There are very few Saw traps that feel cathartic because more often than not, the people who are put in Jigsaw’s line of fire are undeserving of the pain inflicted on them. Saw IV, however, tries to make a case that some people deserve what Jigsaw does to them. The victims of the movie are criminals who have hurt other people, and Officer Daniel Rigg has to make the decision about whether to help them out of Jigsaw’s traps or not. There’s a sex worker who trafficked other women, a serial rapist, and an abusive father. It’s essentially Jigsaw’s twisted version of a recruitment ad, and so as you’re watching these people get torn to shreds, he believes you might walk away feeling like they had it coming. The most visually striking of all the traps in this film is the Spike Trap. The aforementioned abusive father, Rex, and his wife Morgan are suspended back to back in one of their daughter’s classrooms with spikes that run through both of their bodies. The spikes have been carefully placed so that they will merely be flesh wounds for Morgan, but will kill Rex as they’ve pierced several of his major arteries. By pulling the spikes and freeing herself, she will break the ties that bind, leaving her abuser to bleed out. It’s one of the best examples of Jigsaw’s traps feeling directly tied to the lesson he wants to teach.
