 Dir. Marcus Dunstan, 90 mins It’s something I’ve never really spoken about on these pages, but I’m a big fan of the Saw movies. Of course they’ve become infamous as ‘torture porn’, and many are pretty flippant about all but the first few entries. However watching all seven together is an interesting experience. Sure, they do decline in quality, but the story work right until the end does a great job of developing a narrative throughout the entirety of the series – no mean feat, and something I feel is unique in horror. The relevance of this to The Collector is that it marks the directorial debut of Marcus Dunstan, writer of the entire tail end of the Saw series from number 4 to number 7. The script itself is by Dunstan and Patrick Melton, who was also heavily involved in story and script for those very same movies. Being that Saw 4 was one of my favourites in the series – and stands in my mind as one of the best movie twists I’ve ever seen – I was pretty excited about this one. And that’s without even mentioning that this was originally pitched as a Saw sequel – although unfortunately we ended up with 2017’s tone-deaf Jigsaw instead… So here I am, looking for a worthy successor to Saw. Sadly, The Collector is not it. Our story follows Arkin, a handyman and former small-time crook whose wife/partner owes some money to some dubious types. It may sound like I’m paraphrasing, but that stage of things literally takes 15 minutes and that’s about all we’re told. With this in mind, Arkin decides the best thing he can do is rob the wealthy family he’s been working for recently to save his wife/partner and daughter from reprisal. What follows from there feels pretty disappointing, because when Arkin arrives at the house it is loaded with traps and being stalked by a vicious masked man out to mutilate and kill everyone in sight. We find out that he is The Collector, and this his particular MO is to collect people… I don’t want anyone to think I’m being fatuous about it, but the paucity of the storyline really irked me here, especially given the complexities that marked the Saw series. The vague set-up is there to set up basically a brutal version of Home Alone, complete with acid on the floor, spikes on the stairs and knives hanging from the chandelier. The set-up is so weak that it’s hard to really invest in any of the characters or events, and while you could argue the traps in Saw pushed the bounds of reality, at least I know what the rationale was. This just feels like the various pitfalls and dangers came before the plot itself – hey, I’ve got some ideas for traps, what story can I include them in! If you’re a hardcore fan of silent serial killers and inventive deaths you might get something out of this, but I was left distinctly nonplussed when I came to the finale – which was also frustrating in its own right. Even at an hour and a half the movie feels overlong, the characterisation is scant, the visuals are so dark it’s hard to tell what’s actually going on half the time and it all just feels like a lot of sound and fury signifying nothing. There was a sequel to this one, The Collection, which I can’t honestly say I’m itching to get to but I will probably stick on the ‘to review’ slate, just because it’s always nice when you can go for a whole series. I gather there’s also a third movie in the works, so I’ll be collecting these movies up for a while yet… RATING: 2/10. The Collector isn’t bottom of the barrel garbage, but by the same token it’s almost unbelievable that it could come out like this given the team behind it. Almost everything that made the Saw series great is missing, apart from the cavalcade of traps – which in this context basically mean nothing. There’s the odd interesting moment, but ultimately it’s all just pretty forgettable and leaves next to no lasting impression. It does borderline surprise me there is a sequel, so I might just have to bump that up the review list out of pure curiosity. If you’re out there looking for a successor to Saw, you might be better served by the grim WAZ or the more fun/bonkers 13 Sins.   THE HEART AND SOUL OF HORROR PROMOTION |
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