RECENT WATCHES: Saw II (2005)

The Friday before Halloween of 2004, "Saw" was released into 2,315 theaters. Over the next three days, the film made 18 times its production budget. That Monday morning, Lions Gates greenlit "Saw II." Production was to begin immediately. James Wan and Leigh Whannell were hard at work on "Dead Silence" for Universal, meaning a different team had to be assembled for the follow-up to their breakout hit. At the same time, a guy named Darren Lynn Bousman was looking to make his professional directorial debut with his gritty horror script, "The Desperate." Investors kept telling him that it was too violent and too similar to "Saw." When cinematographer David A. Armstrong got a look at the script, however, he realized both of these attributes could be beneficial. Very quickly, Bousman was meeting Lion Gates producers and "The Desperate" became "Saw II."  Whannell rewrote it extensively – to the point that he received the sole writing credit – and filming began by April. Shooting wrapped by May and the finished sequel was delivered on September 9th, less than fifty days before the movie was set to be released. That's an impressive turn-around and it paid off, "Saw II" becoming the highest grossing opening weekend for Lions Gate at the time. 

That's all business though. What of the quality of the film itself? While investigating the aftermath of the Jigsaw Killer's latest trap, Detective Kerry discovers a taunting message to Detective Eric Matthews. They trace the lock from the crime scene to a factory, the headquarters of Jigsaw: Real name John Kramer, a terminal cancer patient seeking to teach people the value of life by brutally killing them. Monitors reveal Kramer's latest experiment. Eight people awaken in a house outfitted with booby traps and vicious challenges. Among them is Amanda, the survivor of Jigsaw's Reverse Bear Trap device, and Daniel, Officer Matthews' son. A neurotoxin is being pumped into the house and everyone within will have to play Jigsaw's twisted game if they hope to survive. Matthews attempts to get answers out of Kramer and find his son, increasingly revealing his own criminality. 

I compared the look of “Saw” to a heavy metal music video. Darren Lynn Bousman has directed videos for some growly bands with impressive spiky hair. Unsurprisingly, “Saw II” resembles a rock video more than the first. The opening trap has the camera spasmodically twirling around the victim as he freaks out about digging a key out of his eye. More or less anytime one of Jigsaw's traps take center stage, there's going to be lots of flashy edits and split second shots of people screaming and panicking. The sequel doubles down on the sickly greens and washed-out lighting present in the first film. As an insufferably pretentious teenager, I found this visual style embarrassingly lame, the worst kind of mad-at-your-stepdad manufactured edginess. I still think that's what it is but, as a slightly less pretentious adult, I can now see the camp value in this approach. “Saw II' is trying so hard to be extreme and in-your-face, you guys. It's kind of cute, honestly. 

“Saw II” seemingly takes itself very seriously, despite how utterly ridiculous a lot of it actually is. That almost charming level of doofiness is also present in the cast of characters. Detective Matthews, played by a lesser Wahlberg, is an obviously corrupt cop. He yells and swears constantly, never finding a situation he can't bluster his way out of. The prisoners in Jigsaw's trap house are similarly one-note. Xavier is a brawny and overbearingly asshole-ish drug dealer, played with all the subtly you would expect of a performer named “Franky G.” The rest of the characters range from a random teenage girl, an ex-con that can operate under stress, a less defined ex-con, and a woman who seems to be a former sex worker. All of these players are easily sorted into either generic “nice” people or obnoxious bullies. Not unlike the slasher films the sequel is clearly emulating, “Saw II” fills its story with paper thin stereotypes that exist to fall victim to elaborate acts of violence. 

During an interview with Fangoria, late producer Greg Hoffman said that they listened to fans of the first “Saw,” who didn't merely want to see the aftermath of Jigsaw's deadly games. They wanted to see the mayhem play out on-camera. Indeed, the sequel packs in the gore the original mostly hinted at. A bullet through a peep hole, a pit full of dirty hypodermic needles, metal shards digging into wrists, and someone slicing the skin off their own neck are some of the grisly highlights. Watching such obviously caricatured characters suffer through these torments truly cuts – excuse the pun – to the heart of the appeal of gory horror. Jigsaw always provides a moral assurance, twisted though they may be, that such “punishments” are somehow justified. That these are already 'bad” people, that they deserve such convoluted executions. They do it to themselves, right? “Saw II” gives us that sicko shit, guilt-free grand guignol. It's a four million dollar geek show. We are here to watch the metaphorical chickens get their heads bitten off in the sickest ways Hollywood's best special effects artists can think of. 

You can debate the value of motion pictures such as these. Maybe the cultural critics are right to some degrees, that horror fans are sadistic freaks without empathy who only want to see people torn apart. That movies like this appease our basest desires for bloodshed. However, that “Saw II” is so invested in its own self-seriousness and populated with such cartoonishly broad assholes does make it hard to be offended. Truthfully, any interior logic to “Saw II” falls apart with a moment's scrutiny. One of the people in the house is a former accomplice of Jigsaw's who helped him assemble his traps. This draws attention to the fact that John Kramer, the inventor behind these mechanically dense implements of torture, is a frail man, eaten up with cancer. How exactly does he pull off any of this shit? Much like its predecessor, “Saw II” misdirects the audience in service of a twist ending. It's a good twist too, that plays with the perspective of the medium in a fun way. Whether it makes any logical sense is a question best not interrogated, which applies to the entire movie. 

Jason Voorhees and Freddy Krueger have always been antiheroes of sorts. They are the star attractions fans go to see, not the interchangeable victims. Altering the “monster” from a cackling lunatic or a brutish physical force to someone who claims to have some philosophy, some moral high ground to those he torments, is probably the end result of this trend. There's no doubt that John Kramer is the most likable character in “Saw II.” Tobin Bell, a working actor with twenty-five years of experience by the time he got this part, has a gravelly gravitas. When he chuckles in evil victory, it's because he's outsmarted those that seek to overturn his masterpiece of twisted justice. Watching him get one over on a figure as utterly loathable as Detective Matthews makes us like him more. We get more insight into Jigsaw's background here, which does little to bring any coherence to his schemes. Watching Bell outclass every other actor in the film is still entertaining though.

In fact, “Saw II” is very entertaining. It rolls along at a quicker pace than the original, less burdened with flashbacks and exposition. Instead, it moves smoothly from violent set-piece to the next, determined to give us what we've paid for. It is very dumb, which is supported by its twitchy editing and cliché visuals. However, there is something to be said to watching dumb, evil people fall victim to their own stupidity. Morally dubious though it may be, “Saw II” is probably a smoother experience than the original, happily scratching the lizard part of the brain with breathless speed. Pretty good for the definition of a quickie sequel thrown together in less than a year. [7/10]