The collector (2009)

For a Saw-wannabe, The Collector isnt that bad. It's actually much better than I expected. It even manages to outlive a pretty stupid plot thanks to some good photography and great tension. The gore helps too.

Sean Penn lookalike Josh Stewart plays Arkin, an ex-con currently working on renovating a house in the suburbs. Problem is, his stupid ex-wife owes a lot of money to a loan shark and after contemplating this, Arkin agrees to rob the house while the owners are out of town. He sneaks in during the night but soon finds that someone else is there. When trying to flee he realizes he is caught in a trap where a psychopath has set up a huge number of traps in the house. You know, fish hooks, spikes, razor blades, acid. Stuff that hurt. Then there is the question if he should help the family who never had time to leave the house before The Collector got to them.

Firstly, the plot is stupid as hell. Traps are always fun, but the concept of rigging an entire house with these fairly intricate ways of dishing out pain is just so impractical. It would take way too much time just to set everything up, unless he just wanted to set his prisoners free unto the traps, which he clearly is not. The whole thing about collecting people doesnt quite come together as a plausibility, other than a horror movie gimmick, of which it is one of the corniest so far. Daftness aside, these are nasty traps and there are quite a few scenes that make you feel part of the hurt that the character on the screen feels. The actors are decent enough to make you want their characters to live and Marcus Dunstan directs with a decent enough pace to keep you interested from the start to the finish. I almost forgive him for writing the script to Feast II.

And what is it with the moviepsychopaths and their masks? Sure, it looks nasty but also like it took a hell of a lot of time to make it. Where are all those long scenes of the Collector designing his mask, and sewing it together like in Spiderman? It probably took him longer to design the mask than all the traps.

Ok, so The Collector is a Sawwannabe with a silly plot, we have established that. But if you can forget about plot (after all, this is a goremovie and as a bonus, Madeline Zima shows her wonderful boobs) you get a well directed and shot little flick which does what it is supposed to do, entertain. The plotpoints arent stupid enough to linger on, they are just silly and therefore I actually recommend this movie. Who knows, maybe we will get a sequel with a decent script?