Editorials
Happy 10th Anniversary to ‘Saw II!’
The Saw franchise has lately become the punching bag of the horror community. It isn’t bashed as much as Eli Roth, but it’s still up there. Credited with giving birth to the torture porn sub-genre (Hostel would come out less than a year later), Saw and the franchise it spawned is mostly viewed with contempt and scorn nowadays (seriously, just read some of the comments on this post). I would like to take you back to a time, ten years ago, when Saw was the most talked about horror movie that everyone had seen, before it was infected with sequelitis and before audiences knew to expect a new film every Halloween. It was was the soon-to-be-released sequel, Saw II.
***SPOILERS for a 10-year-old film to follow***
Saw II would end up becoming the highest grossing film in the Saw series, earning $87 million on a $4 million budget. It showed the franchise at the peak of its popularity. You couldn’t talk to a horror fan without talking about how much you were looking forward to the film. Hell, even non-horror fans were talking about Saw II. While it would all go downhill from there box office-wise (and some would say quality-wise as well), Saw II still represents an enormous triumph for Lionsgate Films and the horror community.
Something I didn’t know about Saw II (thanks Wikipedia) is that its original script was for a completely original film that Darren Lynn Bousman wrote called The Desperate. The producers read the script and, since James Wan or Leigh Whannell were busy filming Dead Silence, decided that they could tweak Bousman’s script and turn it into Saw II (Whannell was eventually made available to do script rewrites, with Wan supervising). Saw II was Bousman’s first major directing gig, and he knocks it out of the park. On a completely unrelated note: Bousman made the film when he was 26, the same age I am now. I feel quite unaccomplished knowing that fact, but that’s a discussion for me and my therapist.
The acting in the film isn’t spectacular, but everyone does what is required of them. The casting is a bit bizarre (remember when Lucy from 7th Heaven was in Saw II? Yeah, that was a thing), but Tobin Bell, Shawnee Smith and even Donnie Wahlberg turn in great performances. Let’s take a moment to talk about Shawnee Smith though. She is just great. Relegated to an extended cameo in Saw, she completely owns Saw II and steals the film from Tobin Bell. Bousman’s script is kind to her, allowing her to play weak and vulnerable in the first act, only to do a complete 180 in the climax and show off Amanda’s devious nature.
Saw II does what every sequel should: it takes what made the original so effective (intricate traps, complex villain, a twist ending) and makes them bigger and better. It even removes Cary Elwes from the equation, which helps immensely. The sequel retains (for the most part) the one-location setting style of the first film, but rather than have the entire film be set in one room, it is set in a large house, making room for plenty of deadly traps.
Speaking of the traps, they are the real stars of the film. While Saw II does feature the single worst trap in the entire franchise, all of the other ones are stellar. The infamous needle pit is known for being a high point in the franchise, but the venus flytrap in the opening sequence is nothing to scoff at.
One thing that sets Saw II apart from Saw is that it shows all of the violence up close and in graphic detail. While it may be hard to believe, Saw is possibly the least gory film in the franchise. This of course means that we have Saw II to thank for the increase in gratuitous violence in the series (and other horror films of the decade), so that factoid may impress or disappoint you. That being said, Saw II really isn’t that gory, especially when compared to the five sequels that followed it.
While Saw II is tied with Saw VI (a supremely underrated sequel) for having the second-best Rotten Tomatoes score out of all the Saw films (the best would be the original), I would argue that Saw II is the best film in the franchise. I know, I know, that’s blasphemous, but hear me out.
Saw II benefits greatly from the lack of Cary Elwes and his overacting, as we mentioned in our review ten years ago. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a huge fan of The Princess Bride and I think he’s great in it, but he is absolutely awful in Saw and the main reason why the sequel is the better film.
The twist ending is also particularly clever. The film faced a dilemma in having to top the twist from the first film. While Amanda being Jigsaw’s partner doesn’t pack the same punch as Jigsaw being in the room the whole time, it’s still made more effective by the additional (and admittedly The Silence of the Lambs-y) twist that the police are sent to the wrong house to rescue the trapped characters. This blatant imitation is made slightly less offensive by another twist: that all of the footage taken of the people has already happened. The police were watching a recording and Donnie Wahlberg’s son was locked in a safe in the same room he was in the entire time.
Saw II is a great film and a fantastic sequel that’s reputation has unfortunately been marred by the numerous copycats (and sequels) it spawned. The film has its flaws (Beverley Mitchell’s death by nerve gas is still incredibly underwhelming, as is the fact that we never find out why half of the people were put in the house), but taken on its own it’s a solid horror effort. If the film has one glaring weakness, it’s the aforementioned bullshit glass box trap. It’s terrible, just terrible.
The problem with filming sequels back-to-back is that, unless you can afford expensive reshoots, there’s no easy way to adjust course in between movies if fans react badly to where the story is headed. That’s why it’s important to have a complete narrative thought out well in advance lest you accidentally kill a budding franchise.
However, this isn’t always the case. Every once in a while, it seems like the cinema gods smile upon certain chaotic productions and gift moviegoers with complete franchises that feel like more than the sum of their hastily produced parts. Ted Nicolaou’s Bloodlust: Subspecies III is precisely one of these miraculous pictures, with the raw talents of the artists involved (as well as the continued support from Romania) turning the feature into an effective conclusion for a series that kind of made things up as the filmmakers went along.
That’s why I’d like to invite my fellow readers to join me on this third part of our journey through the Subspecies franchise as we look into Bloodlust and talk about how it remains a surprisingly satisfying finale to the original trilogy.
A Trilogy Planned on the Fly
Released only a year after Bloodstone found plenty of success in rental stores and mail-in VHS catalogues worldwide, 1994’s Bloodlust was produced at the same time as its predecessor in (mostly) the same locations and with the same team. This means that the movie benefited from all the same upgrades as Bloodstone, with the crew now being more experienced with the ins and outs of surviving a low-budget Romanian production and the cast really settling into their characters.
At this point, everything from location scouting to the makeup process had been streamlined, with Wayne Toth and Norman Cabrera, the main duo behind special effects, even switching out time-consuming prosthetics for latex gloves in order to speed up Anders Hove’s monstrous transformation. The titular “subspecies” demons were also once again relegated to a mere cameo appearance due to the laborious puppetry required to bring them to life.
The only real hiccup came from the fact that actress Denice Duff had replaced the first film’s Michelle (Laura Mae Tate) and was immediately expected to portray the character as both an innocent victim in part II and as a secondary villain in part III. According to behind-the-scenes interviews, the hectic production schedule that blended two different movies meant that Duff would often find herself having to alternate between two incredibly different versions of Michelle during the same shooting day – though it’s obvious that she’s having more fun with Bloodlust’s more traditionally vampiric version of her character.
In the finished film, we pick things up immediately where the previous entry left off as Rebecca (Melanie Shatner) is forced to leave her vampire sister Michelle (Duff) behind in the dungeons of Castle Vladislav due to the rising sun. This allows Mummy (Pamela Gordon) to use Michelle’s blood to revive the vicious Radu (Hove) so that he may continue his quest for the coveted Bloodstone – a magical artifact that perpetually drips the Blood of Saints.
Meanwhile, the dreamy US embassy agent Mel (Kevin Blair) agrees to help Rebecca plan a rescue mission, though they’re unaware that Radu has become infatuated with Michelle during his attempts to guide her growing bloodlust. This all culminates in a climactic confrontation meant to tie up all of the series’ loose ends in one of Full Moon Pictures’ most ambitious productions.
The Evolution of Radu
Like its predecessor, Bloodlust: Subspecies III was also warmly received by fans who argued that the series was an even bigger success than Full Moon’s other major horror franchise, Puppet Master. This praise wasn’t unanimous, however, as 1994 had seen the rise of a more modern breed of sexy vampire popularized by Anne Rice, with old-school Nosferatu like Radu being viewed as obsolete when compared to the likes of Lestat and Gary Oldman’s take on Dracula.
In a way, one might argue that Nicolaou’s film is something of a swan song for the classic vampire story, as Bloodlust combines all of the traditional elements we tend to associate with these tales into a single tragic yarn that ties a neat little bow on Radu’s story as well as the old-fashioned monster movies that he represents. The finale remains shocking despite the fact that this is the third time we see Radu get brutally killed onscreen, with the brief tease that he may one day return feeling more like a nod towards the nature of evil rather than sequel bait.
The film dabbles a bit in gothic romance and even explores the inherent power fantasy behind transforming into an immortal creature of the night, but the filmmakers never lose sight of Radu as a demonic force even when he’s willing to betray his beloved Mummy for Michelle’s sake. In fact, his twisted “love” for his fledgling makes him even creepier as we get the feeling that his passion comes from a dark and disturbing place.
Anders Hove is at his absolute best in this film, with the effects department boosting his moments of what the younger generation would call “aura farming” whenever Radu emerges from shadows like a 90s version of Count Orlok. There are even a couple of surprisingly effective jump-scares here, which is why I’d argue that Bloodlust cements Radu as one of the most memorable cinematic vampires of all time despite his humble origins.
Subspecies Saves Its Best For Last
Nicolaou and Vlad Panescu also saved the best for “last” (more on that in a bit) regarding the film’s visuals, with the cinematography and overall atmosphere of Bloodlust absolutely surpassing what we saw in the previous films. Everything feels appropriately climactic this time around (including the wonderful soundtrack that was co-composed alongside an authentic Romanian orchestra), and I appreciate how this is the fastest-paced entry in the trilogy since the film doesn’t need to waste time setting anything up.
Bloodlust still suffers from some of the same low-budget blemishes as its predecessors, but there’s so much creative passion here that no amount of wonky effects work or stilted dialogue can get in the way of appreciating the flick’s gothic grandeur. That’s why it’s not surprising that the movie’s definitive(-ish) ending would later be retconned as fans begged for more Radu.
Of course, the next entry in this series would be a different kind of vampiric endeavor altogether, with the filmmakers attempting to engage with the same trends that ultimately killed Radu and his antiquated kin. That, however, is a story for another time. For now, I’ll merely insist that Bloodlust: Subspecies III remains a highlight of Full Moon’s expansive catalogue and is definitely worth seeking out today.
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