“Saw II” is a despicable movie, and I don’t use that word lightly.
Perhaps I lost any remaining sense of humor at the third or fourth de-braining, in close-up.
“Saw II,” like its predecessor, kills people off just to make you look. There is no purpose or reasoning, no redeeming value, very little thought process. The blood flows until you feel like slipping through your seat and joining the dirty gumdrops and spilled popcorn on the theater floor.
Of course it doesn’t matter how harsh the critics are on a movie like this. “Saw” opened the franchise by putting distraught human beings in the most vile dilemmas possible, then literally demanding they gnaw their own limbs off to escape. It made you feel less human for having watched the whole thing, and it made $55 million from a small budget.
Some horror fans will go see anything. Both “Saw” movies are an assault on the senses, visual exploitation backed by a relentless death-metal sound-track. It’s like looking at crime- scene photos with an iPod turned up to 11.
Here’s the alleged plot: The concept of “Saw” is a psycho- killer with multiple engineering degrees and endless time on his hands. In the original, two men were chained in a barricaded, filthy public toilet; in order to escape, one had to kill the other by a deadline. Between them for decoration lay an apparent corpse who had shot himself in the head.
This second dose of joy locks a group of lowlifes in a filthy house. One of them is the son of police detective Eric Mason (Donnie Wahlberg), who must endeavor to find the boy before more horrible things happen.
We flash back and forth between this hell house and a warehouse where Mason has discovered the evil mastermind, a terminal cancer patient whose motivation is torturing people so they will better appreciate their lives. He devises death devices like spiked head cages on springs that snap shut if the victim refuses to dig out a key embedded inside one eye. These are not nice people who thought of all this and carried it out on film.
The levels of disgusting invention might be interesting if the plot held up. But none of the victims act with any spark or reason; the logic of the scheme doesn’t hold up, and whenever anything is in doubt, they just pour on more blood.
I’d encourage you to stay away just to spare other critics and horrified parents the chance of a “Saw III.” But don’t worry about me – I refuse to sit through another.
Staff writer Michael Booth can be reached at 303-820-1686 or mbooth@denverpost.com.
No stars | “Saw II”
R for extreme gore, violence and disturbing images|1 hour, 31 minutes|HORROR|Directed by Darren Lynn Bousman; written by Bousman and Leigh Whannell; starring Donnie Wahlberg, Frankie G., Dina Meyer, Emannuelle Vaugier and Eric Knudson|Opens today at area theaters.
