SAW Week: Saw II (2005)

'Saw II' hands over the directing reigns to Darren Lynn Bousman who would go on to shape the franchise as its known today. Nothing against James Wan in that statement, in fact I see it as a compliment seeing as how he created the original film as a gritty crime thriller whereas from here on out we get gore...lots of gore and horrible unlikable people...yay? The story continues a little while after the first with Detective Eric Matthews (Donnie Whalberg) is searching for the notorious serial killer known as Jigsaw (Tobin Bell) and pretty early on, he succeeds capturing him and revealing a feeble dying man with the mind of an evil genius. Now Matthews will have to play Jigsaw's game in order to save his estranged son's life who is set up in a deadly house of traps.

'Saw II' has a lot of good things about it when it really didn't have to. It's no surprise that Lionsgate milked the franchise to death but at the start they at least attempted to care about the sequels rather than just shove them out to meet an obligitory Halloween tradition. For one, Whalberg as Matthews does a really excellent job here. He was born to play a cop it seems as he would go to play the equally excellent Danny Regan in 'Blue Bloods' years later. Tobin Bell of course returns and brings the whole thing together as Jigsaw. Really, even in the worst of these 'Saw' films Bell is always enjoyable and I rank him up there with the famous horror villains. The rest of the cast can best be described as hit or miss but I attribute a lot of that to the script. The film simply has too many characters and not enough time to focus on any of them leaving me wondering why some even deserve the punishments they receive.

The special effects have been boosted, resulting in some bloody good Rube Goldberg like traps. While nowhere near as spectacular and ridiculous as what would soon come, they satisfy any gorehound's appetite. So, that's it really 'Saw II' is just okay in fact it's so okay that it's hard to bash it really. Sure, these films are garbage but it's entertaining garbage and in the horror world sometimes that's all that matters. In a genre with titles like 'Boogeyman II', 'The Bye Bye Man', and 'Wish Upon' you'll forgive me if I say that 'Saw II' is hardly a terrible horror flick.

( C + )