The Collector (2010)

"The Collector" was written and directed by Marcus Dunstan with the writing help of Patrick Melton. The two have worked together on the Saw movies installments 4, 5, 6, and the upcoming 7 so that fact that this movie is "Saw" meets "Home Alone" is a very accurate statement. The premise is that a down-on-his-luck father needs some money by midnight and decides to rob an employer while the family is on vacation. Unfortunately, someone else got there first and has set up a series of intricate, deadly booby traps top to bottom in this mansion.

Josh Stewart stars as Arkin, a guy trying to get by on a honest day's pay for an honest day's work yadda yadda yadda, but when put in a crunch proves skilled at robberies in order to save his family from loan sharks. Little does he know that the second he enters this house, the probability of his ever seeing them again plummets dramatically. There is a dagger chandelier, an acid floor, fish hook curtains, boarded up windows rigged with razor blades, and trip wires everywhere. This is one intense journey into torture porn that only the strong can stomach. If you can't get enough "Saw" and wish Kevin had been just a little more naughty than paint cans in "Home Alone", this is your chance to see something spectacular. Cat-lovers, beware.

This house is a maze of stairways, doorways, hallways, and it can get easy to get lost so the director does a great job of showing the audience where our "hero"...er..."hero-ish guy" is by raising the camera over the door frames through the ceiling so you can see where the good guy is and where the bad guy is easily. There is also different lighting throughout the house. Of course, most rooms are very dark but some have bluish tints and the basement has a creepy slimer-glow.

This is one of the best scary movies I've seen in the last couple of years. There is no filler, very little exposition at the beginning, it just jumps right into the thrilling cat-and-mouse game where you keep waiting for the killer to discover someone else is in the house. One more scary note: the killer likes to put people in boxes.

This film also features a quick cameo from Claire's lesbian college friend in "Heroes" and yes, she gets topless so...enjoy that, I guess.

End verdict: go rent this for thrills and chills. Not a movie to eat during. Bring a pillow to shove in front of your face when it gets too freaky.

I don't know what some of these people are talking about, but this movie is AWESOME. I have to admit, I didn't think it was going to be this much Gore in the movie. I haven't been this creeped out in a Horror movie like this in a long time. I just don't understand why there were so many traps in the house. If anyone is familiar with the Video Game "Deception" you will think this would have made a perfect movie. I really don't like much gore like how some of the Saw movies started off, but I was on the edge of my seat the whole time. The only thing I want to know is if this guy is Human?? I wanted to see his face so bad. If there is a sequel, I'm sure they will go into some of the backstory of who the guy is, but if your ready for a good horror movie, This one is worth a watch.

The Collector is like Jigsaw invited Jason Vorhees and Freddy Krueger over for a cup of tea and some blood-letting. A sub-contractor/thief has staked out his latest rich victim to burgle and this time he needs the money to help his ex-wife escape losing her knee caps to a loan shark. That is the entire story.

The rest of the movie deals with the burglar finding the house is now a house of horror, booby-trapped with trip-wires, bear traps, razors and the master bedroom has the floor entirely covered in glue so the collector can trap the owners of the home like flies on a fly strip. The collector is a silent masked predator and we learn if he likes you, he collects you but if he doesn't want you he kills you. This info is provided by one of the collectibles confined in a large red box.

The problem with the film is, there is no explanation of how the collector was able to booby-trap the house in a short window of time and the movie is mostly a set-up for some ingenious kills including a disembowelment, but the movie comes through with the torture and gore and like Jigsaw, Jason and Freddy before him, the collector will be coming back for more blood and guts.

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