~Traps of the Saw Movie Series Review~

Reverse Bear Trap

The Reverse Bear Trap is an iconic trap, to the extent that it was used on promotional posters for the first film and on Saw merchandise.

The wrists of a heroin addict named Amanda Young were bound with duct tape to the armrests of a chair, and a heavy metal apparatus was hooked up into her upper and lower jaws. Jigsaw, through his puppet on the tape recording, revealed to Amanda that she would have one minute to remove the contraption before it snapped open, much like "a reverse bear trap" (the term "Reverse Bear Trap", referenced in Amanda's instructions, gained fame as a fan name for the trap). The mechanism would rip her jaws open in the process, killing her. To emphasize the point, a demonstration was shown to Amanda, who watched as the device went off on a mannequin head, effectively destroying it. Jigsaw told her that the key needed to unlock the contraption was in the stomach of a dead man lying across the room from her.

As the tape ended, Amanda wriggled her arms free from the duct tape, at which point she stood up, pulling and snapping a trigger wire that set off the one-minute timer on the back of the contraption on her head. Frightened, she slowly walked over to her cell mate, whereupon she had to cut into his stomach and retrieve the key, even after discovering that he was not actually dead as suggested, but in an opiate-induced state of paralysis, unable to move or feel pain. As she was about to cut him open, he woke up. After stabbing him multiple times, Amanda sifted through his innards and retrieved the key. She then managed to remove the device just in time, throwing it onto the floor just as it snapped open. She was the first one to survive Jigsaw's trap.

The Reverse Bear Trap would later be seen in Jigsaw's lair in the third movie, again on a mannequin head, where it was examined and set off by Lynn Denlon. Additionally, it was seen in Saw: Rebirth, in which Jigsaw tested a prototype version of it, and in the original Saw film, where it was used on a character named David. The scenario played out the same as the later version, with David escaping from the contraption seconds before it went off.

The Reverse Bear Trap reappeared as Mark Hoffman's final test in Saw VI. Unlike the previous two examples, Hoffman was given no key to unlock the device. With both arms restrained, he used the trap to break his left arm before escaping and jamming it between two metal bars, preventing it from snapping open completely and allowing him to slide it off. Eventually, as with the previous two scenarios, Hoffman escapes, but with the right half of his jaw severely dislocated.

Build: 8

Escape: 7

Memorable: 9

Gore: 9

Total: 33

My thoughts...

Like Pikachu, this trap is over used in the promotion of this movie series...