Jeff Denlon was one of the main protagonists of Saw III and also served as a minor character in Saw IV. After a tragic accident that resulted in the death of his son turned his life upside down, he became obsessed with getting revenge against the man responsible for his son's death. Due to his obsession, he was targeted by John Kramer and forced to participate in one of the Jigsaw Killer's deadly games.
History[]
Early history[]
Three years before the events of Saw III, Jeff suffered a family tragedy when his son Dylan was struck by a car. The driver, Timothy Young, had been drunk while at the wheel. While Jeff had cradled his son's lifeless body in his arms, another person had driven by the scene, one Danica Scott. Jeff pleaded that she stay until the police arrived, but Danica drove away, fearing possible consequences of remaining.
When Timothy Young stood trial for Dylan's death, the judge - Halden - gave him a reduced sentence since Danica Scott hadn't come forward as a witness, making Jeff the only witness to the incident. Timothy was only given six months in prison, much to Jeff's outrage. Emotionally devastated, Jeff fell into a state of deep depression and became obsessed with taking revenge on his son's killer. As such, his domestic life suffered greatly as he became emotionally distant from his wife Lynn and their daughter Corbett. Unable to cope with the loss of his son, Jeff kept Dylan's bedroom in the same condition it had been in since his death. He would scold his daughter when she took one of her late brother's toys.
Saw III[]
Three years after Dylan's death, Jeff's vengefulness and his neglect of Corbett ultimately made him a target of John Kramer, better known as the Jigsaw Killer. He was ambushed at home by a stranger wearing a pig mask (actually Detective Mark Hoffman) who sedated him and took him to Jigsaw's hideout at the Gideon Meatpacking Plant. Unbeknownst to Jeff, his daughter Corbett had also been kidnapped and was locked in a room elsewhere in the plant.
When Jeff woke up, he found himself stuck inside a wooden crate. In the corner of the crate was a tape recorder with a message left for him by Jigsaw. In the message, Jigsaw stated that Jeff would have to face a series of tests in order to learn to finally forgive the people he deemed responsible for his own fate and the fate of his son. Thereby, Jigsaw promised him that he would finally be able to confront the murderer of his son. However, if he refused to play the game, he would die inside this place as the doors were due to lock in two hours. When the message ended, Jeff thrashed around inside the crate which, unknown to him, was positioned on a raised forklift. His thrashing caused the box to topple off the forklift and it smashed as it hit the floor. Jeff suffered only minor injury from the impact and picked up a broken wooden slat to defend himself as he made his way through the halls of the plant. In the hallway, he came across a key sitting on top of a barrel. Along with the key was a message that said "Open the door, Jeff" and a snippet of a photograph showing himself during the time where his son was still alive and they still were a happy family.
After a while, Jeff came across a door with the words "Face your fears" written on it in red paint. He opened the door to enter a large, dark freezer room and saw a human silhouette in the centre, but could not see who it was due to the darkness. As he stepped forward, the door slammed shut behind him and locked. The lights then turned on to reveal a naked woman standing in the centre of the room, chained in place between two metal contraptions. The woman was freezing and begged Jeff to help her, saying that she couldn't feel her arms any more. Jeff tried to free the woman using the key he had picked up earlier, but it didn't fit the lock to her shackles. He then tried the key on the second door leading out of the room, but again to no avail. After a moment of frantically looking around, Jeff found another tape recorder tucked away in the corner of the room. When he played the message it contained, Jigsaw's distorted voice revealed that the woman in chains was, in fact, Danica Scott, the only other witness to his son's death.
Jigsaw offered Jeff a choice, saying that he could either have his revenge on Danica by just letting her freeze to death, or he could try and save her. The message stated that a key to Danica's shackles was located behind a set of frozen pipes and all Jeff had to do was reach over and take it. However, the contraptions on either side of Danica began spraying cooling water on her, hastening her demise. As Danica begged him for help, Jeff retorted that his son's killer hadn't been duly punished because she hadn't come forward as a witness. When the water stopped once more, she apologized for her mistake and begged Jeff to look at her. Just when he did, the water was sprayed on her skin again, causing Jeff to finally take action. He quickly went to the back wall and tried to grab the key, but he was only able to grab it by leaning against the frigid pipes, causing his cheek to stick to them. After managing to grab the key, Jeff forcefully pulled himself away from the frost-covered pipes, but a patch of skin from his cheek was torn off in the process. He then returned to Danica, but found that he had acted too little too late as the woman was now covered in a layer of ice. Unable to help Danica any more, Jeff solemnly touched her face, the ice cracking at his touch.
After unlocking the second door and leaving the freezer room, Jeff moved on to the next test. In the hallway, he spotted a barrel by the wall with a small box left upon it. Inside was a single handgun bullet and another message: "One bullet will end it all". Along with the message was another snippet of the photograph of Jeff and his family. Jeff then continued onwards, coming into a long, half-illuminated corridor where he saw what appeared to be a mock-up of the scene of his son's death. In Dylan's place was Jigsaw's trademark ventriloquist's dummy and a red tricycle. Jeff picked up the dummy, then dropped it when it suddenly started laughing at him. Jeff saw the lights come on ahead of him which illuminated a door that bore the words "Time to let go" in big red letters.
Jeff struggled to open the door, unaware that it was tied to a contraption on the other side. When he finally forced the door open, a cord that had been tied to it pulled a level on a control panel across the room. Looking around, Jeff saw that he was in some kind of meat processing room. Like with the previous room, the door suddenly slammed shut behind him. As he tried in vain to open it, he heard a voice call out for help. As he followed the voice, Jeff climbed a metal stairway up to a catwalk above a large vat where he saw another audio recorder dangling from the ceiling. Upon grabbing it, he saw the man who was shackled to the bottom of the vat by a metal chain around his neck. The audio tape introduced him to Halden, the presiding judge responsible for the mild prison sentence of Timothy Young. Again, Jigsaw gave Jeff two options. He could either let Judge Halden die or he could go down the stairs where a large furnace was located. Within the incinerator were all of Dylan's toys and memorabilia. Jigsaw further explained that the key to Halden's shackles was within the incinerator along with Dylan's possessions, and if Jeff wanted it, he would have to activate the furnace and burn his son's possessions. It was then that an overhead conveyor machine activated and a rotten pig corpse hanging from a hook was brought into the room. The carcass was dropped into a giant blender adjacent to the vat and was liquefied by the multiple interlocking saws. The liquid remains of the carcass then poured down a chute into the vat, covering Halden. Soon, the conveyor brought more pig carcasses into the room which were dropped into the vat and puréed, threatening to drown Halden.
As Halden continued to plead for help, Jeff confronted him, reminding him of the weak sentence he gave to Timothy Young. Halden offered to discuss Young's sentence and get it extended, but Jeff told him that Young had already been released. Halden told Jeff that he would be guilty of murder if he let him die, telling him that he had a son of his own. Contemplating on that thought, Jeff walked down to the incinerator and vainly tried to force the door open. This didn't work and he realized that his only chance to save Halden was to do as Jigsaw had told him; he switched on the incinerator and burned all of Dylan's possessions. When all of the memorabilia had been reduced to ash, the key inside remained intact and fell into the ash tray at the bottom. Jeff took the key and ran back to the vat, climbing down its ladder to help Halden. After a moment of fumbling through the rotten pig sludge, Jeff found the keyhole to Halden's shackles and released him before he drowned in the slop. Together, they climbed out of the vat and left the room via a second door.
From then on, Jeff and Halden continued their way together and eventually reached the next door with the words "Here's your chance" written on it. Disgusted by the stench still clinging to him, Halden took off his tie and vomited on the floor, while Jeff found another small box standing on a barrel in front of the door. Inside the box was the next message saying "One step closer to your revenge." As before, a photo snippet was glued to the back of the message, this time showing Corbett. Besides this, there was an empty gun magazine. Remembering the bullet he had found after leaving the freezer room, Jeff immediately inserted it into the magazine, when Judge Halden condoled with him over the loss of his son. However, he also claimed that even a death sentence for Timothy wouldn't have eased his suffering and tried to convince him that vengeance would only make it worse. Nonetheless, Jeff was eager to continue and kicked the door open, which caused the lights inside the next room to turn on. Aroused by the noise, a man, who was trapped in a large contraption resembling a mechanical crucifix in the centre of the room, began to panic and screamed for help. As Jeff approached, he finally recognized him as Timothy Young. Timothy told him to do something, but Jeff remained calm and instead started the tape recorder hanging from a wire around Timothy's neck.
Jeff played Jigsaw's message, which stated that Timothy had continued to live a normal life after his prison sentence, going on to become a medical student. The machine Timothy was trapped in - which Jigsaw called "The Rack" - would begin to twist each of his limbs one by one before finally twisting his neck and killing him. If Jeff wanted his revenge, all he had to do was let it happen, but Jigsaw urged Jeff to forgive him instead. To the right of the Rack was an elongated plexiglass box containing the key to unlock the machine and free Timothy, but the key was tied to the trigger of a shotgun which would go off once the key was removed. As the tape ended, the entrance door of the room slammed shut and the Rack began to slowly twist Timothy's right arm counter-clockwise. While Halden immediately grabbed a metal pipe from the floor and unsuccessfully tried to smash the box, Jeff merely stood before Timothy and watched his suffering.
As Jeff tried to watch the Rack do its work, he found himself averting his gaze, unable to take any satisfaction from Timothy's agony. After Timothy's right arm was twisted all the way, the Rack began twisting his right leg. Halden tried to stop the machine with brute force, but this didn't work. He yelled to Jeff, telling him that he would be a murderer if he didn't try to help Timothy. Jeff soon came to his senses and went over to the shotgun box as the Rack finished breaking Timothy's right leg. Jeff carefully removed the key from the wire, but he hadn't noticed that Halden was standing in the shotgun's line of fire. The shotgun fired when Jeff let go of the wire and Halden was killed. Initially shocked by Halden's death, Jeff ran to the trap as it began to twist Timothy's head. However when he couldn't find the lock, he dropped the key and mounted the contraption, screaming that it should stop as he forgave Timothy. However, Timothy's neck was broken nonetheless as his head was twisted backwards. Shocked by the gruesome eyesight, Jeff stepped back, put off his jacket and knelt down before his corpse.
As Jeff calmed down again, he continued his way through the meatpacking plant. On his way, he armed himself with a large meat hook. Eventually, he reached a chain-link fence with a door, which was unfortunately locked. However, Jeff managed to open it when he remembered the key he had found in the first box at the beginning of his game. Upon passing the door, he found another box with a message which told him that this was his "Last chance". Glued the back of the message was the final snippet of the photo, which showed Lynn this time around. Furthermore, the box contained a gun. Therefore, Jeff dropped the meat hook and inserted the previously found magazine with the single bullet in the gun. Moments later, he went through another door and entered a large hall which resembled a workshop. As he went through the area, he heard voices coming from the next room. When he came closer, he was surprised when he finally saw his wife, Lynn, in the room. As the two of them noticed each other, Lynn immediately went to him but was shot in the back by Amanda Young, the distressed apprentice of Jigsaw. Angered by this, Jeff entered the room and shot Amanda in the throat before carefully placing his wounded wife on the floor. As he comforted her, John Kramer, who lay on a makeshift bed in the same room, watched the death of his apprentice. As she was dying, he revealed to Amanda, who had held Lynn hostage all the time, that John had tested her as he had gained knowledge of her manipulating her games and not giving her victims any chance to survive. When she finally succumbed to her wound, John ended her game with a saddened "Game Over", remarking on her failure.
After Amanda had died, Jeff aimed his gun at John. The latter berated him for not having learned anything from his test, stating that his thirst for vengeance would only harm his loved ones. Furthermore, he told him that he couldn't kill him. Despite this, Jeff eventually pulled the trigger, but didn't have any bullets left. John then told him that Lynn was about to die. When Jeff comforted her and promised to bring her home, she uttered that she loved him. John then warned him that she would die if he tried to bring her away and offered to call an ambulance. Jeff eventually agreed and asked John what he wanted in exchange for his help. John demanded one final test from him to see if he had overcome his obsession with revenge. Jeff could either kill him with the tools lying on a table in the room, or he could forgive John for all the pain he had caused him and his wife, proving that he had learned from his previous tests. Jeff got up, despite Lynn begging him to stay by her side, and grabbed a circular saw from the table. He then approached John and lay his hand on his chest, stating to forgive him. However, only seconds later he raised the saw and despite Lynn desperately yelling at him to stop, he slashed John's throat, while claiming again that he had forgiven him. Seconds later, a collar around Lynn's neck, which was connected with John's heart rate monitor, was activated and the room's door slammed shut.
With the last of his strength, John took out and started a tape recorder, which explained to Jeff that John had been his final test of forgiveness. Furthermore, he finally explained him what he meant when he told him that Jeff couldn't kill him, stating that he had also abducted his and Lynn's daughter, Corbett, and was the only person who knew about her whereabouts. If Jeff wanted to see her again, he had to play another game. When the message ended, John succumbed to his wounds, thereby activating Lynn's collar, which killed her by blowing off her head as soon as he flat-lined. Angered and shocked by Lynn's death and the abduction of Corbett, Jeff furiously started to scream.
Saw IV[]
Jeff, in a panic over learning that Corbett was in danger, grabbed Amanda's gun and frantically tried to find a way out of the makeshift infirmary, when the door to the infirmary was suddenly opened by Special Agent Peter Strahm, who had been accidently trailing him while trying to find Daniel Rigg. When Strahm told Jeff to show him his hands, Jeff, believing Strahm was an accomplice of Jigsaw, demanded to know where his daughter was and waved Amanda's pistol around, causing Strahm to shoot him in self-defense. Unknown to Jeff, he was a potential pawn in Agent Strahm's game, where Strahm was told that he would take the life of an innocent man and that man was Jeff.