So, a lot of people don’t really appreciate the Saw movies. They’re often dismissed as gory torture porn, but according to the list below, maybe we haven’t been giving the filmmakers enough credit for their clever insertions of film references (at least in the first movie).

Go ahead and insert (heh) your own TWSS there, folks. I haven’t got the time.

Movie Reference: Trainspotting

In the following clip from the Saw: Directors’ Commentary, they explain how the gross toilet Adam (Leigh Whannell) fishes around in is a reference to Trainspotting’s ‘the worst toilet in Glasgow.’

Movie Reference: Profondo Rosso

Photo Credit: Rizzoli Films

Dario Argento’s 1975 thriller Profondo Rosso (‘Deep Red‘) features a nightmare inducing puppet, which inspired the filmmakers to create one of their own: Billy the Puppet. In addition, the killer’s black-gloved hands in Saw are an homage to Argento and other directors in the Giallo horror movement of the ’70s and ’80s, which often featured unseen killers wearing leather gloves.