Director ~ Marcus Dunstan
Writers ~ Patrick Melton, Marcus Dunstan
2009, United States
Stars ~ Josh Stewart, Andrea Roth, Juan Fernández
Ludicrous and nasty in equal measure, it's a film where it's no use dwelling on the plot holes because they're so glaring: "How did he rig the house in that time?" being the foremost. The characters are mostly thin, so you're here for the deathtrap element and the clash of housebreaking robbery meets Torture Porn. In that sense, it's like The Collector is the worst manifestation of safe-robber Arkin's (Josh Stewart) fear of what his crime makes him: one housebreaker must stop an even worst home invader.
Marcus Dunstan directs like a music video, which often works when cross-cutting between action for tension, veers between lively and daft, and gives this a very 2000s feel, wallowing both in its silliness and cruelty (his CV shows this is his inclination; 'Seven'-style opening credits; Bauhaus and Depeche Mode to get in that retro-Goth homage; downer ending; etc). Trivial, only occasionally inventive, passably entertaining, but with its stupidity mitigated by moments of flare.
The Collection
Director ~ Marcus Dunstan
Writers ~ Patrick Melton, Marcus Dunstan
2012, United States
Stars ~ Josh Stewart, Emma Fitzpatrick, Christopher McDonald
...in which the former downer ending is shown just to be a way into a sequel with franchise hopes. Here’s hapless Arkin (Josh Stewart) again, although this time becoming even less interesting as the pyrotechnics pile on.
Anyone spending time in ‘The Collector’ aggravated by its plot holes and plausibility won’t be assuaged by this Bigger! & Crazier! sequel. The opening massacre turns it all up to eleventy, but what follows doesn’t quite match up to that level of outrageousness/stupidity. Rather, it goes the ‘Aliens’ route and sends in a bunch of swaggering nobodies into the Collector’s den to sort him out.
Again, the feeling that forgoing plausibility isn’t quite rewarded with enough imagination and invention. The opening is the high-point just for sheer laughable outrageousness. Whereas the original benefitted from the claustrophobia and the deathtraps, this sequel doesn’t have that focus and instead relies on less interesting action tropes.
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