Hidey-ho, dear readers. As you might’ve noticed, I didn’t post last week. Sorry! I wasn’t feeling too hot. I was going to try another double feature, but I really didn’t have time this weekend. So, you’re just going to have to settle for one movie this week.
Okay, so as I mentioned last week, I accidentally missed a movie while going through the C’s, but I maintain that that mistake was not my fault. How you ask? Well…
This week’s movie, 2009’s The Collector starring Josh Stewart, Juan Fernandez, Michael Reilly Burke, Andrea Roth, Karley Scott Collins, Madeline Zima, Daniella Alonzo, Haley Pullos, William Prael, and Diane Ayala Goldner. First, let’s address the cover.
Pretty intimidating, right? Here’s a fun fact that I didn’t know until I was well into the D’s. So, this cover is for The CollectOR.
And this cover is for the movie The CollectION. The sequel to the CollectOR. Having no foreknowledge about either movie, I, of course, saw them out of order. Fortunately, the CollectION works really well as a stand-alone, so if you have made this mistake, you probably didn’t know until right this second that two movies even existed. You may’ve seen both covers and just thought “Meh, must be a remastered version” or “This must be the one from Italy”, ‘cuz, you know, filmmakers do things like that sometimes.
So, now you know. CollectOR and CollectION, two different movies. And if there is a third, you probably expect the same cover a third time. It will probably be named The CollectORATIONARY. Moving on.
The Collector begins with a couple(Prael and Goldner) coming from what we presume is date night. Like a couple of giggly, horny teenagers, they come in with all the preparation of what I imagine is a night of hot passionate sex or something. They discover the power is out and find a mysterious trunk in one of their rooms. When it moves, the wife (having the lion’s share of the brains between them) tells him not to go near it. He does anyway. Not only that, he opens it and Bam! They’re both attacked by some unseen assailant.
Meanwhile, a dude named Arkin (Stewart) is working as a handyman for the very rich and very spoiled Chase family. While working, he notices that they are very rich and very spoiled, except for their youngest daughter Hannah (Collins), who just wants somebody to play tea party with her. (awwww)
The Collector begins with a couple(Prael and Goldner) coming from what we presume is date night. Like a couple of giggly, horny teenagers, they come in with all the preparation of what I imagine is a night of hot passionate sex or something. They discover the power is out and find a mysterious trunk in one of their rooms. When it moves, the wife (having the lion’s share of the brains between them) tells him not to go near it. He does anyway. Not only that, he opens it and Bam! They’re both attacked by some unseen assailant.
Meanwhile, a dude named Arkin (Stewart) is working as a handyman for the very rich and very spoiled Chase family. While working, he notices that they are very rich and very spoiled, except for their youngest daughter Hannah (Collins), who just wants somebody to play tea party with her. (awwww)
So, fun fact about Arkin. He’s an ex-con. What’s worse, is that he’s an ex-con with a wife who’s in debt to a loan shark. His wife (Alonzo) tells him that she had to pay bills because he’s not doing it and she’s desperate. She tells him that she needs the money by midnight so she’s going to take their daughter and skip town. Arkin tells her that she doesn’t have to do that because He just worked on a house for some rich people and he can just rob them, then he’ll have the money and everything will be fine. Sounds like a plan.
So, Arkin sets about robbing the Chase’s house. The breaks in and finds their chest and starts to unlock it. While he’s doing that, he notices that someone else has broken into the house too…and he’s got a mask…and he’s nailed all the windows and doors shut…and he’s booby-trapped the house…he’s holding Mr. and Mrs. Chase hostage and apparently torturing them.
Arkin tries to call 911, but the phones are rigged. He goes to the basement and finds Mr. Chase(Burke), who’s definitely seen better days.
So, Arkin sets about robbing the Chase’s house. The breaks in and finds their chest and starts to unlock it. While he’s doing that, he notices that someone else has broken into the house too…and he’s got a mask…and he’s nailed all the windows and doors shut…and he’s booby-trapped the house…he’s holding Mr. and Mrs. Chase hostage and apparently torturing them.
Arkin tries to call 911, but the phones are rigged. He goes to the basement and finds Mr. Chase(Burke), who’s definitely seen better days.
So, Mr. Chase tells Arkin that the masked man has trapped and tortured both him and his wife. His older daughter Jill(Zima) is out, but Hannah is hiding somewhere in the house. He tells him that there is a gun in the safe and gives him the combination. Arkin decides to find Mrs. Chase, who’s blindfolded and chained to the bathtub. He convinces her to scream so that he can go back upstairs to the safe while the masked man is down in the basement with them. She does and it works. Masked man comes down to the basement and Arkin goes upstairs to the safe.
In the safe, he finds the gun, but there are no bullets. He also finds a giant ruby and pockets it. He searches the house for Hannah, only to find a big trunk in one of the rooms. He opens it to find the husband of the very first couple in the first scene…all bloodied and jacked up. This guy tells Arkin that the masked man is a…wait for it…Collector who collects people for his collection. The masked man only collections one person from the house then kills everyone else.
Meanwhile, The Collector is busy torturing Mr. and Mrs. Chase. He even almost cuts off Mrs. Chase’s tongue for screaming. Arkin eventually finds his way back down to the basement only to find Mr. Chase dead. He frees Mrs. Chase, but after she sees her husband is dead, she tries to make a break for it. Unfortunately, she’s caught and stabbed by The Collector.
Okay, so, meanwhile Jill has come home from her date with her boyfriend. They go in the house and start making out and get ready to pound one out on the kitchen table, when they notice The Collector is creeping up on them. Jill screams, The Collector brutally murders her boyfriend…
…and Jill is captured, but not before calling 911 on her cellphone. Arkin sees all this and uses an alarm clock in one of the bedrooms to distract The Collector while he frees Jill. Jill, having just come in on all this, thinks Arkin has something to do with what’s going on. She runs from him and tries to grab scissors as a weapon, but gets caught in one of The Collector’s traps and dies.
At this point, Arkin is screw all this and he manages to tear the razor sharp boards from one of the windows and gets out of the house. As he’s running away he sees poor, little, innocent Hannah in one of the windows and decides to go back to the house.
You read that right. He GOES BACK TO THE FRIGGIN HOUSE.
So, back to the house, Arkin goes, where he does end up finding Hannah. The two of them try to rig a trap for The Collector, using an aquarium and a television in the hopes of electrocuting him. It doesn’t work. The Collector uses the one guy he had trapped in the trunk as a decoy and the trap ends up killing him instead. Arkin and Hannah escape by using the laundry chute in one of the rooms that leads down to the basement. Arkin gets Hannah down, but The Collector knocks Arkin out and takes him captive.
Arkin is now in a cage and being tortured by The Collector, things are looking pretty bleak. But then, the cops show up…well, a cop. Unfortunately, The Collector has a big scary dog and the doc eats the cop. BUT, not before the cop calls for backup.
Oh-kay, so that gives Arkin time to free himself. He goes to the basement where he finds dead Victoria rigged with explosives. So, he and Hannah manage to escape just as The Collector’s dog comes after them. They kill the dog, trap The Collector and escape the house just as it explodes. Yay!
So, the cops and the ambulance are there and they take little Hannah away to safety. Arkin’s being driven away in an ambulance, cuz, you know, he was tortured and all that. While on the gurney, he reaches into his pocket and discovers the ruby he stole. He tells the EMS guy that he needs to call his wife ASAP. Before they can do anything, however, the ambulance goes off the road and crashes.
Disheveled and injured, Arkin looks up to see The Collector has crashed the ambulance. He pulls him out of the ambulance and puts him in a trunk.
…
The end.
At least until the sequel.
So, what do I give this movie? First of all, let me just say that as a rule, I’m not a fan of torture porn. With Saw being the only exception, most torture porn amounts to two hours of this:
I’m looking at you Eli Roth.
That being said, for torture porn, The Collector wasn’t really that bad. I mean, it was still basically gore for gore’s sake, but there was a halfway decent storyline…even though the characters were all pretty much too stupid to live through to the end, I didn’t hate this movie.
I’m gonna give this one a Pink Diamond, because it’s not my speed, but, I can’t say I hated it.
…and Jill is captured, but not before calling 911 on her cellphone. Arkin sees all this and uses an alarm clock in one of the bedrooms to distract The Collector while he frees Jill. Jill, having just come in on all this, thinks Arkin has something to do with what’s going on. She runs from him and tries to grab scissors as a weapon, but gets caught in one of The Collector’s traps and dies.
At this point, Arkin is screw all this and he manages to tear the razor sharp boards from one of the windows and gets out of the house. As he’s running away he sees poor, little, innocent Hannah in one of the windows and decides to go back to the house.
You read that right. He GOES BACK TO THE FRIGGIN HOUSE.
So, back to the house, Arkin goes, where he does end up finding Hannah. The two of them try to rig a trap for The Collector, using an aquarium and a television in the hopes of electrocuting him. It doesn’t work. The Collector uses the one guy he had trapped in the trunk as a decoy and the trap ends up killing him instead. Arkin and Hannah escape by using the laundry chute in one of the rooms that leads down to the basement. Arkin gets Hannah down, but The Collector knocks Arkin out and takes him captive.
Arkin is now in a cage and being tortured by The Collector, things are looking pretty bleak. But then, the cops show up…well, a cop. Unfortunately, The Collector has a big scary dog and the doc eats the cop. BUT, not before the cop calls for backup.
Oh-kay, so that gives Arkin time to free himself. He goes to the basement where he finds dead Victoria rigged with explosives. So, he and Hannah manage to escape just as The Collector’s dog comes after them. They kill the dog, trap The Collector and escape the house just as it explodes. Yay!
So, the cops and the ambulance are there and they take little Hannah away to safety. Arkin’s being driven away in an ambulance, cuz, you know, he was tortured and all that. While on the gurney, he reaches into his pocket and discovers the ruby he stole. He tells the EMS guy that he needs to call his wife ASAP. Before they can do anything, however, the ambulance goes off the road and crashes.
Disheveled and injured, Arkin looks up to see The Collector has crashed the ambulance. He pulls him out of the ambulance and puts him in a trunk.
…
The end.
At least until the sequel.
So, what do I give this movie? First of all, let me just say that as a rule, I’m not a fan of torture porn. With Saw being the only exception, most torture porn amounts to two hours of this:
I’m looking at you Eli Roth.
That being said, for torture porn, The Collector wasn’t really that bad. I mean, it was still basically gore for gore’s sake, but there was a halfway decent storyline…even though the characters were all pretty much too stupid to live through to the end, I didn’t hate this movie.
I’m gonna give this one a Pink Diamond, because it’s not my speed, but, I can’t say I hated it.
All righty, next week’s movie is Dead Snow: Dead vs Red, the sequel to Dead Snow. The tag for it is that it’s a “zom-com” which, I didn’t even know was a phrase to be honest.
Until next week.
O~
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