The Collection - Worth Adding to Yours

       The Collection, from the writers of SAW IV-VII, tries to mix the sadistic torture of the SAW franchise with the thrill of the masked serial killer hunt movies such as Friday the 13th or Halloween.   However, the writers went heavy on the torture and thrill and left much to be desired when it came to the actual plot and character development.  Bloody deaths are always fun to watch, but they can only take us so far when we don’t connect well enough to the characters in order to care if they survive the overly complicated and confusing traps. 

 

A Quick Synopsis...

         The movie starts with our lead, Elena, getting blown off by her boyfriend and going to a rave with her best friend, Missy, and her brother Josh instead.  After being at the party for a (ridiculously) short amount of time, Elena spots her boyfriend kissing another girl.  She pauses before punching him, and then takes off through the rooms, setting off an unstoppable chain of events. 

          

       Elena finds Arkin trapped in a box, but when she unlocks him it sets loose a giant rotating blade in the main room of the building.  Whoever was not gorily mowed down by the device runs to escape, but some, including Missy, are trapped in a cage.  The Collector is on the top, and rides it down like an elevator until everyone is crushed to death.  Elena now spots the psychopath and is abducted minutes later.

         

        The rest of the movie follows a team of people trying to rescue Elena, most notably; Arkin, trapped into helping since he is a convict promised to walk free if he helps; and Lucello, a long-time family friend hired by Elena’s father to bring her home.

 

 

Likes...    

       I was pumped for the movie to start from the very beginning.  The club music during the opening credits was upbeat, and it was accompanied by news footage of the people missing at the hands of The Collector.  It was a great way to get the background of the movie and not be bored during the credits.

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       I really liked that we didn’t get to see the villain’s face for the entire movie, even at the end when we think it’ll be revealed.  Instead, The Collector’s thoughts and emotions were impressively portrayed through the actor’s body language and facial expressions – yes, even through the mask!  The Collector could possibly go down in horror history as the cockiest villain of all time.

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       Toward the end of the movie, Arkin shoots through a window in order to create attention and have the cops arrive.  He accidentally shoots someone which creates some comic relief, but even better is his nonchalant apology.  “Sorry man!”

The ending itself tricked me, as it was designed to do.  After Arkin burns The Collector and he and Elena are rescued by the firemen, we see him catch sight of The Collector’s mask.  But where did the man go?  I wasn’t happy with such an open-ended ending – but! – when it seemed the credits were about to roll on the black screen, we saw the lower half of a man, presumably the escaped Collector, walking through his house.  The actual ending is a faceoff between him and Arkin, with The Collector eventually beaten and shoved into one of his own boxes.  Now the credits can roll without objection; sure there’s the chance of a sequel, but it's a lot less open ended, and hell, more brutal.

 

However, the best part of the movie was the gore...

 

Squirm Scenes...  

       -Every well directed horror movie should have a few great squirm scenes, and The Collection would have been nothing              without them.  While there’s more than I listed, I broke it down into 6 noteworthy ones to review.

               

       -Rave-goers getting mowed down by the rotating blade: nothing like a sea of dismembered corpses to get the senses

        aroused for the duration of the movie.

              

        -Missy’s head getting crushed: sad yes, but we can only imagine such a horrific way to go, and are suddenly thankful of             our free personal space while cringing during that scene.

              

       -Random victim’s throat slit: I don’t know how a real throat slitting would bleed, but this victim squirts just nastily enough          without being overdone.

               

       -Elena’s tarantula encounter: imagine trying to be quiet while hiding from a sadistic madman.  Now imagine doing it

        with tarantula crawling across your face.  Horrifying clever.

              

       -Abby’s traitorous demise: just when you think 3 nails through your foot is bad enough, Abby falls into a metal

        encasement that crushes her entire body.  The cherry on the cake of that scene is her mouth spewing regurgitated blood. 

               

       -Arkin’s jail break: with the imminent danger of fire fueling their intense need to escape, Elena rebreaks Arkin’s arm

        so he can squeeze through a cage and unlock them from their impending death.

 

               

Dislikes...

       Coincidentally enough, a lot of my dislikes parallel my likes.  Although it was great having the movie’s background roll behind the opening credits, there wasn’t enough plot or character development during the overall movie.  To start with, we know absolutely nothing about The Collector, specifically why he’s such a sadistic bastard.  (Or how he’s rich enough to fund his unrealistically elaborate traps.)  Maybe the writers found his complete anonymity more horrifying, but as a viewer I found it somewhat unsatisfying.   I also disliked not knowing exactly who Lucello was, other than the man sent to save Elena.  Even more, who was the hodge-podge team he assembled to accompany him into the madman’s evil clenches?

       

       Even though I liked that The Collector was masked for the entire movie, his complete attire irritated me throughout the whole film.   A man who can afford to outfit a maze of rooms with a myriad of death traps should be able to come up with a better look than a want to-be scuba diving suit and a mask that looks like black gauze with corset lacings up the back.

               

       A big turn off for me was some of the lesser aspects of the plot.  Although I’ve already mentioned it,  it’s worth repeating on its own.  The Collector’s plots were so overly complicated and unrealistic that it distracted me from the movie itself.  When something doesn’t even seem plausible it loses some of its horror.  I also didn’t like that the villain didn’t fit into a defined category; is he a serial killer or a mass murderer?  And what was with The Collector’s “dogs”?  I can appreciate that he experimented on and tortured his victims, but to drug them into oblivion and turn them into zombie-esque bodyguards was absolutely ridiculous.  A horror film cannot be both a serial killer AND a zombie movie.  Well, at least not this one.

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One hell of an ending...

       Although the rest of The Collection was somewhat sub-par, the director really nailed it with the end of the movie.  In one word, it was epic.  After Arkin sets The Collector on fire and they are presumed safe, and with firemen rushing to break down the door, Arkin becomes trapped by a fire previously set by the villain.  Elena struggles with what to do, obviously remembering that Arkin had left her when she was first abducted by The Collector.  She eventually spots a curtain rod and breaks open The Collector’s standing displays (showcasing distorted human remains), and the rush of liquid puts out the flames separating Arkin from safety.  Although I must point out that the liquid in the cases was most likely flammable formaldahye, which would be a huge plot fail, the whole scene was so well done that it’s almost forgivable.

 

All in all...

       I really can’t decide if I like this movie or not.  Even without a strong plot and well developed characters, it’s still worth a watch for the gore and brutality.  Sometimes, at least for me, that’s all a movie needs to have to be enjoyable.