FAQ for
Saw (2004) More at IMDbPro »

The following FAQ entries may contain spoilers. Only the biggest ones (if any) will be covered with spoiler tags. Spoiler tags are used sparingly in order to make the page more readable.

For detailed information about the amounts and types of (a) sex and nudity, (b) violence and gore, (c) profanity, (d) alcohol, drugs, and smoking, and (e) frightening and intense scenes in this movie, consult the IMDb Parents Guide for this movie. The Parents Guide for Saw can be found here.

No. Saw is the first of six movies in the Saw series, conceived and written by Australian screenwriters Leigh Whannell and James Wan. The other five movies in the series include Saw II (2005), Saw III (2006), Saw IV (2007), Saw V (2008), and Saw VI (due for release in October 2009).

A serial killer known as "Jigsaw" (Tobin Bell) has shackled two men -- Adam Faulkner (Leigh Whannell) and Dr Lawrence Gordon (Cary Elwes) -- at opposite sides of a dirty bathroom with no way out and a dead man lying between them. They are then informed that they are in the middle of a "game" and that Lawrence must kill Adam by 6 pm or Lawrence's wife Alison (Monica Potter) and daughter Diana (Makenzie Vega) will be killed. The story of how Adam and Lawrence came to be in bathroom is told in flashbacks while they try to find out why they are there and how they can escape. Meanwhile, detectives David Tapp (Danny Glover) and Steven Sing (Ken Leung) are looking for the Jigsaw Killer.

Jigsaw feels that everyone should live life to its fullest. In trying to prove his point, he devises torture devices people have to conquer to prove they are worthy of their lives.

Jigsaw does not choose his victims at random. He selects only those individuals that, in his view, waste their precious lives in some way and are unworthy of it. He punishes his victims in a way that they have to take some sort of action that reflects their sins. But Jigsaw, in fact, wants the people to live. If the people truly want to survive, they have to work at it. Also, they will somehow be disfigured or psychologically mangled as a punishment for going through life so blindly. Sadly, few people ever get the point and most end up dead.

Adam game was simply to get out and survive. Staying inside the bathroom would mean that Dr. Gordon had to shoot him at six o' clock. Adam could have used the key (which was in the bathtub) to escape from the cuffs, but being an excellent judge of character, Jigsaw knew that Adam would never look in the tub. The only other option for escape was sawing off his foot with the saw that was provided for him.

Amanda (Shawnee Smith)'s cell mate was Donnie Greco. He's speculated to either be her drug dealer or boyfriend, but there is no confirmation of this.

The deadline has come and gone, and Adam is still alive. Larry's cellphone rings, and he hears Alison say, "You failed." Suddenly Alison and Diana begin to scream and gunshots can be heard. What Larry doesn't know is that Det. Tapp has broken into the room and is attempting to capture Zep Hindle (Michael Emerson), who was just about to shoot Alison and Diana. While Tapp holds Zep at bay, Alison and Diana escape. Zep shoots Tapp in the chest and then runs to the sewers in order to get to the bathroom and kill Larry. Desperate to help his family, Larry finally picks up the hacksaw and saws off his foot. He then takes the revolver from the corpse and shoots Adam. Zep enters the bathroom, intending to kill Larry, but Adam is not fatally wounded and pounds Zep to death with a toilet tank cover. Larry then crawls out the door, promising to get help for Adam. Adam searches Zep's body for a key to his cuffs and finds yet another tape from the Jigsaw Killer revealing that Zep was just another pawn in the game. His duty was to kill Alison and Diana if Larry failed to kill Adam in order to get the antidote for the poison that Jigsaw had given him. Suddenly, the corpse in the middle of the floor gets up, pulls off a mask, and reveals himself to be Dr Gordon's patient, John Kramer, the real Jigsaw Killer. In a flashback, it is shown that John Kramer was being treated by Dr Gordon for terminal brain cancer. Adam tries to shoot him, but Jigsaw/John stuns him with another electrical shock. After informing him that the key was in the bathtub but went down the drain when Adam accidentally pulled the plug at the beginning of the movie, Jigsaw turns out the lights and walks out the door, saying, "Game over!" He then seals Adam in the bathroom.

We don't know exactly what Zep has done wrong to call Jigsaw's wrath upon himself, only that he was an orderly at the same hospital where Dr Gordon works and he was an attendant to John Kramer. Dr Gordon hints to the fact that Zep shows too little professional detachment in forming "very special bonds with the patients". On Zep's tape, Jigsaw says "Will you murder a mother and her child to save yourself?" Perhaps this means Zep's sin is that he is always too involved in the lives of complete strangers, neglecting his own life. He has to put his own life over the lives of two strangers in order to win the game. Some viewers have suggested that Zep molested some patients, but there is nothing to suggest that in the movie.

After cutting off his foot, Dr. Gordon is freed from his shackle and tells Adam that he'll go to find help. We never find out what happened to him after that. Some fans believe that given the large amount of blood he must have been losing, it is most likely that he died before he could do anything. Other viewers believe that Dr Gordon survived and either escaped on his own or had Jigsaw's help. For example, there were boiling hot pipes right outside the room that Gordon, being a surgeon, would have known would help his wound.

To avoid a NC-17 rating the theatrical version had to be cut. In the most countries including the USA at least one available DVD offers the uncut version which contains slightly more violence. A detailed comparison between both versions can be found here.