Chad

clckworang

I'm fully ready to hear a lot of hate about this movie and the torture porn label to come out. Overall, I'm all right with the movie. I generally don't care much for the Saw movies, but maybe it's more of the cat and mouse thing here that helps the movie get a pass from me. There's a brief post-credits scene. I don't think I had seen that before. Also, for anyone who hasn't seen it, I think the sequel The Collection is a better movie.

PhantomStranger

One of my favorite horror movies from the last 20 years. It's amazing The Collector and its sequel both work without serious hitches.

Spiderbite

I agree with you.

What's weird is I saw The Collection first not knowing it was a sequel several years ago. After enjoying it, I was surprised to hear of The Collector and figured the first one had to be even better than the second one. I was wrong. The sequel is a much better movie.

And I guess I just totally missed references to the first one if there were any. The sequel held up on its own without me even realizing there was a movie before it.

mallratcal

I had my doubts about this movie but it was quite good.

He must have worked super fast to set up all those traps.

Undeadcow

The bizarre aloof gaze of The Collector is effective at cutting past the silliness of the s&m gimp looking mask. It makes him seem both everyday with simple clothing and far out at the same time. Some of the traps are unintentionally funny in being so extreme (theres no bindings like barb wire or fish hooks); but thats probably part of what made the film work. Collector is very effective at making the house look labyrinth and as if there is room for all the hide and seek and traps without seeming stretched. Having the daughter and her boyfriend come home in the middle of the film.was a smart way to mix it up.

Toddarino

Eh. I don’t know what happened to my tastes in the last few years, but I can’t handle this nonstop torture stuff. There’s a good story here and I’d be interested in seeing where it goes, but I just can’t watch that shit. Plus if you fuck with a pet, I usually check out anyway.
It also had one of my movie pet peeves where it just doesn’t fucking end. Killer is defeated. Just kidding somehow he gathered himself, and managed to crash the ambulance.
I didn’t hate it, but I won’t watch it again.

orlmac

Maybe I'm just twisted, but that was my favorite movie so far this year hands down. It is definitely the cat and mouse aspect that makes the movie, I don't like Saw type movies but I really liked the main character and I thought he made the movie. There is a sequel, I think it's called the Collection, that I am now going to look up and watch this month. Great selection is my eyes, just one scene (the nude scene) that should have been removed.

jholmes

Just starting it. Clckworang mentioned "some might call it torture porn", which normally isn't my thing. So we'll see!

ETA: What's that saying -- "Snatching defeat from the jaws of victory". Ha ha. You REALLY thought we were going to give you ANY break for this character. no.
I didn't like the ending. First off, it was giving the villain WAY too much power/credit. Michael Meyers level of supernatural bounce-back-atude. But mostly, it's annoying to me when filmmakers think they're too bad ass/hardcore to give you any form of happy ending. Like, f*ck you for making me sit through all that and not being willing to give one drop of grace. That sort of nilhisim isn't my thing. Sure, reject the norms. Don't do the expected. But if you're gonna do that, it better be one hell of a beautiful, transcendent sacrifice. This wasn't.

As for the rest of it -- I find I can tolerate more abuse/torture when there is a likeable, smart, and determined character to root for. I mean, c'mon. The safe cracker with a heart of gold? And a little girl? Fine. Fine. You got me. I liked most of this film despite the amount of violence for that reason. But that's why the ending (or non-ending actually, since we don't see the guy's fate) was such an irritant.

I'd rate it 6/10.

WillieMLF

Aloof gaze! That hits it right! Man, I really like the protagonist here, suffering for his crime, and being in the wrong place at the wrong time. I don’t really have a taste for the ultra graphic, but I think it all serves the story really well. I need to look up the other films now.

My cat was in the room when the on screen cat had his part. My cat was not too happy either. He normally doesn’t pay too much attention.

numbercrunch

The Collector is fun. I have seen if a few times now. i do agree that the sequel is better. The whole setup is ludicrous and over the top.

Spiderbite

I had seen this awhile back but pretty much forgot everything about it.

The main guy is likeable and a good lead for this sort of film. I found it quite funny that every person the hero "saves" ends up dead just a few minutes later.

So this is a movie that if Hostel and Saw had twins, the angelic child is Home Alone and the devil child is The Collector.

The traps are fun and ridiculous. Like Saw, you have to suspend disbelief in regards to the set-ups of the traps and how or why they work. The torture porn aspect is pretty Hostel-like brutal here too.

The ending didn't bother me. People get away with shit in the real world all the time so I don't need the bad guys to be killed, arrested or the ending wrapped up in a bow.

The killer's eyes and mask are really creepy and interesting. The only problem I had with it is the time frame for all the traps. We have to just accept that they were all set up in an evening. Was it ever explained why he targeted this family? If it did, I never heard it.

I liked it. Kept my interest the whole way through, the gore was heavy and realistic and I found a lot of dark humor in the movie. It came across like a back yard, local low budget movie filmed on weekends but somehow these people stumbled upon 6 million bucks to make their weekend fun flick.

My rating: ***1/2 out of *****

ps. Why does the hero jump in front of the speeding cop cars to flag them down? Couldn't he just stand on the side of the road and wave his arms instead of hopping face first into a flying cop car windshield?

pps. You have to kind of like a movie that kills both a cat and a dog in severely brutal ways. Most movies shy away from that so it always surprises me when it happens. It always interests me how people (like my wife) get bent out of shape when animals get killed in movies (no matter how fake it looks) but human beings can be shredded to bits all day long and it never bother them.

indiephantom

Glad you enjoyed it. Why take out a nude scene though?

rbrown498

I didn't hate this, but I didn't love it, either. I couldn't stretch my suspension of disbelief far enough to account for "the collector"'s being able to set the house up like that without a huge moving van to haul the bear traps around in and a couple of weeks to mount all the pulleys and stuff that he had to mount to get all the traps set. I'm assuming that he set all the traps after he'd captured the homeowners, but why would he do that, exactly? Once he had them, why go to all of the trouble that he obviously went to? And carting around people in trunks just to freak out the next victims didn't seem like the most efficient method for causing fear. The film was tense, but it's probably the most improbable horror film that I've ever seen.

My subset film rankings for the Challenge thus far:

1. Battle Royale
2. Carrie (1976)
3. Curse of the Demon
4. Slither
5. The Ninth Gate
6. Tower of Evil
7. Witchfinder General
8. A Bay of Blood / The Spiral Staircase (averaged together)
9. Planet Terror
10. Silent Madness
11. Slumber Party Massacre II (based purely on its out-of-left-field aesthetic)
12. In Search of Darkness
13. Road Games
14. Daughters of Darkness
15. The Collector
16. Cure
17. Hello Mary Lou: Prom Night II
18. Grave Robbers (Ladrones de Tumbas)
19. The Severed Arm
20. Fade to Black
21. The Mortuary Collection
22. Cutting Class

Spiderbite

I am glad you brought that up because I meant to address that very same thing or ask about it in my prior post. It is a great question.

Why did he set all these traps up after he already had the husband and wife? Maybe that is explained in the sequel? I don't remember.

WillieMLF

The Netflix version didn't have subtitles, so I think I missed some explanation once he let the dude out of the box. Was there any important info as to why this was happening? I remember the box guy saying the masked guy was a collector, but I thought he said more regarding why he was targeted.

Spiderbite

The only thing I remember is him gurgling out that The Collector keeps the people he wants and kills the ones he doesn't want (or collect). There was nothing I remember about why he was targeting these certain people or why he collects people (except to torture them, I guess?).

Gobear

Now we know what happened to Kevin from Home Alone after he grew up.

Undeadcow

I don't think the sequel explains this but it does imply that he is more forward thinking in his setting up traps and destinations than it appears in the first film; perhaps his true prey was always the thief and not the family as that seems to be what is focus ends up on.

rbrown498

If that's the case, though, how would he have even known that the thief was coming back? Even the THIEF didn't know that he was coming back until an hour or two before he showed up at the house. And while I'm asking questions, how did the thief know about the uncut gem in the safe? Was it in the movie somewhere and I just missed it? I remember seeing the homeowner's business card, and I seem to remember a phone conversation that I didn't pay much attention to...was the gem mentioned then?

WillieMLF

I just saw it that the thief was in the wrong place at the wrong time. It didn't seem, based on the mask guy's actions, that he was expecting the thief. He was just a bonus. I figured the 'traps' were for the daughter, as she said that her mother had changed the locks.

Who was the guy hanging upside down?

I thought the original safe had a ring that he was interested in. I dont think he knew about the other safe, and I just assumed he found something better (uncut ruby).

These just raise more questions.

Spiderbite

The guy hanging upside down was the Dad after he gutted him.

rbrown498

I think that the daughter just assumed that the mother changed the locks since she couldn't get in, but the audience knew that the collector had changed the locks.

The daughter told the thief to expect some fireworks, then we saw that she and her mother were having an argument about the daughter not going on the family vacation.

Again, I'm assuming that the daughter believed that the rest of the family had gone on vacation, which is why she was so nonchalant about having sex in the kitchen. This brings up the point as to exactly how much time had elapsed between the thief leaving with his pay envelope and coming back to steal the gem. It seemed to me that it was later the same night, but I don't see how that could possibly be right with the amount of work that the collector would have to have done in, what, six or seven hours?

Spiderbite

He must be well practiced.

clckworang

Maybe he has collected some helpers over the years.