Saw II

Saw II is a 2005 horror movie distributed by Lions Gate Films.  It stars Donnie Wahlberg, Tobin Bell, Shawnee Smith, Erik Knudsen, and Franky G.  The writers are Leigh Whannell and Darren Lynn Bousman.  The director is Darren Lynn Bousman.

The story opens with an informant named Michael with a split spiked mask locked around his neck.  He is told to use the scalpel to cut out the key to the device, which is behind his eye.  He is unable to in time and the mask closes on his face.  Detective Eric Matthews is called to the scene because Jigsaw wrote his name on the ceiling.  They locate Jigsaw in an old abandoned steel factory.  They easily capture him but not before he informs Matthews that his son is being held captive in an old house somewhere with some of the criminals that the detective had framed in the past.  In three hours, the doors to the house will open.  Unfortunately, they only have two hours to locate the antidotes of a poisonous gas they’re breathing in the house.  One of these people is a survivor of one of Jigsaw’s “games” from the first film, Amanda Young.  There are several antidotes located throughout the house and each one involves getting past one of Jigsaw’s traps.

In this film, we really get a good look at Jigsaw and what he is like in person.  Towards the end of the first film, we were given a hint that Jigsaw, or John Kramer, is dying of a terminal form of cancer.  Here we see how much he is suffering.  He is a man of few emotions.  In a way, I almost had sympathy for John during this film.  We get to see how he became who he is today and why.  After being diagnosed with cancer and attempting to end his life, he had realized a new purpose for living.  John would teach those he viewed as wasting their lives and give them a reason to fight for their lives.  He doesn’t view what he’s doing as morally wrong.  John claims that “the choices are up to them” whether his “test subjects” want to live or die.

Again in this Saw film, we see traps where a solution is seemingly given to the victims by Jigsaw with no strings attached.  One of these traps happens towards the beginning of the film when all the people are still locked in the room where they first woke up.  Amanda searches around for a tape with some instructions from Jigsaw on it.  After listening to his instructions, she locates a key and a note warning them not to use the key to open the door.  They do it anyway and when the key is turned in the lock, a gun outside the door blows the head off one of the people in the room.

Another one of these particular traps is the one where Addison, one of the women in the group, finds an antidote inside a glass box hanging from the ceiling.  There is also a tape with instructions on it but Addison carelessly throws the tape away.  She reaches into the box from two holes underneath.  She spills the antidote before she can get it out.  When she tries to pull her arms free, she can’t because the holes she reached into were lined with razor blades.  The more Addison tries to pull her arms out, the deeper the blades cut into them.

To wrap, Saw II really allows us to get a much better look at the man behind the traps, John Kramer.  The film tells us more of his backstory.  I highly recommend it!