With Special Agent Strahm dead, Detective Hoffman emerges as the unchallenged successor to Jigsaw's terrifying legacy. However, as the FBI draws closer to Hoffman, he is forced to set a game into motion, and Jigsaw's grand scheme is finally understood. This time, the game targets a predatory health insurance executive who must navigate a maze of torture and choose who lives or dies among his own staff, forcing him to confront the cold algorithms he once used to deny coverage to the dying.
Information |
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Language |
English |
Country |
United States |
Premiere date |
October 23, 2009 |
Running time |
90 minutes |
Genre |
Horror
Mystery Thriller |
Budget |
$11,000,000 |
Box Office |
$68,233,629 |
Crew |
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Directed by |
Kevin Greutert |
Produced by |
Mark Burg Oren Koules |
Written by |
Patrick Melton Marcus Dunstan |
Music by |
Charlie Clouser |
Cinematography |
David A. Armstrong |
Edited by |
Andrew Coutts |
Production Co. |
Twisted Pictures |
Distributed by |
Lionsgate |
Top Cast |
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Official Trailer |
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Movie Collection |
Movie Order: #06 in Saw Collection
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The Plot
The Pound of Flesh
In a grim, dimly lit room, two predatory lenders, Simone and Eddie, awaken to find themselves seated at a table, separated by a chain-link fence. Each wears a grotesque mechanical headgear fitted with power drills aimed directly at their temples. A television flickers to life, playing a videotape from Jigsaw. The puppet informs them that they have been judged for their predatory lending practices and must now repay their debts with flesh. They have 60 seconds to carve pieces of their own bodies and toss the flesh onto a central scale. The participant who sacrifices the most weight in flesh will survive, while the loser will be killed as the drills pierce their skull.
As the timer begins, the panic sets in. Eddie, who is overweight, realizes he has a physical advantage. He grabs the provided knife and frantically begins slicing chunks of fat from his stomach, screaming in agony but driven by the will to live. Simone, possessing a leaner frame, realizes that small cuts will not be enough to outweigh Eddie's offerings. As the timer ticks down to the final seconds and the drills buzz closer to her temples, she makes a desperate, calculated decision. She wraps a tourniquet around her arm, places it on the table, and uses a meat cleaver to chop off her left arm just below the elbow. She throws the severed limb onto the scale at the last moment. The scale tips decisively in her favor. The device on her head unlocks, while Eddie's drills activate, boring into his skull and killing him instantly.
The Resurrected Agent
Shortly after the grisly game concludes, the police arrive at the scene. Detective Mark Hoffman, the secret apprentice of Jigsaw, is summoned to the location by Special Agent Dan Erickson. Erickson reveals a troubling piece of evidence: the fingerprints of the supposedly deceased Special Agent Peter Strahm were found on the scale and on Eddie's corpse. This discovery threatens Hoffman's framing of Strahm as the Jigsaw successor.
The situation escalates when Erickson leads Hoffman to a surveillance room, revealing that Special Agent Lindsey Perez is still alive. Perez, who was thought to have died from shrapnel wounds during the events of Saw IV, had faked her death with Erickson's assistance to ensure her safety while they hunted for Jigsaw's true remaining accomplice. Caught off guard but maintaining his composure, Hoffman agrees to cooperate with their renewed investigation to deflect suspicion from himself.
The Black Box
Hoffman later visits the startlingly quiet Jill Tuck, John Kramer's ex-wife, at her recovery clinic. He demands the contents of the black box she received from John's executor, Bernie Feldman. Jill hands him five large manila envelopes containing photos and dossiers of the victims selected for the next game. These envelopes represent the final wish of John Kramer. Hoffman, arrogant and eager to conclude the legacy on his own terms, snatches the envelopes and demands to set up the game alone, dismissing Jill's involvement before leaving the clinic.
The Oxygen Crusher
The main game begins at the abandoned Rowan Zoological Institute, targeting William Easton, a callous executive for Umbrella Health. William heads a team responsible for scrutinizing insurance applications to find minor errors, allowing the company to deny coverage for lifesaving treatments—a "formula" that once led to the denial of John Kramer's request for an experimental cancer treatment in Norway. William is abducted and wakes up standing in a large vise-like contraption, his torso clamped between two metal plates and an oxygen mask strapped to his face. Beside him, in a similar trap, is Hank, the relentless janitor of Umbrella Health.
A video recording of John Kramer plays, explaining the rules. Four bombs are strapped to William's limbs, set to detonate in 60 minutes if he does not complete four tests. For the first test, William and Hank must hold their breath. The device measures their breathing; every time they inhale, the metal plates crush their ribs tighter. Hank, a heavy smoker with poor lung capacity, struggles immediately. Despite his desperate attempts, he cannot hold his breath as long as William. The vise closes in with a sickening crunch, crushing Hank’s torso and killing him. William is released from the clamps, shaken but alive, and proceeds deeper into the zoo.
The Hanging Room
Moving to the next level, William enters a room with a high ceiling. He finds two of his associates standing on precarious platforms: Allen, a file clerk, and Addy, his secretary. Both have barbed-wire nooses tightened around their necks, connected to chains that William now holds. A tape explains the cruel choice: William must let go of one chain to save the other. The person he drops will be hanged by the barbed wire.
The tape provides cold data to influence the decision: Addy is a middle-aged woman with a family history of diabetes, statistically likely to die sooner, while Allen is a young, healthy male but has no family or social connections. Addy begs for her life, screaming about her children, while Allen pleads that he has done nothing wrong. Faced with the emotional weight of Addy's plea versus the cold logic he usually employs, William chooses to save Addy. He releases Allen's chain. The platform beneath Allen drops, and the barbed wire snaps his neck, killing him instantly while Addy is lowered to safety, sobbing.
The Steam Maze
In the zoo’s boiler room, William encounters his company’s ruthless attorney, Debbie. She is trapped at the start of a cage maze with a device strapped to her chest, pointed at her brain. She has 90 seconds to navigate the maze to find a key to unlock the device, or a spear will shoot through her skull. However, her path is blocked by jets of scalding steam blasting from ruptured pipes.
William, separated from her by a chain-link fence, must help her by pulling levers to redirect the steam away from her path. However, redirecting the steam forces it to blast onto William’s own body. Screaming in pain, William endures the searing burns to clear Debbie’s path. She frantically scrambles through the maze and reaches the end, where she finds a box containing an X-ray. To her horror, the X-ray reveals that the key to her trap is surgically hidden inside William’s abdomen. Desperate to survive, Debbie grabs a circular saw and attacks William, slicing into his side to retrieve the key. William fights her off, kicking her away just as the timer hits zero. The device on Debbie’s chest fires, driving a spear through her head and killing her instantly.
The Carousel of Six
Bloody and exhausted, William arrives at the fourth test: the Carousel. Here, six of his junior associates—Aaron, Emily, Gena, Dave, Shelby, and Josh—are chained to a spinning playground carousel. They are the "Dog Pit," the team that researches medical histories to find reasons to deny claims. A shotgun is mounted on a mechanism next to the carousel. The machine spins, stopping randomly to align one victim in front of the gun barrel.
The rules are brutal: William can save only two of the six. To save a person, he must press two buttons simultaneously, which drives a metal spike through his own hand. If he does nothing, the shotgun fires. As the carousel spins, the associates scream and plead their cases. William watches helplessly as Aaron is shot in the chest. When the machine stops on Emily, he slams his hand onto the spikes, taking the pain to save her. He fails to act for Gena, who is executed. He lets Dave die. When Shelby rotates in front of the gun, he sacrifices his hand again, saving her. Finally, Josh is spun into position and, with William unable to save another, is blasted by the shotgun. Four dead, two saved, and William's hands are mangled ruins.
The Voice Analysis
While William endures his trials, Agents Erickson and Perez close in on the truth. At the morgue, pathologist Dr. Adam Heffner examines the jigsaw piece cut from Eddie’s skin. He notes that the edge of the cut is ragged, indicating a serrated blade was used—unlike the precise surgical scalpels John Kramer used. Heffner confirms the only other victim with a similar cut was Seth Baxter, the man who murdered Hoffman’s sister, Angelina Acomb, years prior.
Suspecting that the audio tapes might also hold a clue, the agents analyze the tape found at Seth Baxter’s trap. They discover that the voice on the tape was not Jigsaw, but a digitally altered voice. Erickson and Perez take the tape to a tech lab, with Hoffman accompanying them. As the technician, Sachi, descrambles the audio, Erickson reveals he knows Strahm was already dead when his fingerprints were planted at the latest crime scene. The audio clears up, and Hoffman’s voice is unmistakably heard saying, "Right now, you're feeling helpless."
Realizing his cover is blown, Hoffman strikes. He slashes Erickson’s throat with a knife and throws hot coffee on Perez before stabbing her repeatedly. He then kills Sachi to eliminate all witnesses. In a move to once again frame his rival, Hoffman pulls out Peter Strahm’s severed, decaying hand—which he has kept preserved—and uses it to plant fingerprints all over the lab. He douses the room in gasoline and sets it ablaze, destroying the evidence and the bodies.
The Letter and the Legacy
Unbeknownst to Hoffman, Jill Tuck executes the final phase of John Kramer’s plan. She receives a copy of a letter from her lockbox—a letter originally written to Amanda Young. Jill takes the letter and a modified reverse bear trap device and heads to the zoo. She infiltrates Hoffman's surveillance room and places the letter on his desk.
Hoffman returns to the surveillance room after the massacre, intent on watching the end of William’s game. He spots the letter and opens it. It is a blackmail note he wrote to Amanda before the events of Saw III. A flashback reveals the dark secret: Hoffman knew that Amanda was with her boyfriend, Cecil Adams, the night he robbed Jill’s clinic. Amanda had pressured Cecil to steal drugs, an act that caused the door to slam into Jill’s stomach, resulting in the miscarriage of her son, Gideon. Hoffman had used this knowledge to blackmail Amanda into killing Dr. Lynn Denlon, knowing it would sabotage her test. As Hoffman reads the letter in shock, Jill emerges from the shadows and subdues him with an electric stun baton.
Acidic Judgment
William reaches the final chamber with seconds to spare. He finds himself in a cage located between two other enclosures. To his left is his sister, Pamela Jenkins, a reporter. To his right is a cell containing Tara Abbott and her teenage son, Brent. A videotape reveals the connection: Tara is the widow of Harold Abbott, a man whose insurance coverage William personally revoked due to a minor discrepancy, leading to Harold’s death from heart disease.
John Kramer appears on screen, informing Tara that she now holds William’s life in her hands, just as William held Harold’s. A lever in her cell is connected to a tank of hydrofluoric acid above the room. She can choose to forgive William or pull the lever to execute him "die." Tara, consumed by grief but shaking with hesitation, finds herself unable to kill. However, Brent, fueled by rage over his father's death, grabs the lever. He shouts, "I kill you!" and yanks the switch down. A platform of needles swings down from the ceiling, impaling William’s back. The hydrofluoric acid pumps through the tubes and injects directly into William’s body. He screams in agony as his internal organs and flesh liquefy, melting him from the inside out until his lower body separates from his torso, leaving a gruesome pile of viscera.
Game Over
While William dies, Jill straps an unconscious Hoffman into a chair and locks a modernized version of the Reverse Bear Trap onto his head. As he wakes up, she shows him the sixth envelope from the box—it contains a photo of Hoffman himself. Jill reveals that John wanted Hoffman tested too. She does not leave a key. She simply tells him "Game Over" and exits the room, leaving the timer ticking.
Hoffman, in a frenzy of adrenaline, smashes his hand with the metal restraints to slip his wrist free. With seconds remaining, he grabs a screwdriver to try and pry the lock, but fails. Thinking quickly, he jams the front of the trap between the metal bars of the door’s window frame. As the timer hits zero, the trap springs open. The bars prevent the jaws from opening fully, stopping the device from ripping his jaw completely off. However, the force tears his right cheek wide open, leaving him brutally disfigured and screaming in agony, but alive.
Post-Credits: The Warning
In a flashback sequence occurring immediately after the credits, Amanda Young is shown approaching the room where Corbett Denlon (the daughter of Jeff and Lynn Denlon) was locked away during Saw III. Amanda, visibly distraught after reading Hoffman's blackmail letter, speaks to the terrified child through the door. She warns Corbett, "Don't trust the one who saves you." This reveals that Amanda knew Hoffman would be the one to emerge as the "hero" and wanted to plant a seed of doubt, a final act of revenge against the man who manipulated her.
