Billy the Puppet is an iconic figure in the Saw franchise, and here’s the tragic origin story behind the creepy doll. Saw started out with filmmaker friends James Wan and Leigh Whannell trying to dream up an effective, low-budget concept they could easily shoot themselves. The project was eventually picked up by producers, and while its small budget and short production schedule resulted in a few shortcomings in the final movie, Saw created an entire subgenre of its own.

While Saw featured name actors like Cary Elwes (who played Dr. Gordon) and Danny Glover, one lesser-known performer was Tobin Bell. A character actor with a prolific list of movie and TV credits such as a key villain in 24 season 2, Bell actually played the “dead” body on the dirty bathroom floor while Saw was being filmed. His gravelly tones also gave Jigsaw (AKA John Kramer) serious menace despite the character barely being seen in the first movie. Bell would become a new slasher icon as the series progressed, with later sequels diving into Kramer’s background and what drove him to become Jigsaw.

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James Wan is a huge fan of Dario Argento – as proven by Malignant and its many Argento inspirations – and Billy the Puppet acted as an embodiment of the unseen Kramer throughout Saw. The eerie doll speaks with Bell’s voice and always wears a tuxedo, with Billy appearing on a TV screen or in person to explain the rules of a given game to victims. Billy the Puppet is easily one of Saw’s most recognizable elements, but it wasn’t until Saw IV that viewers learned what drove Kramer to create the doll.

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Kramer was once a happily married man, who was expecting a child with his wife Jill Tuck, a doctor. The couple had settled on the name Gideon for their unborn son, and Kramer created a wooden doll to give to him, which was a way less creepy version of Billy the Puppet. Saw IV revealed that after being wounded by one of her patients – a drug addict named Cecil – Jill had a miscarriage and lost the baby. This devastated Kramer, and the doll he created later formed the basis for Saw’s Billy the Puppet.

What’s interesting to note is that Billy – who was absent from Spiral – is never called “Billy” in the Saw movies. Instead, Billy is the name that Wan himself christened the puppet, which stuck with the filmmakers behind later entires. The series explained many elements of Jigsaw’s methodology that largely went unaddressed in the original Saw. For instance, Gideon was supposed to be born during the year of the pig in the Chinese zodiac, which is why the pig mask was used by John or his apprentices to kidnap victims.

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Padraig Cotter
(3484 Articles Published)

It’s pronounced Paw-rick, not Pad-raig. Now that’s out of the way, a brief introduction. Padraig has been writing about film online since 2012, when a friend asked if he’d like to contribute the occasional review or feature to their site.

A part-time hobby soon blossomed into a career when he discovered he really loved writing about movies, TV and video games – he even (arguably) had a little bit of talent for it. He has written words for Den of Geek, Collider, The Irish Times and Screen Rant over the years, and can discuss anything from the MCU – where Hawkeye is clearly the best character – to the most obscure cult b-movie gem, and his hot takes often require heat resistant gloves to handle.

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He’s super modern too, so his favorite movies include Jaws, Die Hard, The Thing, Ghostbusters and Batman. He can be found as i_Padds on Twitter making bad puns.

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