With the original Saw having immediately become a horror phenomenon in October of 2004, it was no surprise when Lionsgate pushed ahead with a sequel for the following year. Compared to the more quiet, slow-build structure of the first film, Saw II upped the ante by escalating the number of players in Jigsaw's latest game, confining them all to a house of horrors where, unsurprisingly, they would die in increasingly graphic ways. Though the game and its results easily satisfy gorehounds -- though, ironically, the film's most brutal scene is actually one of its least graphic, involving Amanda being pushed into a pit of hypodermic needles -- the real strength of the film comes in its devotion of time to the character of John Kramer. Almost immediately, Jigsaw is seemingly caught by police, but the tricks up his sleeve and Tobin Bell's savoring of every moment that he's on screen were enough to cement the character as the horror icon the first film suggested he truly could be. The sequel may have marked the series turn towards going bigger, gorier and increasingly more ludicrous in its implausible scenarios, but it works here, standing out clearly enough from the first film to feel like more than just a rehash while providing a final twist involving Amanda that's almost as slick and surprising as the closing moments of the original. If anything, Bell's owning of the role solidified him as a character audiences were willing to see more of, ensuring his status as the pivotal cog in what makes the series truly work.
Writer, film enthusiast, part-time gamer and watcher of (mostly) good television located on the fringe of Los Angeles, who now has his own website at www.highdefgeoff.com!
