Saw II - 2005

 Man, its weird to think that Saw is officially 20 years old this year!  Both seems like too long and too short given it has ten sequels.  For sure always a fast moving franchise.

Is Saw the series with the most legitimate sequels?  I don't think any of this series was ever direct to DVD, streaming, etc.  It has always retained theatrical release.  I guess you can say the same about Friday and Nightmare though, Halloween.  The older series.  Okay, never mind, wtf dude shut up.

Everyone was talkin Saw in 2004.  It was the biggest theatrical event since Sixth Sense or something in a lot of ways, in that it felt like it was a breakthrough scary movie that was revolutionizing horror.  The original is a classic, and I'll watch it if I do indeed watch all these Saw movies, but we'll see man.  I remember the middle Costas Mandylore bits being a drag and a half.  Well, I just did Hellraiser though so I should be ok.

Saw II, I remembered one thing.  The pit of hypodermic needles in the room.  That's it.  I remembered it was a group of people I guess, and I think I vaguely remembered one of the guys went crazy and started killing people.  Is this movie basically a remake of Cube, by the way?  Think about it.

Saw is a big hit, obviously we need to rush on a sequel, original director passes, so new director Darren Lynn Bousman and the writer of the first one Leigh Whannell tackle this one.  Some large building somewhere, like 8 or so people wake up to find themselves trapped with Jigsaw traps everywhere, one of the people is the son of crooked cop Donnie Wahlberg who finds Jigsaw himself and tries to save his son.  

Saw II I remember being kinda disappointed in when I saw it initially, and 19 years later, ya know, its like fine.  There's little to say about it.  The nail mask is cool, the needle pit is cool, nothing else really stands out.  They also take a significant dive into B-movie actors here, declining from the Carey Elwes and Danny Glover in the original.  These guys do their job fine enough though, and they're mostly wallpaper parts anyways.  

It won't hurt you, but isn't that kinda what it's trying to do?  Also, the flashy in your face style of editing here hasn't aged well, and I'm glad we've left it far in the past.