The Saw saga continues in the creatively named Saw II, where we meet disgruntled, corrupt, cop Eric Matthews (Blue Blood's Donnie Wahlberg), who is the latest police officer drawn into the twisted machinations of Jigsaw.
Called to a crime scene by his ex-partner, Kerry (Starship Trooper's Dina Meyer), clues on the victim's murderous torture device lead Matthews to an old warehouse, where he finds the wheelchair-bound, dying Jigsaw (Tobin Bell) .
But before Matthews can arrest the criminal mastermind, Jigsaw - who says his name is John - reveals that Matthews' brattish son Daniel (Erik Knudson) is imprisoned in a booby-trapped house with half-a-dozen other people... and it is slowly filling with poisonous gas.
Jigsaw has, essentially, invented the modern "escape room" genre.
Although not directed by James Wan, Saw II's director Darren Lynn Bousman wisely homages many of Wan's stylistic quirks (particularly the use of a flurry of fast, disorientating cuts) to cement the continuity of the franchise.
Once again, we have the parallel storylines - the captives in the house trying to figure their way to safety before the gas kills them, and then the police officers interrogating Jigsaw to try and find the location of the house.
However, while Bousaman co-scripted the film with the first movie's writer Leigh Wannell, this chapter severely ups the ick factor, leaving less to the imagination and rubbing our faces in more of the gore.
In fact, there was one sequence in particular - involving a woman in a pit - that I found almost unbearable to watch, as it triggered one of my medically-recognised phobias.
Squirm-inducing moments aside, thanks to some marvellous scriptwriting and plotting, Jigsaw is a Batman-level villain (he really reminds me of my favourite Bat-rogue, The Riddler, for the trails of clues he leads).
And John very clearly conforms to the old maxim that all great villains believe they are the heroes of their stories. Jigsaw definitely believes he is making the world a better place through his twisted "games". He actually wants people to survive, because he believes they will come out the other side as stronger personalities.
As in the original, the film climaxes with a brilliant twist, where all the clues were right in front of us (and Detective Matthews) but we were all constantly chasing red herrings and misdirects.
The traps are nastier in this one, because we see them more in action rather than enduring the tension of wondering what would happen if they were set off, but we learn a bit more about Jigsaw, his illness, and his cunning plan to defeat it.
Further confirming the overlap in the Venn diagram of 'comic book superheroes' and 'the Saw franchise' check out this delightful article on Bloody Disgusting about Six Comic Book Death Traps That Would Be Right at Home in the ‘Saw’ Franchise.
Which also makes for inspirational reading for RPG gamesmasters looking for some devilish traps to throw player-characters into.
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