Saw IV

Question: A tape recorded by John directed toward agent Perez states that her partner would soon take the life of an innocent man. How did John know that agent Strahm would kill Jeff? For all he knows, Strahm could have followed Rigg through the factory rather than Jeff. The "if you're good at anticipating the human mind, it leaves nothing to chance" excuse doesn't work here. The only reason Strahm followed Jeff was because he heard Jeff hit a ceiling light with a crowbar.

Answer: Realistically there is no way he could have known. The writers were just working backwards from the plot point on this one.

Phaneron

Question: A glass casket with a key inside it is shown in John's warehouse. What does that mean?

Answer: It plays an important role in the next few movies.

Answer: This was revealed by director Darren Bousman to have originally been used in a now-deleted (and not released as of Oct. 2020) scene in the movie. The glass box is used for what is (most likely) a different purpose in Saw V.

Question: I don't understand why Hoffman isn't electrocuted at the end. He was connected to high voltage cages and his feet came under water, so how did he and/or Jigsaw plan so he wouldn't be electrocuted under any circumstances?

Answer: The chair wasn't actually electrified. It was just made to look that way in order to hide his involvement in the game.

Phaneron

Question: I don't understand the flow of the film at all; at the beginning, Jigsaw's dead body is in the autopsy room and Hoffman is present. Yet at the end of the film, Strahm has only just discovered Jigsaw's body in the position he died in in the third film. Consequently, I don't see how the beginning of the fifth film makes much sense either. Help?

Answer: The events of Saw III and Saw IV are actually happening at the same time.

wizard_of_gore

Answer: It is because of the plot twist at the end, where we find out that Saw III and Saw IV take place simultaneously.

Question: What happened to the guy in the first trap? he killed the other man with the eyes sewed shut to get the key. It looked to me like he got the chain unlocked from his neck but he yelled and blood flowed from his mouth. Was he too late?

The_Iceman

Chosen answer: He wasn't too late. He was the guy supervising the Hoffman/Matthews trap.

Answer: He was barely in time; he was still unlocking the chain from his neck as it was being pulled into the winch, pulling his hands in with it, which made him scream in pain.

Question: Why did Hoffman shut down the security monitors before leaving Rigg to die? Also, how did he do it?

Answer: Because he didn't want Riggs to see who was coming, and even if he didn't shut down the monitors Riggs would still die in the end anyway. And he probably cut the wires from his hands behind it.

Question: What exactly happened to the FBI agent who got locked inside Jigsaw's room? And how can Hoffman know that Rigg won't escape and give away his true identity? He didn't look that badly wounded to me.

Answer: Recent previews for "Saw V" have revealed that Strahm (the FBI agent locked inside Jigsaw's room) is still alive and will play a role in the upcoming sequel, though we don't know to what extent. Hoffman can be sure Rigg won't escape, because he was shot in the abdomen and was losing a great deal of blood, and by the time help arrives, he will most likely be dead from the wound. Remember, Hoffman is a forensic agent and is probably good at judging the lethality of wounds such as Rigg's.

Question: John Kramer says to Cecil who is tied to a chair, "Some people stop to help a stranded motorist and get taken out by a speeding semi. There's no accounting for it." Who is he referring to by the stranded motorist? And who was killed by a semi while helping the motorist? It's been a while since I watched the movies. I don't remember it.

Bunch Son

Chosen answer: He's just giving a generalized example to point out the irony of how some random stranger who stops to help a person in need in turn gets killed in the process. It's not about any specific person.

raywest

Question: When we see Hoffman writing Amanda's note, you can also quickly see him drop a small, dark object into the envelope. What is this object, or are we meant to find out in a future installment?

Answer: We see Amanda open and read the letter in Saw 3 but we are never told what it said. Maybe we will find out this Oct when Saw 5 comes out.

Question: Why does John stand with his arms open when Cecil's trap breaks? Was it some kind of challenge so he would charge at him and fall into the barbed wire or something else?

Answer: It appears that this is the case. The first trap failed, so by challenging him, John is simply giving Cecil an improvised second test. If Cecil had stopped to think it through, he may not have been hurled into the razor wire. Of course we are never given an official explanation, so it is up to debate, but this seems to be the most reasonable answer.

Chosen answer: We don't know. This will probably be covered in an upcoming sequel.

Twotall

Question: Why did Rigg discard his handgun after killing Art? I get that he was wounded, but it doesn't make much sense to just drop your gun.

Answer: He's just been shot, witnessed his friend Matthews die and is borderline delirious after all he's been through. Not to mention, he thinks everyone in the room is dead and the tape-player is playing a message addressed directly to him. He's just mentally and physically exhausted and starting to bleed out, so he drops it in favor of grabbing the much-lighter tape player and trying to crawl away.

Answer: It's most likely because he had just been shot about 2 minutes before, so he started losing blood, which is why you can see him clenching his wound.

Question: Why was Art forced to play 2 games? Obviously the reason he was put over watching the detectives was because he acquitted the 3 victims who died in the traps, but why make him play the game at the beginning where Trevor could have potentially killed him when Jigsaw/Hoffman needed him to watch Detective Matthews? And what was Trevor's reason he was picked?

Answer: The two games he is forced into can be considered to be just part of one larger game, similar to Jeff from Saw III, William from Saw VI, Bobby from Saw 3D and even Rigg in this same movie. Any one of the aforementioned characters could have died at any point in their tests before completing them, but as Jigsaw told Hoffman in Saw V, "If you're good at anticipating the human mind, it leaves nothing to chance." Art was placed in a dangerous situation in his first test, but he had a large advantage considering that his opponent had his eyes sewn shut. Why Trevor is placed in the game with Art is never explained in any of the movies, unfortunately.

Phaneron

Question: Just wondering, usually a sequel takes part after the previous movie (eg Saw II is a sequel to Saw I) and a prequel is before the previous movie (ie Star Wars episode 1 compared to Star Wars episode IV) but to me Saw IV is set at the same time of Saw III, is this called a samequel?

oobs

Chosen answer: I believe the term for two storylines taking place simultaneously is "paraquel."

Answer: A mid-quel?! an "equal"?.

dizzyd

"Equal" gets my vote. :-).

Answer: The way I understand it, Saw IV takes place after Saw III, not at the same time, so it would be a sequel. Detective Kerry and John Kramer die in Saw III and are dead in Saw IV. Although, when sequels do show flashbacks, that doesn't mean it's set in the same time as the previous film. A film that takes place during the same timeframe as a previous film in the series is called a midquel. A film that is centered around the same event as a previous film, but shown from a different perspective can also be called a "twin film."

Bishop73

Jeff's game from "Saw III" and Rigg's game from "Saw IV" are happening at the same time.

Phaneron

Question: This question is also related to Saw II: when Cecil Adams is in his trap, I have a question about that scene. In Saw 2, we see that John tries to commit suicide after he knows he has a brain tumor, but the point is that I really don't understand if that suicide scene happens before or after Cecil's death. Because if the suicide was before, I don't see why he would want to die if he's getting a son and if it's after, I don't find that he looks like someone who already 'killed' someone. Can you help me?

Answer: Stuff happens in the following order: Jill gets pregnant, Cecil makes her lose the baby, john and Jill break up because of it and his resulting change of character, John gets Cancer on top of all that, John tries to kill himself and survives, John vows to "rehabilitate" other people, he decides to start with Cecil.

Answer: John's suicide attempt happens far before the events of the films and even before Jill got pregnant. After he survived he now finds out that human life is a privilege and seeks to 'help' those who have disregard for their lives. Cecil was chosen because he was a patient at Jill's health clinic who frequently had outbursts and lashed out. John knows he had a perfect 'patient' and so began his first test.

Dra9onBorn117

Question: Is it true that Saw IV was originally going to take place at the same time as the first Saw instead of Saw III? (04:12:12 - 04:31:23)

Answer: Apparently so, at least in earlier pitches/drafts for Saw IV. It also apparently would have included a scene of Strahm entering the bathroom only to find Adam from the first Saw, who had been left to die in there by Jigsaw minutes earlier, and that Adam would have attempted to shoot Strahm out of fear, prompting Strahm to kill him in self-defense.

hsssjusuh

Answer: Having searched high and low, there are no apparent online articles surrounding this theory.

Ssiscool

Question: When Hoffman abducts Rigg you can see that he is not wearing his pig mask. This makes no sense since we see Hoffman pick up his mask in the flashback at the end. Even if this isn't a movie mistake, why did Hoffman not put on his mask?

Answer: Art Blank (the lawyer who had his mouth stitched shut during the Mausoleum trap) abducted Rigg, not Hoffman.

EK8829

Visible crew/equipment: Several times in the movie you can see a stunt double for Donnie Wahlberg, like when he tries to hang himself. Art runs over and there is a wide shot focusing on both of them. No slo-mo required, but you can see it's a stunt double.

More mistakes in Saw IV

Jigsaw: "Cherish your life" is the motto this whole organization is built on. Cherish your life... your life.

More quotes from Saw IV

Trivia: The footage in the beginning of the movie that shows Jigsaw swallowing the wax-covered cassette was actually shot during production of "Saw III", but was not used in the final cut.

More trivia for Saw IV

Join the mailing list

Separate from membership, this is to get updates about mistakes in recent releases. Addresses are not passed on to any third party, and are used solely for direct communication from this site. You can unsubscribe at any time.

Check out the mistake & trivia books, on Kindle and in paperback.