Saw 2 Full Film Analysis

This film does not start how most horror conventionally begin, nor does it conform with Todorov’s theory of the Narrative Structure of horror films. Saw 2 begins with a gory scene of a man struggling to keep his own life in a timed trap, which then gruesomely shuts onto his face killing him instantly. This is shocking for a horror film as we expect it to start with soft scenes that tell a story that lead to the horrific events, the reason this film starts like this is because it is a sequel so is starting where the first one left off. Despite jumping straight into the gore and not giving the audience a beginning story to follow, the audience can still understand the concept of what is going on in the film without watching the first one. At the beginning of the film we still get an idea of 3 main characters that interact with each other, the main one being a police detective - Eric Matthews who starts of as hero and then becomes the victim at the end of the film. The other two main characters that he interacts with is his son, Daniel and a female co-worker who is helping him crack the case of ‘Jigsaw’. This is how the gruesome scene we are shown at the beginning of the film links back into the narrative of the story, shortly after we see Eric investigating the case of this man who has been killed by the trap. This is how the story starts to unfold as at this crime scene ‘Jigsaw’ has left a note for Eric saying ‘Look closer Detective Matthews’. Although reluctant at first Matthews then finds a clue that leads him to the whereabouts of Jigsaw. In between visiting the crime scene and figuring out the clue to the whereabouts of Jigsaw we see a scene of Detective Matthews and his son, towards the end of this clip they have a disagreement about something and Matthews then shouts at his son telling him to ‘go then’ (meaning back to his mothers rather than staying with him for longer). This is the last we see of his son until he is put in danger. Matthews goes with the SWAT team when they break into the hideout of ‘Jigsaw’ and find him attached to a life support machine (he is dying of cancer). It is here they discover that he has trapped 8 people in a house – including Matthews son and Amanda (a heroin addict from the first film). We soon discover that this house is more than just a trap, it also has a poisonous gas that after inhaled for a certain amount of time will cause people to bleed to death – a vital twist to the plot of the movie. They can see monitors of each room in the house and a timer, which is apparently counting down the time that the people inside have left. From here on we then get scenes switching from inside the house of trapped people and in Jigsaws hideout where the police and SWAT team are. We see several people in the house die/get injured as they try to retrieve the antidote that will stop them bleeding to death, the people watching the monitors also see this. These are a series of bad events that all link to the people trying to save themselves, the fear of death starts to turn some of them mad and this is when they turn against each other and there become conflict between the victims and they start killing each other. ‘Jigsaw’ has challenged Matthews to a game – in which all he has to do is sit and talks to him to have the safe return of his son. As the SWAT team are still watching the monitors and more people are getting caught in traps or getting killed by the other people in the house the safe return of Matthews son is seeming less and less likely so he lashes out and forces ‘Jigsaw’ to take him to the house. Him and the SWAT team break in to the house but fail to find anyone living as all of the alive people are in the basement and hidden parts of the house. Basements and small enclosed parts of houses tend to connote danger and fear, and evoke a tense suspense for the audience. There are two major twists that we find out towards the end of the film that shock the audience and keep them drawn into the film until the very end. The first twist that we discover is that all of the footage on the monitors were recordings and when they saw people dying they had actually died a few hours ago. They discover this twist when the SWAT team have already broke into the house and found nothing, leaving Matthews in the house on his own still searching for his son. It is at this point when Matthews is left alone in the house that we find out the other major twist in the film. The woman from the first film – Amanda – whom we presume is the assistant hero in the film as she is helping Matthews son survive in the house, is actually the co-villain. Whilst Matthews is looking for his son she attacks him with some form of tranquiliser and knocks him out, as he is waking up again he sees her leave and lock him in. The tape next to him that he proceeds to play tells him how she has been working with Jigsaw and will continue his work after he is dead. This is a very open ending to the film and once again is very unconventionally for a horror film. Most horror films tend to have a equilibrium at the end of them, creating closure and a final ending of the film where they know that the evil is gone/dead and that there is no more to worry about. The reason this film is set out this way is due to the fact that the creators of the film knew that they wanted to create another sequel, so to make it very likely that the audience of this film would want to go and see the next one they have ended it on a cliff hanger. This makes the audience want to know what is going to happen to all the people and want to know if Jigsaws devious plans will ever be finally stopped.