jill lost their baby in a miscarriage, it was because Amanda and her drug addict friend were the ones robbing Jill and accidentally crushed her stomach. Amanda Young knew that if Jigsaw ever knew the truth about her involvement, he would turn on her and be rid of her. Hoffman held this information over Amanda, eventually setting her up to be killed by Jeff. Hoffman instructed Amanda to refuse to release Lynn at the end of the game, because he knew that Jeff would kill her. Amanda complied, having no idea what would happen. Hoffman intended to have Amanda killed, so that once Jigsaw died, he would be the only one left standing, and he could finally end the games himself. However, Jigsaw still intended to make good on his promise to test Hoffman, to make sure that he was completely devoted to the cause, and to make sure that the games would continue.
Perez and her boss, Agent Erickson show Det. Hoffman various leads they have, and he quickly realizes that they are about to discover his secret. Before they can, he turns on them in the basement of the police station. He kills Agent Erickson and then stabs Agent Perez. Agent Perez mutters to him that it is too late, because everybody already knows it was him. He then burns the building down, in a desperate attempt to cover up his secret.
Hoffman then returns to the scene of the final game being played, to make sure that everything goes according to plan. As he sits in his monitoring room, observing the game being played out, Jill Tuck sneaks up on him from behind and knocks him out. He wakes up to discover Jill has placed him in the head trap. She reveals to him that John’s work must continue, and his plan was for Hoffman to be tested like everyone else. She leaves him in the room to escape or die. Just as the timer runs out and the headtrap nearly kills him, he forces the clamps of the trap in between two metal bars on the door, keeping it from fully snapping and killing him. He tears his way out of the trap before it finally snaps. We see him fall to his knees and see that his jaw is ripped open, but he has survived.
SAW 3D: THE FINAL CHAPTER
We will finally learn the fate of Dr. Gordon, who escaped after Saw I, but never was heard from. We also will see the battle for Jigsaw’s legacy between Det. Hoffman and his ex-wife Jill Tuck. We will also that a group of former Jigsaw survivors have now banned together and formed a support group, but must face the demons of leader of the support group.
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