Saw II Review: Bousman’s Trap-Fueled Sequel Still Cuts

Darren Lynn Bousman’s Saw II landed a year after the first film turned a small budget into a franchise. The Jigsaw Killer is back, and this time the puzzle has a father on the other side of it.

Trailer, via YouTube Movies.

Detective Eric Matthews Walks Into the Trap

A man named Michael Marks wakes in a room with a spike-filled mask locked around his neck. Billy the Puppet tells him the key sits behind his eye, surgically placed. He cannot bring himself to cut it out. The mask closes.

Detective Eric Matthews catches the case. At the factory that made the lock, he joins Detective Allison Kerry and Officer Daniel Rigg in leading a police tactical team, and they take John Kramer, the Jigsaw Killer, almost too easily. Kramer shows them monitors: eight people trapped in a house, among them Amanda Young, Eric’s son Daniel, and six others — Xavier, Jonas, Laura, Addison, Obi and Gus. A nerve agent in the house will kill them within two hours. Follow the rules of his own game, Kramer tells Eric, and he will find Daniel again in a safe place.

That is the engine. The house is a countdown, the interrogation room is a conversation, and both run on the same clock.

Tobin Bell and Donnie Wahlberg Carry the Two Rooms

Bell came back as Jigsaw despite no contractual obligation to do so. Kramer explains to Eric that his games began after a suicide attempt following his cancer diagnosis, and that the point is to help his victims develop the same appreciation for life he found. Wahlberg plays the cop on the other side of the glass.

The house cast does the physical work. Shawnee Smith’s Amanda is the one player who has survived before. Xavier ignores a warning note and uses the key provided with the cassette on the door, triggering a revolver through the peephole that kills Gus. Obi, who helped abduct the other victims, dies in a furnace trap. The film runs 93 minutes.

Key facts
– Runtime: 93 minutes
– US release: October 28, 2005
– Opening weekend: $31.9 million
– US/Canada gross: $88 million
– Home media: February 14, 2006
– Smith’s fee: $150,000, plus a $100,000 bonus if the film grossed over $50 million
– Audience score: 6.6/10 (6,046 votes)

The Franchise Finds Its Formula

A sequel was green-lit fast after Saw’s opening weekend. Saw II was followed by more films, and it remains the highest-grossing Saw in the United States and Canada. Bell was nominated for Best Villain at the 2006 MTV Movie Awards.

It is not a better film than it needs to be. The house victims are sketched thin, and the nerve-agent premise does more work than the characters inside it. But Bousman understands that the trap is the argument, and the argument lands.

Saw II scores 6.6 of 10.

2005 Movies · Darren Lynn Bousman · Horror Sequels · Jigsaw · Saw II · Tobin Bell