“No, not a Superhero movie at all!”
Fact: About half way through The Collector our hero (of sorts) finds a man trapped in a large trunk, chained and gagged. Upon un-gagging (de-gagging?) him the trapped man explains what we are facing: the bad guy “collects” people, he keeps those that he wants to, and kills those he is tired of. He then goes on to say that he is tied up and left in the box to be “bait”, and to draw more victims in.
Now that is a lot to take in when all you came here for is to rob the place, but given the fact that the person describing the situation has been tied and put in a box up by a masked guy who does not talk I must query the clarity and reasoning of the source.
I might start by asking:
- That seems a lot of information to be ascertained while trapped inside a box doesn’t it?
- If the bad guy doesn’t say a word to you, how can you know what he intends to do?
- If you are bait, then why are you tied and gagged and kept in a box in a wardrobe on the second floor of what is supposed to be an empty house in the middle of a large otherwise empty block in the midst of a noisy rainstorm???
- How can the prey be expected to fall for that cunning trap???
I don’t know the answers, I just supply the questions.
Fact: The robber was at the home only hours previous, once he arrives he finds the home is booby trapped in every room and that there are various rooms apparently custom built for torturing and maintenance of victims.
More questions:
- Are we expected to believe that a Changing Rooms or Backyard Blitz style show came in and in a whirlwind of misguided renovation adapted the house for The Collector’s ™ needs?
- Did one guy make all the changes himself, while simultaneously kidnapping three or more adults, in the space of what I estimate might have been 5 hours tops?
And:
- Why did he bother altering the rooms in different ways with entirely different booby traps?
- Was he expecting company? Did he assume that whoever was visiting would make it through the many other booby trapped rooms. Did he never once think “Oh I won’t bother with this one, they surely won’t get through the fish-hook room, the acid on the floor, the deadly catapult in the knives hanging from the chandelier room, all without me hearing them and coming out to kill them.”?
- Did he really show up with hundreds of fishing lines complete with hooks to hang from the ceilings of one room? Did he have trouble with the lines tangling in the van? Did he prick himself with the hooks? Was the acid all over the floor of the same room really then necessary?
- How are horror movie (not just The Collector’s) injuries so immediately forgotten? I’m pretty sure if I tried to use the phone and had a sharp spike jammed in my ear, after having my fingers nearly severed in a trap, it would at least hurt a little afterwards wouldn’t it?
- Why if he has all these “clever” traps did The Collector ™ still bother carrying a knife and gun? There is a man that lacks confidence in his own ability to manufacture and lay an effective trap.
- Why, when the first three attempts of rescue end with the rescuee’s death, did the alleged hero not cut his losses and get the fuck out. Call the cops dickhead!
And lastly:
- How, when you are busy torturing someone, in a big house, in a rainstorm, can you hear a book drop in another room, while you are wearing a tight leather mask that covers your entire head?
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In case you haven’t guessed I wasn’t a big fan of The Collector. It is a wannabe franchise featuring a supposedly new and fresh bad guy that the Saw kids will catch onto, with more than a dash of Hostel thrown in, but without one shred of intelligence or common sense to pull it all together.
The only fun to be had in the whole movie are the funbags on the chick who comes home to get boned on the table for no appropriate reason.
I realize that Tits n’ Ass + Gore = Entertainment to some people, and I am frequently one of those some people, but I would personally qualify that by adding “only if these things are used in an entertaining way”.
The Collector is a pointless and incredibly flawed way to justify a Saw + Hostel rip-off in a supposedly fresh and clever way.
Final Rating – 5 / 10. I just pray they don’t make The Collector 2, even though they went out of their way to set it up. I watch a lot of shitty horror movies, and what annoyed me most was how calculated this all felt. I would hate to think that the horror-watching public are dumb enough to fall for this.
