The Collector

Home Alone with a twist; here the thief is the savior from a far worse guest. You can never have too many inventive "trap" movies, and the screenwriter of the middle instalments of the Saw franchise cannot be denied, but I have to admit that the older I get, the harder "torture porn" movies get to sit through, especially when there is an overabundance of fishing hooks in them. A solid horror flick, but one and done for me. (05/01/2021)

This film has the same problem as Martyrs. It’s a twisted slaughter-fest in which we know nothing about the characters and therefore have no sympathy for them. In this case, that was obviously the point, but I still couldn't help that I was bored. It’s not because I loathed the film, but simply because pretty soon the barrage of sophisticated traps ate away at me. Then, you start digging into the logic of the plot and the behavior of the characters... and the film loses. (02/10/2010)

Home Alone (in hardcore mode) mashed up with the best of the Saw series. I can't go below 4 stars just for creating such an iconic villain that the viewer learns nothing substantial about the entire time (except that he revels in traps, torture, and murder). Within the subgenre of "butchery made for a few bucks" (cf. 3 million), this is a very well done little hell.[75%] (08/31/2021)

Fans of brutal gore combined with inhuman-human torture and Saw-like traps will surely enjoy it, as will fans of dense atmosphere and rhythmic horror music, but also supporters of rational thinking who like to amuse themselves over the idiotic twists of similar genre pieces. I actually enjoyed a good two-thirds of The Collector; the mysterious plot in the background teased my curiosity, and the bloody violent scenes had the primary effect of adding to the bleak and oppressive atmosphere, so they can't be faulted. On top of that, Josh Stewart is quite likeable, he behaves more or less reasonably considering the situation, and I was really rooting for him in his hopeless endeavour (I enjoyed the absurdity of two people constantly not running into each other in a medium-sized house). However, the film has huge holes in the logic not only of the story as a whole (how did he manage to decorate the whole house in a couple of hours?), but also of individual scenes (clichés again), and especially in the mishandled ending, which is text-book unnecessary, derailing the previous build-up and creative expression. I'm going to watch the second one anyway, because I'm still very curious about the meaning of the killer's actions. 65% (03/17/2014)

Poor hero! He ran up those stairs… I looked forward to The Collector and I can say it didn’t disappoint me. Unpleasant atmosphere, a lot of brutality (really a lot, quite possibly, the most brutal film of the year), a surprisingly high body count, and a score that helps generate a feeling of hopelessness to such an extent that if I’d listen it more, I’d go mad. On the other hand, it has one of the most unrealistic plots I’ve ever seen – it’s something that could never happen in the real world. There’s no point fretting about how it’s possible that several characters have been moving around in a mid-size family house for such a long time and yet manage to constantly miss each other, or why the killer makes his work so unnecessarily complicated, why he’s risking so much… This is how things work in this film, and if you’re willing to accept the rules, you’ll get a solid torture porn experience. (02/05/2010)