Saw: What Words Were Written on Adam’s Tape?

The first Saw film marked the early beginnings of John Kramer’s (aka the notorious Jigsaw Killer) murderous traps in the franchise.

Here, we follow the story of two protagonists, Adam (Leigh Whannell) and Dr. Gordon (Cary Elwes), who wake up in a dirty secluded bathroom, each given separate instructions:

Adam can either wait for his impending doom of dying inside the bathroom or he ‘does something about it,’ while Dr. Gordon is tasked to kill Adam before his time runs out, as each Saw film usually does as an ultimatum towards their victims.

The bathroom worked as an escape room filled with clues, the protagonists just had to be smart where to look. One of these clues is found in their separate tapes. Now, the question is, what words were written on Adam’s tape?

READ MORE: How To Watch the Saw Franchise in Chronological Order?

Adam’s ‘Test’ on the First Saw Film

Credit: Lionsgate Films

Adam found a white envelope with his name on it hidden inside his pants pocket. Upon opening, there’s a cassette with the message, ‘Play Me’ written on it. Gordon had found his own, which included a key and a bullet.

Convinced that the key was for their shackles, both were wrong in the first assumption.

Eventually, Adam noticed there was a tape recorder in the dead body’s (John Kramer pretending to be a corpse) hands. With that, he started playing his cassette first.

On audio tape, the Jigsaw Killer’s voice echoes inside the bathroom to tell Adam: "I’ll tell you where you might be. You might be in the room that you die in. Up until now, you’ve simply sat in the shadows watching others live out their lives. So are you going to watch yourself die here today, Adam, or do something about it?”

But this wasn’t the only clue John had laid out for his victims. When they found that the toilet contained a black plastic bag, it had two hacksaws in it and Adam’s photos of Gordon’s family.

Behind the photo of Gordon’s kids, Jigsaw wrote: “X marks the spot. Sometimes you see more with your eyes shut,” which gave away the clue about a glow-in-the-dark “X” spot in the corner of the bathroom and unveiled more tools to help the duo plot their escape.

ALSO READ: Saw: Top 10 Best Traps in Franchise History Ranked

Why Was Adam the Victim in the First Saw Film?

Credit: Lionsgate Films

While many fans of the psychological slasher franchise were left confused as to why Adam had been the victim left to die inside the bathroom and not Dr. Gordon, the first Saw film is a testament to how Amanda Young’s apprenticeship under Jigsaw worked for the rest of the films.

See, Amanda had to survive her own Jigsaw trap and that is to escape the reverse bear trap by digging into her dead cellmate’s intestines for the key to unlock it before her time runs out.

Once she succeeded, one of the things that rigged Adam’s escape with a lesson from Jigsaw was the fact that Amanda chained Adam and placed the key right on top of his stomach.

Anyone would panic over waking up in the bathtub, and nearly drowning, and so, losing the key into the drain of the tub rendered Adam’s escape futile throughout the game.

In this sense, Adam was clear proof of how Amanda’s mind works around Jigsaw’s traps.

They didn’t share the same philosophy. With John simply wanting to make criminals learn a valuable lesson about giving meaning to their lives, Amanda wanted no victim to escape hers.