Saw: The Bathroom

Most people will point to the iconic Reverse Bear Trap as the original film’s best mechanism of death. It succinctly captures the essence of the Jigsaw Killer’s whole deal, and it’s no surprise, given that it had also been the basis of the original short film that helped get the movie greenlit. However, it didn’t facilitate one of the best twists in horror film history, which the Bathroom Trap did. Its premise is simple: two people are chained by their ankles across a filthy bathroom, with Doctor Lawrence Gordon told all he has to do to leave the game is kill freelance photographer Adam on the other side. They’re given no further instruction, so he’s free to do whatever he deems necessary to make it happen in the few hours he’s allowed. The open-endedness of the Bathroom Trap is what makes it so tense. Where most of Jigsaw’s death machines are short affairs that end in a spectacular, gorey fashion, the Bathroom Trap is psychological warfare charged by human drama. When it reaches its climactic conclusion, Jigsaw has accounted for every possibility, all by stationing himself in the center of the room disguised as a corpse. I still get chills 20 years later watching Tobin Bell stand up. That shit’s cinema.