The Collector

Reviewer: James van Maanen
Rating (out of 5): ****

Marcus Dunstan has dabbled in everything from acting to producing, though most of his credits are for writing scary movies. He’s given us the much-better-than-average Feast plus a few from the Saw franchise (IV, V and VI, with VII on the way: I stopped viewing after number two). His first foray into directing is The Collector, an under-rated and under-seen creep-out, which he has co-written with Patrick Melton. It is an excellent example of a fast, tight and economical slasher/chiller film – as bloody and vicious as the genre demands (yet not overdone: Dunstan knows when to turn his camera elsewhere) – but also surprisingly intelligent, featuring protagonists and victims for whom you can, for a change, root.

The film begins with something awful happening, though we don’t understand quite what. This will be revealed over time, and it’s a humdinger that continues to resonate. We meet our “hero” (Josh Stewart: a little odd-looking, though very believable), who’s a down-on-his-luck home-protection expert (this occupation will stand him in good stead) just finishing off a job for a rich family about to leave on vacation. He’s also having problems with his own wife and daughter, which we note quickly in passing. Then the plot kicks in and for the rest of this very dark and grizzly 90-minute movie, there is barely time for him – or us – to take a breath.

The antagonist (the collector of the title) is a terrific notion: as frightening as Michael, Jason or Freddy. I’d say he is more fearsome, in fact, because we see even less of him but enough to know that he is clearly extremely smart, utterly vicious and quite real. There is no other-worldly, fantasy element on parade: Just one very powerful guy who appears to have gone totally sociopathic. Unlike far too many horror films in which one ends up talking back to the screen, “Why didn’t you (turn on the light, lock the door, call the police, make sure he was dead, etc.)", in The Collector, when at one point the hero decides to go back into the house from which he has tried so hard to escape, you’ll be applauding him rather than thinking he’s an idiot. Plot-wise, Dunstan has covered his bases surprisingly well. And his direction -- with crisp, frantic editing and cinematography that’s dark but not obscurant – builds suspense well and finally scares the bejeezus out of us.

Bloody, nasty terror films are a matter of taste, and I usually shy away from them. Yet when they are done this well, a recommendation -- along with a warning, of course -- is in order.