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Jigsaw springs more traps on unsuspecting victims in Saw II.
The original Saw arrived in theaters with little or no fanfare. I don’t remember a heck of a lot of a lot of television spots or trailers. I am The Horror Guru, though, and I had heard of it a couple of months before it was released, and I anxiously awaited its opening.
I wasn’t disappointed. In a time where remakes were just started to take over Hollywood, I can’t begin to explain how refreshing it was to see a genuinely original horror film that was actually good. It was pretty darn good. Alright, it rocked.
Word of mouth was the key component of Saw’s success, as it eventually drew in over 50 million dollars during its late-2004 run. Lion’s Gate Films (now Lionsgate), who had just begun making a name for itself in the movie world, did what any film company would do… fast-track a sequel to that bad boy!
And Saw II was fast-tracked in a way that would make Friday the 13th Part 2 proud. Not more than a year after Saw’s release, Saw II hit theaters… just in time for Halloween! The question is: can a film made so quickly have the same effect and excellent writing as the original? If you went into the theater with some doubt, the opening scene goes a long way in quelling your fears that little-known director Darren Lynn Bousman would screw up a good thing.
The film opens with a man named Michael, and he’s about to play one of Jigsaw’s little games. The premise is simple: he has a device on his head which is similar to a bear trap (Jigsaw dubs it a Venus Fly Trap). It is large enough to encompass his entire head. It’s made of metal, and inside the two globes are dozens of spikes waiting to sink into Michael’s skull. The device is connected to a 60-second timer. At the end of that time, the jaws will snap shut, and Michael will… well, be a mess.
There is a key to unlock the device from his head… said key had been previously inserted into Michael’s face – just near his eyeball. Armed with a small pocket knife, Michael must make the decision whether to cut this key out of his face, or die.
Full of quick cuts, smash cuts, and all of the type of filming techniques that made Saw so interesting to look at are evident immediately here. This first scene is full of energy and excitement, and really gets you into the film. It’s a textbook hook. And it’s quite gory in it’s depiction of Michael’s failure in procuring that key.
Oh, yes... there will be blood.
The main thrust of the film stars Donnie Wahlberg as Detective Eric Matthews, a divorcee whose teenage son repeatedly finds himself on the wrong side of the law. After a heated argument with his son, Eric heads over to Jigsaw’s latest crime scene with his former partner, Kerry (the lovely Dina Meyer). While there, an ominous message is found on the ceiling basically calling Eric out.
After some sound detective work, multiple units make their way to a seemingly deserted location and, after a minor booby-trap fiasco, meet up with the man – Jigsaw (Tobin Bell). Ready to take him into custody, Eric happens upon a multitude of television sets showing a group of people seemingly trapped in some sort of room. Recognizing this as one of Jigsaw’s games… and the fact that his son is there as well, Eric holds off on taking the wheelchair-bound Jigsaw into custody.
Meanwhile, the action cuts to the potential victims in the house. There are seven altogether… all strangers… and all pretty freaked out as you might imagine. Two are familiar: Eric’s son Daniel, and a woman named Amanda. Amanda was in the original as one of Jigsaw’s near-victims. She was the one who had to dig through a dead man’s stomach to find a key to save her life.
As they listen to a tape recorder, they hear just what danger is in store for them. They are trapped inside a house. In three hours, the doors will be automatically unlocked and they will be set free. The only problem is that in two hours they all will be dead, due to the highly toxic nerve agent slowly being pumped throughout the house. There are seven antidotes scattered throughout the house, and clues to find them are scattered as well.
Back at Jigsaw’s lair, Eric demands and threatens Jigsaw to tell him where his son is. Jigsaw agrees… but only if Eric plays a game. Suspicious, Eric agrees to play the game. Jigsaw explains the rules: all Eric must do is sit down and listen for 90 minutes (the time left before all seven die in the house). If Eric can do that, his son “will be delivered in a safe and secure condition.”
That quote is important.
The remainder of the film involves Eric forgetting the rules and becoming increasingly more and more impatient, and the seven housebound victims gradually turning on each other. Violence, blood, and death ensue… as well as another twist ending that comes almost totally from left field – but gosh darn, it actually makes a ton of sense.
Alright, I had a feeling Saw II was going to simply be a great horror flick. However, I wasn’t sure it could be as good as its predecessor – most sequels almost always involve a degradation of quality. Nothing could be further from the truth here. Saw II almost blows Saw out of the water… and Saw is still a great film.
Saw II is just as sadistic, bloodier, has more cringe-worthy scenes, and is not contrived in any way. The writing is spot-on once again: clever, tight, and to-the-point.
The one thing I was most worried about going in was Jigsaw’s story arc. The thing that made Saw so great was the mystery over just who was doing the killing. Who was that man on the tape? In Saw II, we already know who Jigsaw is, so a great deal of suspense is already gone before the movie begins. No need to worry – the suspense is here in spades, and writers Leigh Whannell and Bousman provide one hell of a twist at the end that will make your head spin.
The best part, though, was the conversation between Detective Matthews and Jigsaw himself. During the course of this conversation, Jigsaw reveals his inner-workings… what makes him tick and why the hell he does what he does. Revealing his real name as John Kramer, Jigsaw becomes somewhat of a sympathetic character by the end of it all. Dying of cancer, arms full of tubes, and confined to a wheelchair, Eric begins to repeatedly kick and punch John to the brink of unconsciousness. Poor Jigsaw… what did he ever do to anybody?
Saw II made just over 30 million smackers in its first weekend alone. Shot in just over 30 days back in the spring on just $4 million, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out Saw III is inevitable. Need some proof? Try typing in www.saw3.com and see what comes up. The rumor was that the third installment of the franchise was due to hit theaters in October of 2007… but if Saw II pulls in 65-70 million like it looks like it will, we may see Jigsaw and friends return next October.
Folks, we just may have a bona fide new horror franchise on our hands. If you saw Saw, you should definitely see Saw II!
Flick Figures: 9 dead bodies; poisoning; total immolation; neck skin slicing; arms slashed by glass; wrist-slitting; swimming with syringes; nail bat-fu; videotape-fu; substantial amounts of blood; decomposing bodies and body parts; thrashing of a cancer patient; nailed bat to the back of the head; head crushed by metal and spikes; gunshot to the head; generally some massive head trauma.
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