Ranking the traps of Saw III

Saw III was meant to be the end of the Saw franchise. A tight trilogy that told the final few traps of John Kramer and his apprentice (and failed test subject), Amanda Young. This ended up doing really well so there were more movies made after this. There will probably continue to be movies made based on Saw, but the two main villains of this series die in this installment.

There are two tests that are going on at the same time:

One is Jeff, who is being pushed to forgive those that were involved with the death of his son. He's working on forgiving them, saving them, and moving faster (please just move faster, I am begging you Jeff).

Two is Lynn, she is a doctor that is tasked with keeping John Kramer alive until the other participant finishes his test. Which sounds a lot easier than it is because Kramer is at the very end of his life.

If you don't remember, Jeff is the most frustrating player that we'll ever experience.

The Freezer Room.

The first trap for Jeff's trial is honestly kind of a miss.

The woman was the witness of Jeff's son being hit by a drunk driver but fled the scene. We are introduced to her naked, chained up, with a bunch of nozzles pointed towards her. When they're on, they spray freezing cold water all over her. There is a limited amount of time before she freezes to death.

All Jeff has to do is reach between some freezing cold pipes, get a little cold against his face, and grab a key that will unlock her from this. But it takes him a while to finally get around to it. And by the time that he gets there, she has already frozen solid.

The Classroom Trap.

This is the trap that opens the movie and it wouldn't be this low if this was all the traps in the series. But there are just better traps in this movie.

This is the first unbeatable trap in the series, designed by Amanda. Troy is probably someone that was in prison with her or someone that she knew in the past. He's chained up in an elementary school classroom with chains having been lopped through sensitive parts of the body. The one that tells you this is unbeatable is the one that goes through his lower jaw.

That's just not something you can rip off.

When the police arrive it shows how unbeatable this trap really was. The police have to cut through the door which was welded shut. Even by some miracle if he had gotten free of the chain on his ankle and his jaw, there was no way for him to escape from the room before the nail bomb went off.

Jeff’s Trial.

Jeff has been struggling with the death of his son from a drunk driver. He has not handled this death well, especially since he was present at the scene. And considering how poorly the trial went in their favor. He's taken his depression out on his wife, who is secretly Lynn, and their young daughter.

This trial is an attempt to help Jeff deal with the loss. While also pushing for him to forgive those that had been involved with the trial of his son's killer. It's kind of demanding for him to put himself in action.

The Pig Vat.

The judge had given Jeff's son's killer a reduced sentence because this was his first offense. This is probably one of the least realistic things to happen in the Saw series. I just can't imagine a black man getting away with hitting a young white boy with his car while drunk.

At the bottom of the vat, the judge is strapped down. Pigs were being ground up and then spat out on top of him. All I can think is how awful that had to have smelled and how much that had to gross the judge out. To be drowning in raw pig soup.

All Jeff has to do is press a button that will burn his son's belongings. I know that this can be a huge step in dealing with loss. But hurry up. And Jeff does actually burns the belongings and the judge is saved.

The Angel Trap.

I'm not normally a fan of inescapable traps like this. This seems to be a fairly divisive hot take in the Saw community. I've always thought it was scarier to know what you needed to do, to get so close to it, but just not be able to go through with it.

The victim of this trap is Detective Allison Kerry. She is one of the few people that has bothered to understand the psychology. She generally seems to have her life together, she just really wants to catch this serial killer. And she's the person most likely to survive a trap. She knows to listen to him.

The trap is one connected to the ribs. When time runs out, then the rips are going to be ripped from the body and the internal organs will be exposed. It's inspired by the Blood Eagle which was a torture/murder tactic used in Nordic communities. Allison has to reach into a mason jar of acid and retrieve the key.

Which Allison does. But the trap is still locked and her ribs are torn from her body. She bleeds out and when she's found

Which she does. But the trap continues to be locked to her and rips her ribs open. This causes for her intestines to fall out of place, bleeding out.

The Shotgun Trap.

This trap involves surgeon, Dr. Lynn Denlon. The trap is directly linked to the heart monitor of John Kramer. So, if Jigsaw dies then the trap will go off, shooting her in the face. This is difficult due to how sick the man is with brain cancer. And this results in one of the nastiest things we're ever going to see in a Saw movie.

It is a craniotomy and it is apparently very similar to the real thing. This is a real surgery to reduce swelling in the brain by removing skull.

Jeff does eventually show up, just in time for Amanda to shoot Lynn for reasons that are not quite clear yet. Jeff doesn't know about the trap that Lynn is in, and it's not like he's going to start listening to his wife now, so he ends up slicing open Kramer's neck

And as John Kramer flatlines, his wife has her head destroyed by shotgun shells.

The Rack.

This trap features the man that accidentally killed Jeff's son, Timothy Young. He is strapped to a machine that is slowly going to twist each part of his body out of its socket and all the way around. This includes his head.

Jeff has to reach into a box to grab the key. When the key is pulled, the shotgun inside will go off. If Jeff had managed to mention that the gun was going to get off and to duck, he wouldn't have killed the judge in the process. And for no reason, as the man's head has been turned entirely around by the time that Jeff gets the key to him.

Meaning that Jeff has finished as the lone survivor.

Jeff’s Final Trap.

The big plot twist is that Jeff and Lynn are married. He's not the person that she was with in the beginning. But they have both recently lost their son and have not been doing well. With Lynn having been shot and Jeff killing Amanda, he is faced with the biggest test.

Because Jigsaw is an omniscient being.

Jeff didn't learn anything. Because he ends up slicing open Jigsaw which immediately leaves to Lynn's death. It also leaves their young daughter, who was locked away somewhere in the building, alone and potentially dying on her own.

Amanda and John Kramer's storylines get messed with quite a bit as the series goes on. But there are no more traps one hundred percent performed by them. Kramer may have planned them, but he is no longer alive to go about doing them.

And in a way of looking at it; that pretty much sums up the rest of the series. The life and scare of John Kramer has died with this movie.