Saw II

Saw II is a gruesome B movie horror thriller. Even though it's highly improbable and totally contrived, it's pretty clever for a horror film.

If I made a horror movie, I would should actual slashings and other types of brutal contact. I would show knives going through people's bodies and axes smashing through people's heads. Most horror movies cut away from the actual moment of contact. I guess it would be too difficult for most viewers to handle that kind of trauma. Another reason would be that it would make for very expensive special effects to show those slashings without actual actors getting hurt.

The movie wasn't scary or suspenseful at all for the most part. There were some ghastly moments here and there that made the viewer really tense. The ending was good since it tied the entire movie together really well, even though Jigsaw's sinister games required a heck of a lot of preplanning and improbably lucky timing in order to succeed.

Spoiler Alert!

The movie starts off with a guy who was an informer for the cops. He's trapped in the bathrooom from Saw I with a Iron Maiden type contraption around his head. The Jigsaw clown says he's there because he's a lying informer. A key has been surgically inserted behind his eyeball. He's given a scalpel to cut his eyeball out. He only has 60 seconds to cut his eyeball out and get the key to free himself. Otherwise, the contraption would snap shut on him with all those nails. He tries to do it, but freaks out. He starts crying "help me, help me!" The trap shuts on him and he goes down.

In the next scene, we see a father and son getting into an argument. The father is a cop. He is called into investigate the murder of his informant. A clue leads him to find the criminal mastermind behind all these murders. Jigsaw turns out to be an old hagardly man who is in the later stages of cancer.

Jigsaw says that the dad has to follow his rules in order to see his son alive again. The videos show that his son and seven other people are trapped inside the hellhouse of horrors. We also find out that the cop is the one who framed the seven people before.

The eight people trapped inside are told that they are breathing in a deadly poison and that they must get the antitode to survive. They have to play by his rules if they want to live. Otherwise, the traps in the house will kill them off.

The first guy gets shot in the face by a gun trap. The warning said don't use the key to open that door. He didn't listen.

The second chump gets trapped in a furnace and is burned alive.

The black guy gets killed by the vato drug dealer who is going psychotic because of the poisoning. The drug dealer smashes his head with a bat spiked with nails. He wants to get the numbers written on the backs of each person's head. These numbers reveal the code to the safe with the antidotes.

A hysterical girl dies from a seizure after breathing in too much of the deadly gas.

The second girl dies from putting both her hands inside a trap to get the antidote out. She can't take her hands out because of the sharp razors set up like a Chinese fingertrap.

The drug dealer throws Amanda from the first Saw movie into a pit full of syringe needles. He makes her crawl through to find the key to let them escape. She writhes in agony as hundreds of needles pierce through her body. Ouch! I don't like needles.

The drug dealer turns so incredibly psycho that he cuts off the skin behind his own head to see what his number is. As he tries to go for the teenage boy, the boy who had been playing possum jumps up and slashes the drug dealer with the saw from the first movie.

The cop dad finally finds the house after beating the shit out of the old man. I would have started beating him up a lot sooner than that though if someone trapped my kid like that.

The dad goes in the house, but is put in a trap by Amanda. Through some twisted turn of events, she says: "What is the cure for Cancer, Eric? The cure for death itself. The answer is immortality. By creating a legacy, by living a life worth remembering, you become immortal. So now we find the tables are turned. It is I who will carry on John's work after he dies, and you are my first test subject. Now you are locked away, helpless and alone. Game over. [Closes door.]"

Cop dad: You fucking bitch! Help me! Nooo!!!!!!!

I like appropriately creepy endings.

When Jigsaw and the cop dad were talking during their psychological standoffs, Jigsaw was asking him about the meaning of life.


Jigsaw: Can you imagine what it feels like to have someone sit you down and tell you that you're dying? The gravity of that, hmm? Then the clock's ticking for you. In a split second your awe is cracked open. You look at things differently - smell things differently. You savor everything be it a glass of water or a walk in the park.

Cop dad: The clock is ticking, John (Jigsaw).

Jigsaw: But most people have the luxury of not knowing when that clock's going to go off. And the irony of it is that that keeps them from really living their life. It keeps them drinking that glass of water but never really tasting it.

I guess the meaning behind all of his diabolic murders was: life is precious, so enjoy it.

For me, I try to spread the message in a different way, but I'm not a psychotic maniac.

The Highs: Clever plot and ending. A good psychological thriller. Macabre traps and killings.

The Lows: Not suspensful. Not scary at all for a horror movie.

The Verdict: With all the cryptic clues in the movie, it's like a cross between the Da Vinci Code, The Game, and Psycho.

My rating: C, 78.