The Collector
The writer behind the last few Saw films has made his directorial debut and it's every bit as nasty as you could imagine.
The writer behind the last few Saw films has made his directorial debut and it's every bit as nasty as you could imagine. It's a shame, because surrounding some particularly exploitative moments, Marcus Dunstan has crafted a slick, tense thriller with a leading man who elevates the material beyond torture porn.
Beginning with credits lifted directly from Seven and an effective opening shocker, we meet our unlikely brooding hero. Josh Stewart is known for his roles in TV shows Dirt and Criminal Minds, but judging by this, should be hitting film star status as soon as possible. With the depth and intensity of a young Sean Penn, he portrays a sympathetic house burglar in the guise of a builder, growing attached to the family he's been casing for months. There's the warm father (Michael Reilly Burke), frosty mom (Andrea Roth), adorable little girl (Karley Scott Collins) and rebellious teen (Madeline Zima), who are set to go on holiday, giving Stewart's Arkin plenty of time to get to the remote home's safe.
In a wonderful nail-biting sequence, we learn in the darkness that Arkin is not alone, with a masked madman torturing the parents in the cellar. In an almost farcical way, sequences of deadly traps have been sprung in the huge house - they almost appear out of nowhere. Arkin has to struggle with his conscience - grab the goods to get loan sharks off his ex-wife's back, or rescue the nice family. Dunstan works his labyrinthine set with flair, and is only let down by his inability to stick with one cinematic style. The first five minutes are classic Eighties chiller, before giving way to the oh-so-Nineties Nine Inch Nails-esque montage. The choppy editing in some scenes with hard-to-watch distortion thrown in mar the otherwise superb cinematography and perfectly-pitched pace.
With genuine suspense and terror, along with an immensely watchable lead who can command the screen with minimal dialogue, it's crushingly disappointing that Dunstan doesn't go down the path of his influences and keep the gruesome fate of the victims in our imaginations. Instead, he depicts every last drop of gore and pain in close-up, pornographic detail. Another annoyance is a sickenly gratuitous and uncomfortable nude scene with the older daughter (the thankfully not teenage Zima), which goes on, unnecessarily, for what seems like forever, and is an obvious precursor to something dreadful. I'm no prude, but Dunstan had got the obligatory tit shot out of the way earlier with the rent-a-strippers, and the reason for this unsexy and disturbing scene is unfathomable.
These negative aspects will please those who enjoy the likes of Hostel and Dunstan's own contributions to the Saw franchise, but may alienate those who were otherwise enjoying a surprisingly imaginative, fresh and claustrophic horror. And what delights do Dunstan and his Saw IV-VII co-writer Patrick Melton have in store for fans of terror? Pure napalm is used to "good" effect (cat lovers might want to look away - I had no warning), lethal web-like traps are a common occurence, with a recurring creepy-crawly theme (arachnophobics might want to look away, oooh, every five minutes from the titles - again, I had no warning) but there is nothing that is as devastatingly twisted as the Saw films. This lack of elaboration is in context though. Be warned - its conclusion is enigmatic, and not for artistic reasons. It appears to be written with a franchise already in mind, and a sequel is already being planned. Is The Collector worthy of several stories? It is actually, as I find myself looking forward to the next installment already.
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