~Traps of the Saw Movie Series Review~

Bathroom Trap

The setting for the majority of the first film, this test placed two victims, Adam Faulkner and Dr. Lawrence Gordon, in a grimy industrial washroom. Both were shackled at the ankle to pipes at opposite corners of the room. The pipes were connected to a remote electrical source, which could conduct through the metal chains and shackles to shock the captives. In the middle of the bathroom lay Jigsaw, posing as the corpse of a previous victim, sprawled face down in a pool of poisoned blood, holding an empty pistol in one hand and an empty tape player in the other, just out of reach of Adam and Lawrence. Adam and Lawrence found envelopes with tapes to play to learn their rules, while Lawrence also received a key and a bullet. Following clues from their tapes, Adam found a garbage bag in a toilet, filled with photos he had taken of Lawrence while stalking him under hire, thou he did not show them till the near end, as well as a pair of hacksaws that were not intended to cut through the chains, but were rather meant for the victims to use to cut off their feet in order to escape. Lawrence was told to kill Adam in eight hours, under the threat of death for his wife Alison and daughter Diana, both of whom were being held captive. Adam was simply told to escape, with the only apparent means being the hacksaw, which he broke trying to cut through his chain, and a key that went down the drain of the bathtub that Adam had unknowingly drained after waking up in the water. Saw III revealed that Amanda had tied the chain to the bathtub stopper to Adam's ankle without being told to by Jigsaw.[2]

Following more clues, Lawrence found a box in the wall next to him, and was then supplied with a cellphone that could only receive calls, two cigarettes, and a lighter. With the cigarettes, Lawrence found a note from Jigsaw informing him that he did not need a gun to kill Adam, leading Lawrence to assume he could dip the tip of a cigarette in the poisoned blood that the corpse was lying in before giving it to Adam. Not willing to kill Adam, Lawrence attempted to fake it by dipping one of the cigarettes in the blood before swapping it with the untainted one. Adam went along with the game, pretending to die, but the act was blown when Adam was remotely electrically shocked through his chain. At 6 o'clock, Lawrence received a call from his wife. He became desperate as he had heard a struggle on the other end of the phone (his wife freeing herself and their daughter, escaping), but the phone had hung up, and he accidentally threw the phone out of reach. He then used his hacksaw to sever his chained foot, retrieved the corpse's gun, and used it to shoot Adam (a non-fatal shoulder wound).

As Lawrence was lying on the floor, crying for what he had done, Zep entered the bathroom with the intent of shooting Lawrence. Adam, who was only feigning death, knocked Zep to the floor and beat him to death with the toilet tank lid. Lawrence crawled over to Adam and promised to get help before crawling out; Jigsaw then stood up, turned off the lights, and slammed the door, leaving Adam locked in the bathroom. His corpse was found in the same place, which was located along a tunnel that ran beneath the house of Saw II. In Saw III, it was revealed that Adam did not in fact die of blood loss from his shoulder wound after being locked away, but by suffocation. Amanda, against Jigsaw's orders, held a strip of plastic wrap over his head, suffocating him in a mercy kill.

Build: 6

Escape: 7

Memorable: 9

Gore: 5

Total: 26

My thoughts...

... it took up the whole movie...