Saw II

Darren Lynn Bousman’s 2005 film began as a script unrelated to the series. Studios rejected his screenplay The Desperate as too close to Saw; cinematographer David A. Armstrong passed it to producer Gregg Hoffman, and it became Saw II’s skeleton. Leigh Whannell rewrote it into the Saw universe while keeping Bousman’s characters, traps and deaths; the original had been too graphic to sell until he pulled it back to an R rating, which drew Lionsgate in. Made for four million dollars, it was shot in twenty five days at Cinespace Film Studios in Toronto, 2 May to 6 June 2005, against a plan of twenty one. For the needle pit, a hundred and twenty thousand syringes had their metal tips swapped for fibre optic points over four days. It opened on 28 October 2005, almost exactly a year after the first film reached American screens, taking $31.7 million that weekend. Close to half the running time is not the house game but a two hander between the captured killer and the detective. Nor does the series stop here: it ran to ten films, the last in 2023. A good fit if the interrogation talk holds you as much as the traps. Not for anyone who wants the gore passed over quickly; the camera stays down in the needle pit.