We all do things in the heat of the moment. Sometimes we say things we don’t mean or even kill off a now iconic horror villain just three movies into a ten-film series. These are the kinds of decisions that the producers of the Saw series have come to regret, according to the director of Saw X.

In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Kevin Greutert explained that there is at least a little bit of regret regarding the decision to kill John Kramer, aka Jigsaw, in Saw III, saying “It would just be a lot easier to make these films if that hadn’t happened, but at the same time, the first three were largely considered the best of the Saw series.” He later added, “There’s definitely a lot of desire to have not killed him off.”

Considering a major part of Jigsaw’s motivation has been the terminal brain cancer he has been diagnosed with, not killing him off or, even worse, finding a way to cure his incurable cancer would have felt like a cop-out to fans of the series. “Decisively killing the character off, that integrity as it was perceived at the time at least, was pretty important to making the story great.”

The choice led to some interesting narrative choices to keep Jigsaw involved without losing that integrity. The most recent entry, Saw X, gets around the limitation of killing off the main villain by taking place between the first two films when Kramer was still alive and killing.

Not sure what other films are just over the horizon? We’ve got an up-to-date guide to every film hitting theaters and streaming services over the next several months.