First time writer/director Darren Lynn Bousman is making a lot of promises to the fans of the first Saw, last year’s surprise hit about two guys chained up in a room, with only one option to escape (cutting off their own foot). He promises more blood, more violence, and more viciousness than the last go round, and also claims this film is a tad darker. This may be a sigh of relief to you fans out there but we won’t really know until this weekend.
The real question in the minds of many fans is where did they find this Darren Bousman guy? He hasn’t directed any features in the past and, in fact, he’s almost fresh out of film school. Why go with a rookie and not the original filmmaker (James Wan) or even someone with more experience? Well, you can find the answers here in this brief, yet satisfying, interview with the man himself.
Since this is your feature length debut, how did a project like this fall into your lap? ^ Luck! Well, luck and David Armstrong. I was out peddling a script I wrote called “The Desperate.” After a year of being told ‘no,’ I decided to go out and make the film independently. I was meeting with cinematographers and in walked David Armstrong. The first question David asked was, “Why are you making this for no money?” The truth was, I had no money. There was this German production company that was going to produce it, but it was with an ultra low budget. David asked if he could show it to a producer he knew at Twisted Pictures (“Saw”). I, of course, agreed. Ten hours later the phone rings and it’s my man Gregg Hoffman. The rest is history!
What kinds of things should fans be looking forward to in the next “Saw”? ^ A lot more blood, a lot more violence, and a lot more of our favorite serial killer, Jigsaw. “Saw II” delves much deeper into the life and madness of Jigsaw. What made him become who he is now – what makes him tick? Also, if we did our job right, another “mind bending” ending.
How will this one compare to the first film? ^ Everything you saw in the first film times 10! “Saw II” is much more in your face. After one screening, someone came up to me and said, “Wow, that film is an assault on the senses!” I love that.
Visually, the film pays respect to what James Wan created with “Saw,” but we are stylistically two different directors with different visions. I think “Saw II” is a much darker film, more violent, more vicious… we wanted to make sure the sequel did not stray too far from what made the original so amazing. We have the same DP, same composer, same producers, same writer, and same editor as the first film. So, essentially, “Saw II” still very much lives in the same universe as the first.
Did you come across any problems during the shoot? ^ We only had 25 days to shoot it! However, I am sure if we had 26, I would have needed 27; if I had 27, I would have needed 28. Time is always an issue, even more so when it involves shooting a movie.
So coming into a high profile project as a first time director was scary at first. I think the biggest problem that surrounded “Saw II” was living up to the hype. “Saw” was a huge hit with a massive fan base. When the second “Saw” film was announced, fans began to pick apart every piece of information they received about it. Web sites carried stories about this ‘newbie’ director taking over, and expectations were already huge.
What kind of research did you, as a screenwriter, have to do in order to find new and bizarre methods of torture? ^ Research? I don’t do research, I am just naturally sick and twisted! No, I actually watched a bunch of documentaries on medieval torture devices and read books on various serial killers. At the end of the day I decided to write about what scared me. What, in my mind, are the most disturbing ways to die.
The movies that I found made me clench the most are the ones with the most realistic death scenes. For example, when someone gets shot in the head, their head doesn’t explode. If someone is stabbed, gallons of blood don’t just pour from their body. I wanted to make the most realistic looking deaths, realistic enough to frighten me. So I did a lot of research on how things really look, like how a gunshot really looks. What heat really does do to skin, etc.
Is there anything you went to the studio with that was just too sick and twisted that they didn’t allow you to put it in, or were they open to it all? ^ There were a couple drafts of the script that we had to cut chunks out of. And, looking back on it in retrospect, it was better that we cut out what we did. But I was actually surprised how open to everything everyone was. They pretty much let us do our thing, sans a scene here and there.
Do you have any plans to continue work on the series, should the studio wish for another “Saw” if this one succeeds? ^ I am far too superstitious to answer this…
