"The Rocky Horror Picture Show,� is said to be the biggest cult movie ever. It started something. Midnight movies. People would dress as the characters and wait until midnight to go out and see the horrific transvestite musical.
Weeks ago, I went to see my first midnight movie. �Just Like Heaven.� Oh my God, was that a sorry excuse to stay out with friends until 3 in the a.m. Don�t see that movie.
Last night, Friday the 28th of October, �Saw II� came out into theaters. The eleven fifteen show had been sold out when we got there. The line was enormous. There were people everywhere. I had never seen anything so busy to late at night, even though it was only 11:15p.m. The hype of this movie didn�t seem as strong as three late shows being sold out. But it so was.
My show started at 11:55p.m, and there were some good looking previews, I believe. Not the new "Underworld." But there was one that looked like a "Saw" ripoff...which could be good. It looked disturbing...and since I am a sucker for sick entertainment...I may be going to that one.
The movie starts out quite lame. Of course, there is a really fun beginning immediately after the main logos appear. �Twisted Pictures,� the film's production company, is such a tease with its logo since the first movie came out. In the beginning, you see a guy with two halves of a mask on either side of his head. The mask has spikes on the insides. The point of this beginning is to introduce our killer �Jigsaw.� However, the editing of the scene produces much unneeded tension, almost unsuccessfully. It does take it a little too far with the crazy movements of the camera and flashes of pictures for the scene...all to create an effect that...in the ending moment, isn�t very effective.
Once the main characters, 8 people trapped in a house, are introduced, I say the movie gets good. Maybe it�s not for a while after that. Our killer, known by press and media as �Jigsaw,� has a much bigger part in this film that the first �Saw.� Played by Tobin Bell, he is the biggest scene stealer as well, bringing the slightest of sick humor into the movie. It was needed, and well done. For those of you who are fans of the first one, I think you will applaud the second one. It was well done, and effective in the second half of the movie (if you�re not as squeamish with watching pain).
It is a crowd pleaser. It was a fun, good time. It was everything I expected it to be. Of course, originals are always better. This one lacks character development, but there are more characters, so you wouldn�t expect there to be much that would be well done. The acting lacks with some characters, but the ones who really need to be good are pretty damn good. The only character who lacked the most, in the acting aspect, was the tough guy who was trapped in the house.
�Saw II� grade: B. Rewatch Value: Moderate to high...if you�re with friends. I�m not sure the other 9 people I went with caught all the funny parts or squirmed when the disturbing parts came...but the full, sold out audience sure added a lot to the experience in watching the film. If you haven�t been to a midnight movie, go on opening day of a movie you know is gonna be a fun time. It�s an experience.
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MOVIE SPOILERS...Please don�t read on...Unless you�ve seen the movie.
You wake up with a terribly bruised eye. You are strapped into a facemask with spikes rigged to clasp into your face. The camera quickly and unsteadily moves around the room. There�s surely a door and a mirror and a television. The television lights and on comes the scary clown face. �I want to play a game.�
�Hello, Michael. I want to play a game. So far, in what mostly could be called your life, you have made a living watching others. Society would call you an informant. A rat. A snitch. I call you unworthy of the body you possess. Of the life you've been given. Now we will see if you are willing to look inward, rather than outward, to give up the one thing you rely on in order to go on living. The device around your neck is a death mask. The mask is on a string timer. If you do not locate the key in time, the mask will close. Think of it like a Venus Flytrap. What you're looking at right now is your own body, not more than two hours ago. Don't worry, you're sound asleep, and can't feel a thing. Taking into account that you are at a great disadvantage here, I am going to give you a hint as to where I have hidden the key. So listen carefully. The hint is this: It's right in front of your eye. How much blood would you shed to stay alive, Michael? Live or die... Make your choice.�
Hey...maybe an instant death is better than living a life with a disfigured face...maybe it�s better than the pain of having your face cut open.
We meet our main police officer. Not exactly a hero cop. In fact, one of the main themes of the movie has to do with this cop. He sets people up to solve cases. He accuses them and plants evidence to put innocence behind bars. Not a hero cop. And just his luck...Jigsaw doesn�t like him very much. This film makes sure you hate Jigsaw, but you also hate the main cop, played by Donnie Wahlberg. No doubt the brother of Mark Wahlberg, but we like Donnie so much more. He does a very good job. He�s pissed off in the beginning. He�s in a divorce, and his son hates him. The only dialogue I couldn�t pay attention to was the exchange of lines between the father (the cop) and the son (the son). The son�s pretty much running away as he says �I�m going to mom.�
�THEN GO!� Is the line from the father, Detective Eric Mason.
Those are his last words to his only son. ...Or are they?
SWAT storms into a building. They walk up a caged staircase. The squeaking of a child�s tricycle is heard getting closer...and at the top of the stairs, it appears. It�s funny...we all love the scary clown at the top of the stairs. And there he is, he has ridden his tricycle up to us to entertain us. Why do we love these movies? They are new. They are creative. They are almost entirely entertaining, and we all should want to see the next big twist in movie history. ...And you can�t take your eyes off the screen.
The trademark laughter is heard from the clown toy. One of the stairs snaps, and it is rigged for the SWAT team member�s legs to be broken in half, and the other two are electrocuted. More SWAT goes in, and Mason (Wahlberg) enters. �Jigsaw� is caught. He is a cancer patient. There is another game. One that has the potential of making �Jigsaw,� known by himself as John, famous.
�What is the cure for cancer?�
Suicide. John attempts to kill himself in a car crash, literally driving himself to his death. But, unfortunately for his victims, John lives through it, making him look at his life in a whole new way. He should value his life. Or...others should. So he dedicates his remaining days to make other wrong-doers think about what they�re living for.
The new game is under a sheet in another room. John is caught, what else can he do? Wahlberg and his team check out the room, and then carefully pull the sheet off. Monitors. Cameras are watching a house. �What is on these monitors?�
�I haven�t looked at them for quite a while, but I�m sure your son is cowering in a corner.� Remember this line. Has John watched the video footage?
The game is simple. Detective Mason listens carefully to what John has to say. This is where the really good writing of these films is shown. The dialogue was quite entertaining.
The game for the 8 members in the house, and on the monitors, is not as simple. They�re breathing in a toxin that will destroy their bodies in two hours. They will bleed internally and be puking and spitting out blood. Oh yes...there will be blood. However, the game is that they have to get the antidotes that are around the house. There is one antidote in a safe in the room with them. I found this to be pointless, since they never get into the safe. They are told that a combination to a lock that would let them free is "In the back of their minds, over the rainbow." Of course, "in the back of their minds" is to be taken literally, as any "Saw" fan could know. And "over the rainbow" meant that the numbers, which were on the back of their necks, and color-coded, would be in the order of the colors of the rainbow. I'm guessing Wahlberg's son didn't have a number. There were 8 people in the house, and there are only 7 colors in the rainbow. Right?
First, once the door opens from the room they�re in, they go to a room with an oven.
It is discovered that one of the people in the group helped John capture all of the people. This is similar to Adam in the first film, helping John. This character is given a task. In the oven, there is an antidote. He goes in, but one antidote is rigged to close the oven door. And it�s baking time.
Another task, a much more effective one to make the audience squirm, is to get a key. The catch...instead of finding a needle in a haystack, it�s finding a key in a pit of needles. This task is given to our least favorite actor, who is the tough guy of the film. He, instead of fishing out the key himself, throws Amanda into the needles.
Amanda returns for this film. She was the one with the mask on her face in the first film which was rigged to spring the top of her head off. Shawnee Smith, who I know better as Linda from CBS�s awesome sitcom �Becker.�
She gets the key, after being pricked with needles, and having to roll onto her knees in them, and she gives it to the tough guy just in time. Unfortunately...he drops the key. And no antidote is recovered in this room.
Another room forces a woman to stick her hands into a glass case. This was my favorite task, because it was so...bad. The needles, people won�t watch, but I wouldn�t want to watch it again, because I thought the needles should have pricked her hands and fingers. That would have disturbed me. The guy getting baked in the oven, it was effective, but you know it�s happening, and maybe you won�t want to watch that again. But the girl getting caught in the glass box, as she pulls her arms back down through the glass box (there was an antidote in it), shards of metal slit her arms and wrists. Ouch. Painful. But it�s a quick scene, and she is left for dead.
The tough guy looks to the ground, and sees a picture on the floor. �Father and Son,� it says. And this was the plot point I predicted and called almost right away. All of the people in the house...are connected...by the father. The cop. He set each one of the other 7 people in the house, and put them in jail. Each one of them caught onto the fact that they had all been to jail. Except for one. The son, of couse.
The picture shows the son with the father, who is the cop, and this really pisses off the tough guy in the house. His monstrous character gets angry, �Me so angry!� he doesn�t say.
The cop can�t take it anymore. He�s done listening to John talk. It�s all nonsense to him. His son is trapped in a house. He can�t follow the manual anymore. He takes John, a cancer patient already in pain, and throws him around the room. �Your son is �safely� alive,� John says. The son didn�t do anything wrong. So why is he being punished?
Amanda helps the son, Daniel, run away from who I think is called �Xavier,� who is the tough guy in the house. He also ends up being quite the villain. He�s chasing everyone for a combination... �The combination is in the back of your minds.� And I also knew that the hint, �back of your minds,� was to be taken literally. There are numbers in the back of everyone�s necks. This is why Xavier goes crazy. He doesn�t tell anyone, but uses his violent nature to get the numbers. The safe in the middle of one room is used to throw Xavier into, bruising his face. Effective violent fight scene which ends with a baseball bat of spikes into the back of someone�s head. Ouch.
Amanda and Daniel escape from Xavier through a door in the floor. The run through a long hallway. It�s quite a good horror-movie chase scene. The audience was whispering �get away, get away!�
This chase scene possibly leads to a warehouse. They never go outside, but it must lead to a warehouse. Amanda turns the lights on...and...oh my God...we are re-acquainted with the now-famous set from �Saw.� Adam�s body is on the floor. Zep�s body is on the floor. The lights are the same. The tub in the wall is the same. The toilet with the heart �Look into your heart,� is the same. It�s all there, and it�s the most exciting moment in the movie. It was so awesome, and I cheered and clapped...and then the rest of the audience clapped. What a brilliant moment. Flashbacks and dialogue from the original flow through the audiences ears as if it really is our minds. �Saw� was known as a �sleeper hit.� It�s a big deal.
Meanwhile, the detective has stolen John, after a brutal beating. He couldn�t take it anymore. He throws the serial non-killer all over the room, doing it his way. Apparently, he�s gained a reputation for police brutality of some kind, and curses John out as he beats him. �Game over,� John says, and takes him to the warehouse. SWAT busts down a door to a house, which is not seen on the monitors. The police don�t see SWAT on the monitors! But they�re in the house!!
A SWAT member finds more sheets. And more monitors. One of which...with a VCR. *Pause*
It was a recording. The three hours are over. The son is �safely� in a safe, and was in the room the whole time. The detective sees the scene where his son finished off Xavier with a crowd-cheering slit to the throat. The bodies of the characters from the first film are still in there. Everything is just older now. The whole movie went back in time and to present time. Big twist?
So...how did John know the son would live? Amanda. His...apprentice.
What is the cure for cancer? Making yourself live on. Through Amanda, �Jigsaw� will live on. The �murders�...will they go on? Find out next time...in �Saw III.�
They did leave it open for another sequel. The last shot of the film shows John in a car outside the warehouse. Detective Eric Mason goes inside, and into the set of the original �Saw,� and...Amanda pops out, wearing the hog/pig outfit from the first film. Det. Mason is screwed. He awakens...with a tape recorder next to his hand.
Written by Leigh Whannell, one of my new favorite writers, �Saw II� is worth any money to see it. Leigh Whannell starred as Adam in the original �Saw,� and is only back as a rotten corpse in this film, but we have new characters. Less dramatic dialogue between these characters. See it. It�s a ride. A crowd pleaser.
Oh yes...there will be blood.
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