What do you get when take the writer of a couple of Saw movies, actors from some of the riskier TV shows around and a concept for a movie that beggars belief? The answer is The Collector, the latest attempt by a studio to launch a new serial killer franchise, only don’t be surprised if it turns out to be Saw 8.
When home security specialist Arkin (Josh Stewart, above, from Dead Like Me) takes a job fitting out a family’s home with the latest technology before they go on holiday, he discovers a diamond in a safe and hatches a plan to steal it while the family is away.
When he returns to the house he finds that all is not what it seems when he stumbles upon a web of deadly traps laid by The Collector, a masked serial killer with too much time on his hands.
When you consider that director Marcus Dunstan wrote Saw 4 thru Saw 7 you know what you are getting into here. The film plays out like a Saw film without the killer Jigsaw in it. The killer in The Collector is a faceless psycho with a penchant for elaborate kills (sound familiar yet?).
The only reason the characters are there is to fall into one of his traps and die gruesome deaths.The only difference here is that The Collector also tortures his victims (sown lips and lopped off limbs) but again his motives aren’t explained.
I’m all for horror movies pushing boundaries but when you have a faceless killer mutilating his victims for no explained reason other than his enjoyment, then you deserve the torture porn moniker directors seem to revere.
The cast are a who’s who of cool late night TV and acquit themselves well. We have Josh Stewart from Dead Like Me, Andrea Roth from Rescue Me, Madeline Zima from Californication and Robert Wisdom (Bunny Caldwell) from The Wire. As for The Collector himself, we never see his face (actually you do, but I won’t give away what stood out as a “look it’s me†moment early in the movie) or hear his voice, but isn’t that always the way with these socially awkward serial killers?
The Collector is a low budget slasher flick with a few neat touches here and there as well as its fair share of plot holes that would kill an ordinary movie. But this is horror and as we all know, horror doesn’t play by the rules.
Strictly one for the gore enthusiasts out there.
Andrew Kennedy
