The main thrust of Saw, er, saw two people chained to opposite walls in a dank room forced to do unspeakable things in order to survive. The story expanded out to reveal the back story of the Jigsaw killer and various cops' efforts to capture him. Saw II instead features a larger group of people trapped in a dilapidated sealed off house who face similar trials all the while slowly dying from inhaling a lethal toxin.
Donnie Wahlberg (The Sixth Sense, Band of Brothers) plays a police officer doing his darndest to find them while helplessly watching their fate on closed circuit video monitors. Also, his son is one of the captives!
The original Saw was an inspirationally inventive old school horror that was genuinely scary and shockingly grisly, despite only a marginal budget. It followed neither the painfully overused "ironic" horror film model nor the increasingly frequent current trend to borrow from Japanese horror films. It was simply a good old fashioned balls-to-the-wall sadistic horror.
It's success saw Canadian Indie distributor Lions Gate rush into production this sequel, with the goal of getting it in cinemas in time for Halloween.
The original's screenplay was written Leigh Whannell (who also played one of the main roles) and James Wan, and was directed by the latter. For the sequel, Whannell collaborated on the screenplay with new director Darren Lynn Bousman (who wrote and directed a little known movie called Identity Lost in 2001).
Saw II unfortunately succumbs to the predominant sequel trend of diminishing returns. Where Saw was a very scary film with grisly elements, Saw II is more just a succession of grisly set-pieces, with none displaying the creativity of those in the first. Wan displayed a flair for precisely constructing a scene of building terror in the first film, while Bousman simply lumbers from one death to the next here.
Where as the plot of the first film came together beautifully with slowly revealed secrets that actually kept you guessing (a rare feat these days), this one has more of a "stuff happens" vibe.
That said, it is much more entertaining than most of what passes for horror these days (like Boogeyman or The Amityville Horror) and passes muster as a decent night out's entertainment.
Plus you have to appreciate a film that wallows in grisliness with such sadistic glee in a time when most films are curbing their excesses due to external conservative pressures.
While they've clearly been given more money to spend than the original's reported US$ 1.2 million budget, this is still very much a low budget movie (US$4 million apparently). And like the original it displays an economy in how it uses its budget, with the story never seemingly dictated by the financial limitations imposed by it.
The expanded cast is serviceable, with no one in particular standing out. Tobin Bell returns as Jigsaw, but to describe in what capacity would spoil aspects of the film. Shawnee Smith, who played one of Jigsaw's more memorable victims in the first films, also comes back.
Wahlberg, who in certain roles over the past few years has displayed an acting talent much more interesting than his younger brother Mark, puts in a pretty bog standard "tormented cop" performance.
When it was reported that Wan would not be helming the sequel, creative expectations for Saw II were diminished. Having earned eight times its budget on the opening weekend alone, Saw III now seems assured.
Wan and Whannell however are collaborating on a very interesting-sounding film called Silence, which promises to be the "definitive ventriloquist horror movie" according to Wan. Awesome.
But in the final analysis, Saw II is a halfway decent horror film that is worth 90 minutes of your time, but not much more.
Moderately recommended.
Dominic Corry
Saw II is in cinemas now.
