Sue Me, I Liked It
Here’s the review that will likely determine how you feel about this blog. It doesn’t matter if you agreed or disagreed with me about Julie & Julia or District 9. No, the real test will come when you try to wrap your brain around the fact that I think The Collector is a better film. Unlike those trumped-up blockbusters, this movie contains actual surprises and fleshed-out ideas.
The first surprise happens almost instantly, when the Lionsgate Films logo doesn’t open the picture. From the few TV spots I’d seen, The Collector looked to be a Saw knock-off manufactured by the same studio that birthed that franchise. This is an independent horror film that somehow managed a small theatrical release, so right away I was intrigued. Often, I walk into a movie knowing something about the plot, but with this one, all I had was an inkling that The Collector would be a nail in the coffin of the torture-porn genre (okay, not counting Saw VI).
I was also pleased with the movie’s leisurely first half-hour. For a film that barely runs seventy-five minutes, The Collector takes its time establishing characters and mood rather than dousing the screen in bloody money shots. The story involves a handyman named Arkin (Josh Stewart) who hatches a plan to steal a large jewel from the safe of a wealthy family who’s going out of town for an extended vacation; his ex-wife, it seems, has run afoul of some lowlifes, and he agrees to exchange the gem for her safety. Director Marcus Dunstan effectively uses the slow burn in telling Arkin’s story, letting us feel the tedium and jealousy at play in having to take care of the family’s nice house, and the simple joy of being able to spend nearly a whole paycheck on a special doll for his daughter. The Collector plays as more of a crime film than a horror movie until Arkin returns to the house for the burglary.
It’s here that the movie becomes a "cat-and-mouse thriller", punctuated by occasional gore and mutilation. As he cracks the family’s safe, Arkin is interrupted by an intruder, a menacing masked man who has apparently taken much of the family hostage in the basement. He breaks the greatest horror movie convention by immediately kicking into self-preservation mode and trying to escape the house. Unfortunately, the entire place has been rigged with traps, from razor-blade-lined windows to a minefield of bear traps in the dining room. It seems the only safe place to walk is wherever the masked assailant happens to be, which makes moving between floors tricky at best.
I found The Collector to be a puzzling movie, as I wasn't sure who it was made for. It’s too languid, and not spectacularly flashy enough to capture the teen and horror-fan audience; though it's adult enough in its execution to warrant a viewing by people who are likely to never give it a chance. While it does succumb to several tropes of the genre, it also attempts to elevate them, mostly through Stewart’s performance. In the simplest of terms, a genre film should make the viewer feel something: comedies should make you laugh; science fiction should make you think; horror should make you cringe. And I cringed a lot during The Collector. By film’s end, I knew that I’d never watch it again—I’m long past the point where home-invasion fantasies pass as entertainment on their own merits—but I was glad that I saw it in the theatre. It’s nice to be surprised every once in awhile, to have expectations exceeded rather than deflated.
To those who’ve made up their mind about my opinions based on this review, I will qualify my endorsement by paraphrasing a wonderful cliché: you will probably like this movie if this is the kind of movie that you like. This is to say that I’d never stack it up next to A Clockwork Orange or The Americanization of Emily, but as a horror film it certainly fares better than a lot of the crap coming out of the major studios in recent years. And unlike District 9 and Julie & Julia, The Collector is consistent in its themes and it strives to be more than what it is purported to be.