The Collector (2009)

The Collector
2009
Horror
Josh Stewart

The Collector is a rare movie in that I wanted to see it based almost solely on its TV spots (I think its the music they used). The trailer might not impress you, but it drew me in, here it is.



Anyways, the movie is about a guy who breaks in a house to rob it, but it turns out somebody much worse has already broken in. Somebody has taken the family hostage and rigged the house with a series of gruesome traps meant to torture and mame anyone trying to escape the house. So it is up to the guy who came to rob the house to save the family and stop the madman inside.

The movie started out as a prequel to the Saw series and retains several elemtns that make it very similar in many ways (elaborate traps, seeing how much pain someone will go through to survive/save someone). Well I liked the Collector less than Saw but much more than Saw II (the only Saw movies I have seen). I feel like I liked The Collector in spite of itself. With all the awful traps set up and the madman himself there is a lot of graphic suffering that goes on during the movie. This is definately not for the weak of heart. I hated all the "torture porn" type scenes (because I hate that kind of horror movie). But the whole set up drew me in enough that I was very into it almost the whole time. There is barely any dialogue in the whole movie. So being in the moment and imagining you stuck in the protagonists shoes inside the house is where all the enjoyment really comes from. The only part I really hated (other than the torture scenes themselves) was the ending, I feel like it only ended that way to set up a possible sequel, not because it was the best possible ending, and I totally predicted it about 30 minutes into the movie. Another plus is like so many horror movies there is a random teen sex/nudity scene and the girl has an awesome rack, so keep an eye out for that.

One thing I found really interesting and a little bizarre was the "alternate ending." There is an alternate ending on the DVD, but it is the oddest alternate ending I have ever seen from a movie. The alternate ending is just an alternate scene from about an hour into the movie, in which the main character acts completely out of character (does something he does the exact opposite of the whole movie) for no seemingly reason at all. So I guess if they would have went with the "alternate" ending the movie would have only been an hour long? And everybody would have been like "What?" I really want to ask the director how that could have possible been an alternate ending, because it couldn't have.

The Collector is not for the weak of heart, but if you want a newer horror movie to check out you could do much worse. Just watch it and imagine it is you stuck in the house going up against "The Collector" himself.

3 out of 5 Stars
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