Saw II

Posted by fetchblog

May 29, 2008

For anyone who considered the surprise success of last year’s low-budget horror flick Saw to be a fluke, the stellar opening-weekend numbers for Saw II prove that Lions Gate has a genuine franchise on their hands. While it’s impossible to say at this point whether the series will have the longevity of the Friday the 13th or Nightmare on Elm Street films, moviegoers can probably look forward to seeing a new Saw every October for the next few years. That’s actually not such a terrible proposition because, unlike the subsequent Nightmares and Fridays, the Saw films seem to be improving as they go along. Saw II is by no means a masterpiece of the genre, but it’s a slickly made picture that more than delivers on the promise made on its poster-oh yes, there will be blood.

The original Saw opened with one of the best first acts in recent American horror cinema. Two men wake up to find themselves chained to the wall of a locked bathroom with a corpse, a gun, a tape recorder and a saw lying between them. They soon learn that they are part of an elaborate game designed by a serial killer known as Jigsaw. Unlike most boogeymen, Jigsaw doesn’t murder his victims with an axe or razor-sharp claws. His modus operandi is to place them in life-or-death situations that test their survival instincts. If they play by his ghoulish rules and live, they’re free to go. But if they can’t do what he demands-and frequently they can’t-they meet an untimely end. Part of the fun of Saw came in watching the two main characters piece their captor’s game together.

Unfortunately, the movie squandered this intriguing premise by repeatedly cutting away to a second plot thread involving a vengeful cop who was hunting Jigsaw. Instead of adding to the film, this poorly conceived storyline felt like cheap filler. Every time the movie left that room, it brought the narrative momentum to a dead stop.

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