The Collector

A petty thief (Josh Stewart), who cases the houses he installs locks for, chooses the wrong place to stage a new safe heist as a killer has also picked it out for his own sadistic purposed. The movie, as you may have already read, is cut from the same visceral cloth as the Saw movies and its imitators. A diabolical fiend, with a knack for setting up ingenious traps, picks certain victims, and has his way with them in very malicious ways, using their own house as his playpen.

It takes preparation and planning, closing off all means of escape, setting up devious traps for those who attempt to either call for help or flee the house. It takes a really warped intellect to effectively mold such a labyrinth of traps, and we follow the thief as he moves about the house, trying to not only evade the killer but get out of the building.

What I found particularly interesting was how locks, bear traps, sharp wires, and other traps appear out of nowhere as the thief goes from room to room. Amusing is how massive the house seems to be; the rooms seem limitless. And the torture, pain, and anguish for which the psychopath inflicts on the occupants of the house he selects is pretty severe. This madman takes great pride in orchestrating the most elaborate methods of suffering imaginable. The killer’s mask seems to illustrate his deranged psyche. And his eyes are pitch black yet have a glimmer to the center that is quite unsettling.

Also intriguing is the scene where the thief gets the subdued wife to scream so that the killer will be distracted as he can retrieve a gun hidden in the safe he was initially supposed to rob, and how he doesn’t exactly hurry to rescue them, securing items of monetary potential, and going through dresser drawers looking for valuable goods! Oh, what does the sicko collect? It’s more like who…

The filmmakers decide to show the aftermath of the psychopath’s grisly activity rather than linger on the unpleasantness. And when there is violence in a scene, it’s shot in a way not to dwell on what it is taking place, using sound effects and our imagination to fill in the details, such as a cat’s demise and the removal of a tongue.

Also notice how we do not see the knife inserted into a victim’s torso multiple times, but the look on her face as she is being stabbed. The sound design(breaking glass, creaking steps/wood, knives and their amazing ability to make a noise even when placed back in the killer’s holster, the simmering of acid on a floor as it burns shoes, the cat, and books used to walk on)is of the greatest importance to the filmmakers who depend on what we hear to develop terror in our minds.

During the walk-throughs in the house, the camera points out where tools of destruction are located, hid from those inside (except, curious enough, the thief who often just misses being a victim himself) yet established to us so we can squirm since we know something the characters aren’t aware of. I guess something particularly disconcerting to the viewer might be that the thief never is capable of saving those he intends to help, with the killer seeming to gain an upper hand each and every time..because, we must remember that he wants to stay alive as well and so the thief often fails to halt the ensuing madness.

To wit, when it seems the thief is on the verge of rescuing someone, they make irrational decisions, stumbling into a trap or the killer himself. Our thief takes his share of lumps. Fishhooks to the face and a razor blade to his hand (his bloody hands leave marks throughout the walls of the house).

If I make it sound like The Collector doesn’t deliver the grisly goods, I’d like to state that it more than satisfies in that department, a head is used to bash open a locked door, a victim falls into a barrage of bear traps after his fingers are clipped off by scissors, the results of a man gutted upside down and a mouth is sewn shut(not to mention, we see what nails and large steel hooks do to the human body). And, to put the icing on the cake, the killer has his own ferocious mutt which rips the throat out of a policeman.

Quite simply put, The Collector is not for those easily disturbed by devious behavior (or who get queasy when metal damages flesh). I’ll close by saying, “My, my, my, Madeline Zima, oh how you have grown up, you little sex kitten.”