Celebrate the release of Saw VI with this horrific merchandise

Find the missing piece of the Saw puzzle.

The Saw franchise is holding up well, and it’s only getting better with the release of the sixth film on DVD and the seventh in production for an October release. Having recently been named the most successful horror franchise (on US box office figures), it’s beaten such legendary horror series’ as Friday the 13th, Scream, Halloween and even Nightmare on Elm Street. It’s even inspired its own theme park rides! So how has this gruesome and gory franchise survived so long? Is it the cleverly timed releases (always around Halloween), the twists and turns in the plots or the extreme measures the victims take to escape the terrifying Jigsaw? To be honest it’s probably a mixture of them all.

With Saw VI out on DVD and Blu-ray, where does the story stand now? We’ve learnt about John Kramer’s (Tobin Bell) wife and the cancer that lead him to attempt suicide. But having failed at this he simply decided to take his anger out on the people he felt were wasting their precious lives. And he found quite a few to fit his criteria. Along with a few willing apprentices to help him carry out his chilling tasks.

Way back in 2003 director James Wan and writer/producer Leigh Whannell sent out the script for Saw, and began work on a short film to send round to the studios. They eventually made their idea into a feature film, showing it at the Sundance and Toronto film festivals, and their potential straight-to-video movie was confirmed for a theatrical release. Unlike most small budget movies, there were no stories of hardship and rejection; these guys had all the luck in the world and Leigh knows it: “It was almost as if it grew out of our hands, rather than us forcing it onto the world.”

When it comes to the inspiration, Leigh says: “We didn’t want it to be something that was something that was pretty good for a couple of guys from Melbourne. We wanted it to be a good film on a par with other independent films like Run, Lola, Run and Pi and Memento, these cool thrillers that had ticking-clock gimmicks to them. They’re the type of films we wanted to be up there with.” And of course with such a horrific element to them they had to reference the king of horror, Dario Argento, in their movies. The puppet, Jigsaw, can be seen as a reference to his 1975 film Profondo Rosso, and the killer’s trademark black gloves can be seen in almost all his films.

So, what’s the most memorable scene? We think it’s got to be the reverse-bear-trap from the first film, James says: “I got an industrial designer friend of mine to make that for me. And because he’s not a prop maker-he’s a real industrial designer-he designed it in such a way where it could actually work.” And Leigh remembers making the first one for short: “It’s not like he knew how to make fake rust. To rust it, he put it in a bathtub of salt water on the roof of his garage and left it there for a week. This version [pointing to Shawnee’s mask] is obviously done by a professional, who painted the rust on, and it’s kind of a fake thing. But this thing [the first mask that I wore] was a monstrosity.”

To celebrate the release of the sixth movie (and prepare really early for the seventh) we’ve put together the ultimate collection of Saw merchandise. There’s the sixth movie on DVD, along with the box sets of the previous one’s so you can catch up. And if you’re looking for some fancy dress inspiration we’ve found the creepy Jigsaw puppet mask, and the scary pigs head mask used by Jigsaw to mark the Chinese year of the pig in which he started killing. There’s even a gory video game for fans who want to immerse themselves in the Saw world, and some cool figure’s including one of Shawnee Smith’s character Amanda wearing the infamous reverse bear trap. But if you’re looking for something a bit more gruesome to trick your friends with, we’ve found a bag of bloody fingers for customers in the US. Not had your horror fill? You’ll have to wait until October for the next instalment of Jigsaws creative killings.