Watching a guy meet a horrific end at the conclusion of some Rube Goldberg-like puzzle in Saw II is a fascinating experience.  At once, you are simultaneously repulsed by the unimaginable violence, and at the same time intrigued by the engineering marvel that caused the death.  It is in this violent dance between gore and ingenious gadgetry that Saw II lives.

There are only a few indisputable laws that seem to remain true for the film industry.  One is that movies based on video games will suck.  The second is that sequels will always be worse than the original (exceptions given to the first Star Wars and The Godfather please).  Saw II is no exception.  Although not an instant classic, the original Saw brought a fresh look at the will to survive as a psychopath plays mind games with strangers in a room.  Stark, cold, and fluorescently lit, Saw brought a new perspective into an existing genre.  Saw II is at least fluorescently lit.

Instead of a couple of guys in a room trying to solve a puzzle to save their lives, Saw II puts eight people in a house.  They all have something in common and while they try and figure out what it is without setting off too many engineering marvels, Det. Eric Mason (Donnie Wahlberg) hangs tough with the psychopathic mastermind in a game of verbal chess and yelling.  And throwing things.  The film skips back and forth between the victims in the house trying to unravel the deadly puzzles, and Det. Mason and other police looking around pensively and pacing.

All of the sequences with the police and the Jigsaw Killer playing mind games is a complete waste and serve only to try and add some gravitas to what is essentially a countdown to see how many people in the house bite it and what mechanical miracle will be the tool to bring those ends.  To be sure, the star of Saw II is the Rubik’s Cube of clues and devices the victims uncover in the course of the film.  To try and make it more than that is to subvert what is best about it.

To be sure, Saw II doesn’t necessarily have the angst or stark honesty that Saw did.  Rather than have the courage to face the tangled web that is built in the beginning, the film ends up degrading into a drawn out chase for survival toward the end.  With a lot of aesthetic and plot devices borrowed from the movie Seven, Saw II fails where it should have succeeded most; in the revelations of the puzzles and their solutions. 

However, as Halloween fare goes this season, Saw II delivers buckets of blood in unique ways.  Not much more could be asked of a horror sequel.  It is the feel good hit of the Halloween season.