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.