The Collector: Movie Review

By tvnz.co.nz's Darren Bevan

Published: 10:10AM Thursday August 05, 2010

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The Collector

Ratng: 5/10

Cast: Josh Stewart, Andrea Roth, Madeline Zima, Michael Reilly Burke

Director: Marcus Dunstan

In this latest torture porn horror flick, Stewart is a former con man turned handyman Arkin who's spent the long months working at a swanky country home owned by the wealthy Chase family.

However, when Arkin hears his ex-wife's only got a few hours to pay off some debts, he decides to rob the Chase household and make sure she's safe.

But he comes unstuck when he heads to the home and finds the owner and wife chained up and bloodied - it appears someone else has already got designs on the home - and the family.

Not a film for the faint hearted, this moody and sadistic film is from one of the minds involved in the Saw franchise - that alone should be enough to tell you what's on the cards&.limbs being sliced, traps around a home and an unhealthy obsession with gore.

Sure, there's not much sense in a film like this (how did the wacko find the time to set so many traps around the house in just a few hours....does he have a group of helpers to call on?) but with The Collector, you're not there for the deep productive narrative. Stewart is fine as the hunter turned hunted who finds traps within traps as he tries to flee from the nightmare.

The Collector is adequately made, extremely well lit and quite horrific piece of film at times - it's evocatively tense and may well see you watching from behind your fingers. Granted it's not the nicest of films - but for those who want to have their fill of blood and gore, it's going to score quite a few points.

I'm not 100% sure why films like this continue to be made - each one tries to outdo its previous franchise entrant or competitor in terms of devious traps and kills but still there's clearly an audience out there for these types of films.

There's also the ending which sees it being set up for a sequel...maybe Jigsaw's now got himself some serious competition.

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