The Collector [Blu-ray]

A mean-spirited brutal film with a weak plot, but promising much fun for fans of gore, torture and shocking death scenes.Desperate for money, Arkin (Josh Stewart; The Collection, Insidious: The Last Key, The Haunting of Molly Hartley) plans a home invasion to steal jewels from his employer. However, much to his surprise, another criminal with more insidious motives has rigged the home into deadly trapped house of horrors.The opening scene feels a lot like a Saw sequel, and that’s essentially what we’re getting except with a much more simple plot. I mean, it’s entertaining, but nowhere nearly as thoughtfully engaging. Our mastermind killer’s traps seem either crude (to the point of being uninteresting at first glance) or unlikely to be triggered, but of course most of them are. And I’ll be the first to admit that I enjoyed it—being a gorehound who doesn’t mind the occasional brutally mean film.Whatever you thought of Jigsaw’s elaborate scenarios, this all strikes me as more far-fetched if only because the killer had one day to kidnap the homeowners, install numerous new deadbolts, and set up all those traps. Doors and windows are locked or barricaded, phones and possible weapons (like scissors and golf clubs) are booby-trapped, trigger wires abound, bear traps litter the floor and razor wire spiderwebs one of the rooms. The Collector (Juan Fernández; In Hell) has turned this upper-class home into a death house.There’s decent blood and wound work, the sticky acid floor “cat scene” provides some memorable gooey silliness (unless you’re sensitive to animals dying in movies), there’s a healthy complement of guts, lips are stitched shut, fish hooks are used to wincingly uncomfortable degrees, and we see some rather inspired use of a dead guy’s head as sort of a makeshift battering ram (and it gets messy).Writer (Saw IV-VII, Piranha 3DD, Feast I-III) and director Marcus Dunstan (The Collection) has, needless to say, crafted a mean-spirited film in Saw’s likeness, but completely lacking any of Saw’s story-telling elegance or character development. So, if you want to see a movie that’s just mean for the sake of being mean (and gory), maybe this is right up your alley. But I wouldn’t broadly recommend to fans of the Saw franchise unless they outwardly didn’t care much for a feasible plot… which, honestly, I don’t. So I enjoyed this.If you awkwardly giggle when hard-to-watch scenes make you wince and if you delight in abrupt death scenes that may just provoke an outburst of laughter as you jump and point at the screen, this is probably for you.

Question one: Can there be "good" torture porn?Answer: a qualified "yes", if you mean: artfully done. Masterfully accomplished.I'll defend this at some other point, but right here I'll just add that I think gore hounds and scream queens and body melt fans and all the quibbling critics in the horror world should just band together and say that when David Edelstein coined the term "torture porn" he hit the nail right on the head. It is a freaking awesome name for a really twisted sub genre that only a few can handle, and that's how it should be.Which brings me to the Collector, who is not only a seminal figure in Torture Porn, but also the second scariest on screen serial killer I have seen...I used to doubt my judgment on that. I would say: but the guy's no Hannibal Lecter, right? And Lecter won the Oscar, which means he's the quality king, mother approved, case closed. Right?Absolutely not.Remember when  Hannibal  came out and all sorts of exposition and background stuff about Hannibal Lector came to the foreground and the dude just went from scary to frankly goofy.Well get this: Nobody ever, not once, gives us a hint at what is driving the Collector.Well, surely a smart analyst would start piecing apart the things that the Collector says to, say, his victims. Or the cops who are pursuing him.But dig this. The Collector never speaks. Not here at least. Not word one. All you have are his torture porn misdeeds, which are graphic and in your face and reprehensible...And the way the man flipping MOVES.Two words for you: Juan Fernández. Can I hear some love? The man has a touch of Chaplin. He has a touch of Mikhail Baryshnikov. He is absolutely perfect.So yes, you will see some stuff that is absolutely obscene and which you might never forget...but I'm guessing if you're reading this review, this is maybe not an issue for you.So please check it out and please send Mr. Fernández some fan mail. I don't know the man, but he has earned it.

Most modern horror films of the late 2000s often lack the horror element or are just plan goofy.However I have seen a few that deliver what I'm looking for and The Collector didn't disappoint.When Arkin, an convict working as a handyman is repairing the Chase family house. After getting paid his visits his wife and daughter who owns money to a loan shark and needs to pay them off by midnight. Arkin knows Mr. Chase has a safe hidden behind a mirror which owns a large ruby that will be able to pay off the loan shark. Unfortunately when he returns, Arkin is horrified to find the Chase house has been rigged with booby traps and a serial killer is inside.What follows is a deadly game of cat and mouse with The Collector using the most brutal ways of slowly yet painfully kill his victims while saving one to take for his collection of humans along with setting up enough traps to make you paranoid whatever you touch next.Again very simple plot that doesn't waste time once film gets going. And The Collector is a very creepy serial killer who oddly has a soft spot for bugs. Looking forward to check out the sequel to this film, The Collection.

This is by the same director as Saw 4, 5 and 3d and has very much the same feel; the desperate fight for survival in a place where nothing is safe and everything is controlled by a killer.Jigsaw gave his victims rules and and a way out, he actually intended for them to win and survive. The Collector however never speaks, this time there is no explanation, no reason and no escape! I'd strongly recommend getting the sequel at the same time because, again like Saw, this was clearly always intended as the first part of the story.He chooses his victims apparently at random and in the space of a few hours turns their home into his own personal torture chamber.The fact that the Collector manages to transform the house is impressive, but realistic. If you actually look at the traps he set up they're ingeniously simple, most of them use everyday household items like fishing line and kitchen knives. And considering the way Arkin finds himself boxed in the Collector is still setting up when he gets to the house.There are a few reviews complaining about the lack of story line, but I'm not sure what the problem is. Psychotic killers rarely have rational reasons for what they do, the Collector is a competent killer so the police aren't miraculously one step behind and he is a little busy horribly torturing people to stop for a chat about his background and motivations.However if you pay attention to the characters rather than just waiting for the next death there is quite a lot you can learn.

Rogue but lovable thief knows that there is a gem stone in family house that he was working on, his estranged wife needs money by midnight or the loan sharks will be after her- so he goes back to house to get the gem. However when in there he quickly realises that a sadistic killer is also in the house, has some members of the family trapped and the whole house is booby trapped. The first half is very enjoyable and rather quite tense. However it slowly falls apart as a lot of good intentions do and turns into farce complete with plot holes. Thief is clever and does his best as a rescue man but it's only the little girl that has any sense. There are fatally some serious scenes that come over as humorous, oh dear. As for the gore, its more quick shots of blood and torture rather than out and out blood.The Collector isn't a bad movie and it's worth its 3 stars, it's good but the beginning promised much more. Basic plot is ok but wafer thin characters apart from main thief are just annoying. You can blatantly tell this is from the makers of the SAW franchise.

The DVD case declares "Jumpy scares and lashings of gore".Well, pretty accurate synopsis that.Josh Stewart plays a handyman doing up a house for a typical well to do American family.Subsequently he decides to break, in thinking the family are on vacation, to steal a jewel in the bedroom safe.Unbeknown to him someone beat him to the house...The Collector..A serial killer. When I say killer, more a torturer and trap setter than a killer, although death is more than often the outcome.Stewart's character Arkin goes through hell as does the family.Yeh, I know that there's no way all these ambitious traps could be set up in that short time period, but look at what Jigsaw was capable of in Saw?!There are many moments of true gory threat and horror throughout, after the first 30 minutes or so of story setting have passed.Excellent.And links in very well to follow up film "The Collection". Great twist at the end.Poor old Arkin.

This movie is entertaining providing you are able to suspend reality and common sense and just go with the flow. Josh Stewart, who had the most appalling accent in Criminal Minds, is odd job man Arkin who sets out to relieve his new employer of something from his safe inorder to wipe-out his wifes debts and dues.He is a Peterman by 'trade' and strikes a deal with his partner in crime who NORMALLY spots the venue to be robbed and finances it while Arkin provides his expertise. When he returns to the mansion-style home of his employer, he finds more than he bargained for.It's not a bad film, the plots a bit shallow, and often you know where the story is going 10 minutes beforehand AND the xtras are crap BUT on the plus side the traps and tortures are quite different,novel even so it's worth a watch.

I watched this film with a rather apathetic approach towards it, as I was not expecting much from the producers of the later Saw films. Unexpectedly, I was totally gripped by the film. If you are looking for a smart, complex narrative then this isn't the film for you. If you are looking for a nice little shocking horror flick then look no further. The protagonist is rather weak, not that this matters because it's his ordeal that separates this film from the average horror. The viewer is kept constantly engaged in the narrative through the constant bombardment of complications and is kept on the edge of their seat due to the determination and eerie presence of the Collector. On the whole this film is all a horror fan could ask for from a film of this calibre, as it is gripping and hugely entertaining with a great cat and mouse narrative that comes to a phenomenal and memorable close.