Film Review: THE COLLECTOR

The is a lot that can be said from horror film which are a relentless roller coaster ride from start to finish and this new (and I hate to say this) torture porn film THE COLLECTOR (2009) is a perfect example as one. There are many people who despise this sub-genre of horror film believing it to be nothing more then an excuse to show extraneous gore and nudity. Let me be the first to say that this film, at least, has no nudity.

THE COLLECTOR is in the genre of film that includes such films as High Tension, P2, Saw, Captivity, Hostel, and countless others. It is also a very dark film about desperation. The film is about a handy man Arken (Josh Stewart), a man who struggles to pay his bills and support his family and whose estranged wife is in trouble with her loan shark. In order to pay off the debt, he decides to rob the people whose house he just finished doing work on, while they are away on vacation. Arken has some unique skills as he is a safe cracker who knows the house has a walled in safe just ripe for the picking.

That night when he believes they are gone, Arken breaks into his employers house and realizes that he isn’t alone in the house. He discovers that a deranged killer has captured the residents of the house and is holding them hostage inside a house he has booby trapped with deadly traps. Now Arken must find a way out of the house because once you enter no one leaves…and least not alive.

Written by Patrick Melton and Marcus Dunstan this film has the tone of a Saw film which isn’t surprising since they are behind the latest Saw films (Parts 4-6, with a 7 on the way) but where this film differs from those films is in the fact that the traps in the house were never intended for him as he soon learns that this killer is searching for a worthy addition to his collection of living humans. Making his directorial debut, Dunstan’s tone for the film is very similar to the ‘80s renaissance of horror films reaching the big screen (i.e. Rob Zombie’s Halloween, Friday the 13th, The Hills Have Eyes, and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, to name a few) except that there are no stars in this film. This is a great ploy as the audience never knows who is going to die or when.

Dunstan put together a great team behind the camera as the production design of the house itself is some of the best seen in quite some time and the cinematography is ahead of most of the horror films I’ve seen this year(and I’ve seen almost all of them). This film truly is suspenseful and has a lot of moments that will have you squirming in your seats. A surprise in this film is complete lack of comedy or black humor in this film which has become customary to Melton and Dunstan’s films (which can be seen in the Saw franchise not to mention the Feast films, which got them noticed). Because of the lack of humor this film may be a little too much for some audience members but I for one welcomed a horror film that wasn’t afraid to be too serious like a lot of our foreign counterparts behind the films Inside, Frontiere(s), and Martyrs.
Be prepared and be scared of The Collector.