Eric Matthews in Saw: Who He Is, Who Plays Him and His Fate

Eric Matthews is a police detective with a rocky history on the Jigsaw case, and he is the human center of Saw II (2005), directed by Darren Lynn Bousman. Donnie Wahlberg plays him and is billed second in that film, directly behind Tobin Bell. The credits list him simply as Eric Matthews.

His introduction is quick. A police informant dies in a head trap after failing his test, and Eric is led to the scene, where it becomes clear that the Jigsaw Killer has left a message meant for him. From there he is a father first and a cop second, because the person in danger is his teenage son Daniel, played by Erik Knudsen.

Eric appears in three of the ten films in the series: saw 2, saw 3 and saw 4. He is not among the 15 top billed cast members of saw 3d, jigsaw 2017 or saw x, and the last of those is set between Saw (2004) and Saw II, so it comes before his story begins. For the wider ensemble, see saw characters, and for the order the films play in, see saw movies in order.

Eric's most important relationship is with his son Daniel, and the second film uses it as a lever. Daniel is one of the eight captives in the house, and he is the reason Eric stays at the factory and then breaks the rules. Daniel is also the one who kills Xavier when Xavier corners him and Amanda, so he is far more than a bargaining chip.

The enemy relationship is with john kramer saw. Eric and a SWAT team arrest John, who tells Eric to stay and talk, and John smiles as Eric's screams are heard at the end. Eric answers with violence, which is exactly the kind of choice John's games are designed to expose.

Then there is amanda young saw. She appears in the house as a fellow captive who works alongside Daniel, and the final tape shows that she survived an earlier game and became John's helper. She is the one who walks out and seals the bathroom door with Eric inside.

On the police side, Eric works with the SWAT team, and Lyriq Bent's Rigg appears in both Saw II and Saw IV. In the fourth film, Rigg is the officer pulled into the tests, with Eric among the lives at stake. Saw III also lists Dina Meyer's Kerry, Leigh Whannell's Adam and Shawnee Smith's Amanda in its cast alongside Eric.

In my opinion, the best Eric Matthews scene is the conversation with John Kramer after the arrest, because it turns a horror film into a two person drama. John tells Eric to stay and talk while the monitors show eight people in a house filling with nerve agent. It could be argued that this is the strongest use of Tobin Bell in the series, and Wahlberg gives him something to push against.

The second moment is the safe. The audience has watched the countdown for most of the film, and the reveal that the footage was recorded earlier and that Daniel was alive in a separate place changes the meaning of everything Eric did. That being said, it also costs him, because he has already beaten John on the strength of those monitors. Compared with the twist in Saw (2004), where the corpse stands up, this reveal is quieter, but I find it more cruel.

The third is the bathroom. Eric walks into the house alone, is attacked by a masked figure, and ends up chained in the room from the earlier scenes. The tape then names Amanda as John's accomplice and says the test was always his. It is a fitting end for a cop who could not sit and listen, and it sets up the apprentice storyline that carries through the next films. If you are new to the series, start with saw 2 and then read saw movies ranked for where it sits.