The Collector came in right at the height of the torture genre. This isn’t a torture film really, but the death traps, and the guy who made it had ties to the Saw franchise. All of this becomes obviously clear early on.
That’s where I want to focus. Early on, they tell a nice story, we meet Arkin who is working on this home of this rich family. He is helping with doors and windows. He’s also an ex-con. He has a wife, Lisa, and daughter, Cindy. The wife needs money by midnight as she has a debt to pay to some loan sharks. We meet the family that Arkin is working for briefly. There are Michael and Victoria and their two daughters, Jill and Hannah. Jill is the moody hot teen and Hannah is the sweet young daughter that Arkin has a tea party with, she reminds him of his daughter. So the family is going on a trip so Arkin makes a deal with Roy, who he does some heists with, or at least does work with him. There you go, that’s the basic plot and it was simple.
Arkin shows up at the house, but he soon discovers that he is not alone, and that’s really where The Collector gets dark really fast. The Collector has set up countless, ridiculous, over the top, Macauley Culkin would be jealous, level of death traps. A flood cover with some acid, tons of trip wires, bear traps, all sorts of shit. It’s absolutely crazy and you will have to suspend your disbelief here because this shit would take a long ass time to set up. Not just hours. But if it was real, it wouldn’t be horror.
This next paragraph is going to truly delve into some spoilers, so read this with caution. We find out that Michael, Victoria, and Hannah are all inside the house. Later on, Jill and her boyfriend also come home. Lots of bloody, gory, ridiculous shit. The last third of the film was actually not that compelling. I really deducted from the score based on the stupid shit on the ambulance and after. There is no way that The Collector was that fast, strong, and lucky to pull off what he did. It was absolutely absurd. We aren’t dealing with magical entities. This was set in the real world, yet that was way too magical for my tastes.
All in all, I still enjoyed this movie. It’s the horror version of a mindless action flick. Pure craziness, but it helps you relax. I loved that in the credits, they used Nico Vega’s “Beast” because that song was also used in Bioshock Infinite. Still, I struggle getting the bad taste of how resilient both Arkin and Collector was. Worse was that ending. I’d say that the good outweighs the bad here. I was definitely excited for the sequel, and I own both films, so I obviously am a fan.
The director, Marcus Dunstan, also worked on the Feast franchise as well. I like his work. Also, kudos for giving us boobs! I feel it is important to be grateful for that in modern horror.
Rating: 6.4 I felt there was a lot of novelty in the idea. This probably gets a 7 or higher with a better ending. I liked the acting. Really though, if you’re in a life or death situation and the person trying to help you gives you instructions, like to stay quiet, maybe you follow those instructions. This is always floating around on one streaming service or another. I found it on HULU when I wrote this.
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One reply on “The Collector (2009)”
Please tell me your hitting the Collection next. I want to chat these up on the next podcast,
Chris