The Collector 2009
The Collector 2009
The Collector is indebted to the maligned torture porn genre (the writer / director team did work on part of the Saw series), but by finding the right blend of horror tropes to defy and use, it comes out way ahead of this pack, making for a gritty, tense viewing that isnt fun, exactly, but doesnt make you feel cheap like the Hostel rip-offs generally do. The problem with films of this type, generally, is that theres rarely effort to tie the audience to the characters before we have pointless teens being tied up and bloodily tortured by crazies for vague reasons. Maybe the kills are visually impressive, but at a bare minimum 90 minutes, you need at least SOME involvement, right?
The Collector vastly exceeds this bare need, giving us an everyman character for our point of view. Casting was important here, and it succeeded. You like this guy (Josh Stewart), even though he may be up to no good. Indeed, hes trying to rob someones house. …But its the wrong house, because the crazy in this movie is The Collector, and hes sort of booby-trapped the house and ol Joshy is locked inside. Now this Collector character is kept vague in THE RIGHT WAY. Both calculated but crazy, seemingly undefeatable but still definitely human, he never talks, hes got a creepy look… Its a classic horror baddie, and he is scary. And the rest of the characters act honorably but also believably, fighting and running at sensible moments, able to stay quiet but also getting freaked out. And yes, there are great moments of violence that are worth it because theyre built up to – not just splattered about – with some truly awesome camera work that puts all the flashy edit nonsense of modern horror to shame. Overall, certain aspects of the plot are a bit silly, but The Collector definitely wowed me beyond expectations, and was nerve-wracking in all the right ways.
Horror Rating: 4 out of 5
Boobies Rating: 2 out of 5 (a good few seconds of Madeline Zima!)
Madeline Zima