Saw X appears to have reinvigorated the Saw franchise, so while we wait for Saw XI to come along (it has a theatrical release date of September 26, 2025), we here at Arrow in the Head have decided to take a look back at the previous films in the series to compile a list of the Best Saw Traps. There were many traps to choose from, but the idea here was to narrow it down to the best trap (or trap scene) from each individual movie. Check out our picks below, and let us know what your favorite traps were in the comments section.

SAW – REVERSE BEAR TRAP 

Of course this one had to make the list, since it’s the most popular trap in the entire franchise and the one most strongly remembered by the general audience. The reverse bear trap caught so much attention when it showed up in the first film, they brought it back in a couple of the sequels. The first time around, the trap was on the head of Shawnee Smith’s character Amanda Young, hooked into her upper and lower jaws, a timer counting down to the moment when the trap would snap open and tear her head apart. It’s no wonder this concept got stuck in people’s minds, despite the fact that Amanda gets out of it. It took three tries on three separate victims in three different movies, but eventually the filmmakers showed what this trap would do to somebody when it goes off in Saw 3D.

SAW II – NEEDLE PIT 

There are a lot of cringe-inducing traps in the Saw movies, but this is one that manipulates a common phobia in an effort to get under the skin of as many viewers as possible: Jigsaw tasks one of his victims with climbing into a pit of glass syringes to search for a key. Making this sequence even more difficult to endure, the character doesn’t climb into the pit themselves to try to do this as carefully as possible, they forcefully toss another character (a barefoot one, of course) into the pit in their place, so the person is instantly stuck with multiple needles and cut with broken glass. The pain they feel is a pain the viewer can clearly imagine.

SAW III – PIG VAT 

This wins the prize of being the Most Disgusting Trap in the entire franchise. Plenty of traps in the Saw movies have gross results when they go off, but the repulsive thing about this one doesn’t have anything to do with damage being inflicted on the body of the person strapped into it. This trap finds a man stuck at the bottom of a vat as the corpses of rotting, maggoty pigs are dropped into a large grinder, their decaying flesh and putrid guts spewing all over him. There’s also a heavy emotional element to this trap, as the person drowning in liquefied pig is a judge who gave a lenient sentence to the drunk driver who killed the young son of Jeff Denlon (Angus Macfadyen). Jeff is watching the judge go through this ordeal, and the only way he can save the man is by burning the possessions of his dead child.

SAW IV – KNIFE CHAIR 

The Saw IV knife chair earns a spot on the list due to the fact that it was the first trap John Kramer (Tobin Bell), a.k.a. Jigsaw, ever made. Built so John could get revenge on Cecil Adams (Billy Otis), the criminal who caused his wife to miscarry their child, this one involves the victim being bound to a rickety wooden chair with a device holding eight knives in front of their face. Their arm and leg restraints will open if they push their face far enough into the knife blades. This trap scenario doesn’t play out smoothly, the chair completely crumbles under Cecil, but even Jigsaw had to start somewhere. After this, some of the traps created by him and his disciples got unbelievably complex.

SAW V – THE WATER CUBE

While Jigsaw would usually give his victims a chance to escape from his traps, his disciples Amanda and Mark Hoffman (Costas Mandylor) had a tendency to create traps that weren’t meant to be escapable. This is one of those. In design, it’s not very impressive. The victim gets their head stuck in a glass cube that quickly fills with water. What makes this trap memorable is the badass method FBI Agent Strahm (Scott Patterson), the closest this series ever had to a potential hero, uses to get out of the predicament: as the cube fills with water and he realizes there’s no way out, he pulls a pen from his pocket and gives himself a tracheotomy. This may be the coolest moment in any Saw movie.

SAW VI – POUND OF FLESH

Jigsaw and his disciples would often demand that the people in their traps cause themselves great bodily harm to get out of the traps, and this is quite an extreme example of that. Simone (Tanedra Howard) and Eddie (Marty Moreau) are provided with a knife and a meat cleaver and told that if they don’t remove a pound of flesh from their body, they will be killed when the device attached to their heads drills screws into their skulls. So they start hacking and slicing at themselves. Another impressive thing about this scene is how good Howard’s scared and pained acting is, considering she won the role by competing on the reality show Scream Queens.

SAW 3D – THE SILENCE CIRCLE

Another trap that earns mention through its degree of cringe. Nina (Naomi Snieckus) is restrained in a straitjacket and sat down in the middle of a contraption that pushes four spikes toward her neck every time she screams above a certain decibel level. To release her, her associate Bobby Dagen (Sean Patrick Flanery) has to pull the fishing line she has been forced to swallow back up out of her mouth. There’s a key at the end of the line… plus a fish hook that scrapes its way along Nina’s stomach and esophagus as Bobby pulls on the line. This would have been cringe-inducing for many viewers even if it was just Bobby pulling the line out of Nina’s stomach without the hook being on there, but imagining the hook slicing into her on its way up makes this scene very uncomfortable to watch.

JIGSAW – LASER COLLARS

The franchise goes super hi-tech with this trap, which feels like it should have been saved for a future sequel where the series goes to space. Brad Halloran (Callum Keith Rennie) and Logan Nelson (Matt Passmore) are both fitted with metal collars that have seven powerful lasers attached to them. These lasers start out being blasted straight up, but gradually turn inward toward Brad and Logan’s heads. If they can’t get Jigsaw to shut off the lasers and release them from the collars, their heads will be sliced into seven pieces. The laser collars earn a place on the list because who ever thought a Saw trap would include frickin’ laser beams?

SPIRAL: FROM THE BOOK OF SAW – THE SUBWAY TRAP

The “side story” Spiral: From the Book of Saw isn’t very popular among Saw friends, but it does feature some nasty, cringe-inducing traps. For example, the finger trap, which forces someone to remove all of their fingers. Or the glass grinder, or the one that involves someone having to sever their spine. That spine one earns points for having a wax element that’s reminiscent of the 1979 classic Tourist Trap… but the best trap in Spiral may be the very first one, which puts a guy on a stepladder in the subway and tells him he needs to bite or rip his own tongue off before a train comes along. The cringing starts as soon as you see the guy’s tongue pulled out as far as possible and clamped into a metal device, and it just gets worse from there.

SAW X – BRAIN SURGERY TRAP

The “eye vacuum” trap got a lot of attention when Saw X was being released and a lot of fans really like the bone marrow trap – but the most troubling trap in this film may be the one that forces a man to perform brain surgery on himself. He has to remove a piece of his brain and get it dissolved in an enzyme tank within a certain amount of time of a mask of heated coils will snap shut on his face. The idea of having to cut open your own skull and take out a chunk of your brain, otherwise you’ll be burned to death… There’s a reason the production company behind these movies is called Twisted Pictures.

SAW – THE BATHROOM TRAP

A bonus entry for the original Saw! At the core of James Wan’s Saw was a very simple set-up: Adam Stanheight (writer Leigh Whannell) and Dr. Lawrence Gordon (Cary Elwes) wake up in a dirty restroom, each of them chained to pipes by one ankle. They’ve both been provided with hacksaws to help them get out of their shackles. It’s an idea lifted right out of the end of Mad Max, but Saw caught the attention and captured the imagination of movie-goers with Gordon’s trailer line, “He doesn’t want us to cut through our chains, he wants us to cut through our feet.” With that, the simple, familiar idea launched a franchise.  

Do you think these are the best Saw traps? If we didn’t include some you thought were gnarly, list them below!

The post Best Saw Traps: We look back at the franchise’s gnarliest moments appeared first on JoBlo.

At first glance, you wouldn’t know it, but the open-world survival game Once Human features a robust weapon crafting and customization system. Let’s be honest: You won’t survive the apocalypse using a mere baseball bat or machete.

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At first glance, you wouldn’t know it, but the open-world survival game Once Human features a robust weapon crafting and customization system. Let’s be honest: You won’t survive the apocalypse using a mere baseball bat or machete.

Read more…

Cameron Crowe is responsible for some of the most memorable moments in cinema these past 40 years or so. Phoebe Cates and Judge Reinhold at the pool in Fast Times at Ridgemont High. Jerry Maguire and Rod Tidwell screaming “Show Me the Money.” Lloyd Dobler blasting Peter Gabriel in Say Anything. But before he won an Oscar or became friends with Tom Cruise and Steven Spielberg, Crowe lived an entirely different life as a precocious rock-and-roll journalist for Rolling Stone magazine. Barely ready for life outside of his house, the young writer abruptly found himself hanging out with rock gods and sexy groupies – he was privy to more hedonism than most of us can only dream of before he turned 18. Naturally, that sounds like fodder for a compelling movie, and while he plotted a film based on his younger years for quite a long time, Crowe didn’t get to realize it until Almost Famous, his love letter to music, family and the early 70s. You probably know some of the details, but we’re here to clue you in on What Really Happened to Almost Famous.

Let’s start with Cameron Crowe’s avatar in the film, young William Miller. Played by Patrick Fugit, Miller is a music lover who dreams of hanging out with his favorite bands; not only does music drive him, he’s a gifted writer. Eager to pursue a career in music journalism, Crowe would call Lester Bangs, the editor of a popular music mag called Creem, and pitch him stories while using a fake voice to cover for his young age. Bangs eventually became Crowe’s mentor as evidenced in the film, and by all accounts Philip Seymour Hoffman’s performance captured the spirit of Bangs almost precisely. In a sad bit of irony, both eventually died because of a drug overdose.

Crowe eventually talked his way into reporting for Rolling Stone magazine, the publication similarly not realizing how young he was until much later. The magazine’s senior editor, Ben Fong-Torres, actually met Crowe in person at a concert for the first time as opposed to over the phone as depicted in Almost Famous, but in both cases he was not aware Crowe was only 16. The bulky recorder Fugit carries throughout the film was an exact replica of the one Crowe used when he was in his teens.

Crowe would go on tours with some of the most popular rock bands of the era. There was indeed a group called Stillwater in the 70s, but the band in the movie is not based on them, although Crowe asked for their blessing in using their name and got to use it after paying them a little. The film’s Stillwater is an amalgam of several bands, notably The Allman Brothers, Lynard Skynard, and The Eagles. Their album covers even resemble those of the Allman Brothers’.

One major diversion from how it all really went down is the omission of Neal Preston, the photographer who accompanied Crowe during most of the tours. Preston was allegedly present for most, if not all of, the crazy events Crowe experienced, but he’s not in the film, with Crowe choosing to focus on the journalist character. Ironically, Preston was the still photographer on the set for Almost Famous.

The band’s charismatic lead guitarist Russell Hammond, played by Billy Crudup, is also an amalgam of several real life rock stars, including Gregg Allman, Glenn Fry of The Eagles, and Led Zepplin’s Jimmy Page. While on tour with the Allman Brothers, Crowe could never get Gregg Allman to sit down for an actual interview, until the very last day, where Allman opened up and spilled his guts to the young writer, not unlike in the film. Allman would sometimes accuse Crowe of being a narc or an fed, frequently coming in and out of paranoid episodes, and at one point confiscated Crowe’s tapes for a while before giving them back. Allman also would not confirm Crowe’s reporting for Rolling Stone’s fact checkers just as Russell does toward the end of the film before changing his mind.

Meanwhile, Glenn Fry once asked Crowe to “just make us look cool,” one of Russell’s most memorable lines.

Russell’s famous “I’m a golden god” line was inspired by a moment when Zepplin’s lead singer Robert Plant shouted the same thing, though not before attempting to dive into a pool. The line might have made even more sense had the original actor to play Russell – Brad Pitt – had ended up portraying the character, but he eventually dropped out.

Kate Hudson’s lovable groupie – although don’t call her that – Penny Laine is also a combination of several well-known 70s faces. One of them was a Pennie Trumbull, known then as Penny Lane, the founder of a group of rock-obsessed groupies known as The Flying Garter Girls, also loosely depicted in Almost Famous. Lane was so impressed with the final product that she wrote Crowe a letter saying “If I die tomorrow I’ll know there’s something out there that explains who I was…” Not unlike with Pitt and the Russell character, Sarah Polley was supposed to play Penny but had to exit the film due to scheduling issues. Hudson, who was originally playing William’s sister, was then given the Penny role.

Other infamous groupies who helped inspire Penny were Pamela Des Barres and Bebe Buell, Liv Tyler’s mother. Bebe was paid small tribute to by Crowe when he named Stillerwater’s lead singer Jeff Bebe. Incidentally, Bebe was partially inspired by Bad Company lead singer Paul Rodgers.

Record company executive Dennis Hope, played by Jimmy Fallon in his first feature film, is supposedly inspired by legendary music manager Irving Azofff, best known for his time with The Eagles. Fallon’s beard and glasses closely resemble images of Azoff from the 70s.

William’s mother is, naturally, inspired by Crowe’s real mother, who was none too thrilled with her son’s preoccupation with rock-and-roll and was constantly paranoid that he’d be doing drugs, often calling him while he was on the road to make sure he was staying safe. In the film, William’s father has been dead for several years, but in reality Crowe’s father didn’t die until 1989, right after Say Anything came out.. Still, his death caused a strong ripple throughout his family, leading to a major rift between his mother and sister that was only repaired years later thanks to the release of Almost Famous.

One of the film’s most memorable scenes takes place during a turbulent plane ride, when the weather gets so bad that it seems for a moment like the plane is going to crash. The characters start confessing very private things to each other, especially infidelities with each other’s spouses. Legend has it this was inspired by a similar event that happened to rocker Alice Cooper and his band, where supposedly imminent doom caused the passengers of the plane to start revealing deep, dark secrets to one another before the pilot abruptly announced everything was going to be alright.

Another scene inspired by a real event is the one when Russell is accidentally electrocuted on stage. That really happened to Ace Frehley of KISS fame, who got shocked by 10,000 volts at a concert in 1976. Ace was able to finish the show after an understandable delay. While Crudup didn’t actually electrocute himself for his art, he and the rest of the actors playing Stillwater reportedly practiced playing music after every shooting day, sometimes for up to four or five hours in order to believably resemble an actual rock-and-roll band.

Almost Famous won an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay, though obviously it just as easily could have been Adapted. While not exactly a biopic, it’s pretty clear Almost Famous was a very personal project for Cameron Crowe, who was able to take his time as a naive yet committed journalist and turn it into a funny, thoughtful and moving look back in time. Think he’d agree that’s pretty rock-and-roll.

The post What Really Happened to Almost Famous? appeared first on JoBlo.

Today’s most popular and best-selling games often include expensive first-party exclusives, big multiplayer hits, and aging titles like GTA V that stick around years after launch. But that wasn’t the case 20 years ago, as seen in newly published sales data.

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Today’s most popular and best-selling games often include expensive first-party exclusives, big multiplayer hits, and aging titles like GTA V that stick around years after launch. But that wasn’t the case 20 years ago, as seen in newly published sales data.

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The Hollywood Reporter is breaking the news that Marvel Studios is now going back to their golden boys, Joe and Anthony Russo, to take on the directing duties of the next two Avengers films. The Avengers is the biggest franchise for Marvel and has been a gigantic culmination of their film phases. The scope of the films has grown into an epic proportion with a crossover nature rarely seen in movies. Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame made an enormous mark on pop culture as they both broke into the list of highest-grossing movies of all-time.

Marvel Studios, who has recently been dealing with a string of underperforming projects and behind-the-scenes drama, was determined to get back on track with the upcoming entries — Avengers: The Kang Dynasty and Avengers: Secret Wars. The studio had been going through a bumpy development with directors leaving and trying to find suitable replacements. Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings director Destin Daniel Cretton was originally attached. Cretton departed and it was being said that Deadpool & Wolverine director Shawn Levy was being courted to replace him. However, not much news has followed up and it was reported that Marvel was “planning to meet with other directors while they wait on a decision from [Levy].”

The search for a director has been going on for months and it was said that Marvel wanted to get the production going by next year. Doctor Strange star Benedict Cumberbatch teased on an interview with Netflix, “I’m very much looking forward to Avengers next year, which is cooking up a storm.” However, the Marvel Cinematic Universe will also need the villain to face down all our heroes, and the story for the last couple of years has been that Jonathan Majors, who was once cast as Kang, had been released due to personal controversy.

Recent reports suggest Iman Vellani (Kamala Khan) and Hailee Steinfeld (Kate Bishop) will be the new faces of the Avengers when the team returns to the silver screen (which was set up in a post-credits tag from The Marvels), but nothing is confirmed. Marvel has planted seeds for a Young Avengers team to take center stage, with Kamala assuming a Nick Fury-like role in gathering a team of up-and-coming heroes to defend humanity. However, that trajectory could change with the MCU being in constant flux.

The post The Russo brothers are now in talks to helm the next two Avengers movies appeared first on JoBlo.

After months of critical and public acclaim, Amazon’s Fallout series can now add “Emmy nominated” to its list of superlatives. The annual television awards show just released the full list of this year’s nominees, and while the adaptation of the post-apocalyptic RPG games didn’t garner a huge number of noms, it did…

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After months of critical and public acclaim, Amazon’s Fallout series can now add “Emmy nominated” to its list of superlatives. The annual television awards show just released the full list of this year’s nominees, and while the adaptation of the post-apocalyptic RPG games didn’t garner a huge number of noms, it did…

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The Alien franchise is set to continue on the small screen with an “FX on Hulu” TV series from Fargo creator Noah Hawley, a show that began filming in Thailand last year, then had to halt production after a month due to the actors strike. Filming resumed earlier this year… and it looks like it’s wrapping up this month (as scheduled), because Sydney Chandler – whose previous credits include Don’t Worry Darling and the mini-series Pistol, and who was announced to be the lead of the Alien TV series when she was cast back in May of 2023 – has taken to social media to reveal that her time in Thailand has come to an end.

Chandler wrote, “Farewell Bangkok. Benchakitti. Lumphini. Krabi. Pathum Wan. China Town. The Onsen. And good Ole Kinokuniya … Farewell 4am pickups. BKK Traffic. Walkie-Talkie static. Late night motorbikes. Manic laughter. And pure creative adrenaline … Farewell River Kwai. Monitor Lizards. The bluest of blue birds. The great herons. The red suns. The lightning strikes. The jungle treks. The alien encounters … and mango sticky rice. Thank you Thailand, and everyone here on this epic journey, for teaching me what I am truly made of. Onwards we go … Khob Khun Ka Xx“

Chandler’s Alien character is the meta-human Wendy, who has the body of an adult, but the brain and consciousness of a child. Her co-stars include Essie Davis (The Babadook) as Dame Silvia, Alex Lawther (The End of the F*cking World) as a soldier named CJ, Samuel Blenkin (Black Mirror) as a CEO named Boy Kavalier, Adarsh Gourav (The White Tiger) as a character named Slightly, Kit Young (Shadow and Bone) as a character called Tootles, and Timothy Olyphant (Justified) Kirsh, a synth who acts as a mentor and trainer for Wendy. Babou Ceesay (Guerrilla), Jonathan Ajayi (Wonder Woman 1984), Erana James (The Wilds), Lily Newmark (Sex Education), Diêm Camille (Washington Black), Adrian Edmondson (The Young Ones), Moe Bar-El (The Peripheral), and David Rysdahl (Fargo season 5) are in the cast as well, but no details have been revealed about their characters. Sandra Yi Sencindiver of Foundation will be playing “a senior member of the Weyland-Yutani Corporation” in multiple episodes, and her role could be expanded as the series continues.

One of the first things we heard about the Alien TV series – and one of the most surprising things about it – is that it will actually be set on Earth, a couple decades before the events of the first movie. FX chairman John Landgraf has said the show will take place “right near the end of this century.” According to Deadline, the setting puts it “a few years before Prometheus,” which Hawley has previously said he has chosen not to acknowledge. Hawley decided to set the show on Earth because “The alien stories are always trapped… Trapped in a prison, trapped in a space ship. I thought it would be interesting to open it up a little bit so that the stakes of ‘What happens if you can’t contain it?’ are more immediate.“ Variety noted that the Alien TV series will “explore the formation of the Weyland-Yutani Corporation and the race to create android life.”

The Alien TV series is believed to have an eight episode first season. It may be done filming, but there will be a lot of visual effects work to do in post-production, so the show is aiming for a 2025 premiere. 

Are you looking forward to the Alien TV series, and are you glad to hear that filming is wrapping up? Let us know by leaving a comment below.

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