20 Things You Didn't Know About Saw
13. It's Plot Is Similar To A Vincent Price B-Movie
Although Saw is renowned for its originality, it has similarities to the Vincent Price film, The Abominable Dr. Phibes. Like Jigsaw, the titular villain kills his victims with over-elaborate traps and teases one of them with a creepy doll. For the final trap, a surgeon must remove a key from his son's body to free himself from a harness. This same concept is used for Saw II where a victim has to cut a key out of his body to remove a contraption.
But Dr. Phibes wasn't the first film to have this type of plot. It was directly inspired by the 1939 horror flick, The Man They Could Not Hang. In the movie, a scientist fakes his death and then has his enemies invited to his home so he kill them all using over-elaborate traps. One of the victims tries to call for a help on the phone but the scientist has it rigged with a blade which stabs him in the ear. This same trap was used for the Phibes sequel, Dr. Phibes Rises Again.
Many people complain the horror genre has run out of ideas. Sadly, horror has been recycling the same ideas since the beginning of cinema.