{"id":538522,"date":"2025-10-30T22:30:15","date_gmt":"2025-10-30T22:30:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/538522\/"},"modified":"2025-10-30T22:30:15","modified_gmt":"2025-10-30T22:30:15","slug":"the-creepy-serial-foot-tickler-that-inspired-the-saw-movies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/538522\/","title":{"rendered":"The creepy serial foot tickler that inspired the ‘Saw’ movies"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"The<\/p>\n

(Credits: Far Out \/ \tLionsGate Films)<\/p>\n

Thu 30 October 2025 20:45, UK <\/p>\n

Those five words, \u2018based on a true story\u2019, aren\u2019t exactly what you want to read when you press play on a horror<\/a> movie. It\u2019s in that moment that you\u2019re suddenly alerted to the fact that what you\u2019re watching isn\u2019t just some far-fetched storyline made for our twisted entertainment, it could actually happen. It already has.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Well, in the case of Saw, not quite. The true story that inspired the shocking 2004 movie, with its infamous scene in which Cary Elwes has to chop his foot off, wasn\u2019t directly replicated by the filmmakers, but it was still unsettling enough to form the basis of Leigh Whannell and James Wan\u2019s terrifying tale<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Saw was a huge success when it was released, grossing over $100million despite its budget only being $1m. That\u2019s incredibly impressive, especially for a horror film. This was a time when the genre\u2019s focus on really torturing its damn characters was particularly popular, with movies like Final Destination<\/a> and Hostel making the rounds in all the sweatiest dens inhabited by horror fiends looking for their next fix. <\/p>\n

Saw didn\u2019t hold back, with its mysterious villain, Jigsaw, forcing hospital orderly Zep to kill on his behalf after injecting him with a poison. If he wanted the cure, Zep was going to have to do what he was told, even if that meant committing crimes more heinous than he could ever imagine.\u00a0<\/p>\n

This is where the true story comes in. Wan and Whannell were inspired by a bizarre foot tickling incident, which saw a man break into people\u2019s homes to fondle their toes. There\u2019s something even more sinister about this image than if someone broke in with the sole intention of committing an actual act of violence. To simply wake up and find a stranger tickling your feet, now that\u2019s going to haunt you for the rest of your life.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Wan explained in the commentary for Saw II, \u201cIt was the creepiest thing I\u2019d ever heard, I was so frightened. I remember after hearing that story, I slept for the next two, three nights with a hammer by my bedside.\u201d The scariest part? The foot tickler wasn\u2019t acting alone, doing it out of perverted sick pleasure \u2013 he was being forced to do it against his will.<\/p>\n

You have to wonder how one ends up in a situation as strange as that. If someone told me to go and tickle a stranger\u2019s feet or else, I\u2019d ask if they were having me on. How can you possibly find yourself with no choice but to break into a stranger\u2019s home and head straight for their toes? Well, this man apparently received a jigsaw puzzle in the post, which instructed him to do just that, so this became the inspiration for Jigsaw.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Wan and Whannell didn\u2019t divulge any further details in regards to this foot tickler, but clearly it was enough to leave a lasting impression on them, inspiring both Jigsaw and the idea of blackmail that forms the plotline for Zep. Interestingly, there was a \u2018Boston Tickler\u2019 reported in 2014, who broke into homes and tickled feet. Maybe they were inspired by the story, too.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Related Topics<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(Credits: Far Out \/ LionsGate Films) Thu 30 October 2025 20:45, UK Those five words, \u2018based on a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":538523,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3935],"tags":[77,986,14747,3943,79527,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-538522","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-horror","10":"tag-james-wan","11":"tag-movies","12":"tag-saw","13":"tag-uk","14":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115465488397080678","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/538522","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=538522"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/538522\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/538523"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=538522"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=538522"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=538522"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}