The Collection, 2012.
Directed by Marcus Dunstan.
Starring Josh Stewart, Emma Fitzpatrick, Christopher McDonald, Lee Tergesen, Tim Griffin, Andre Royo and Randall Archer.
SYNOPSIS:
A man who escapes from the vicious grips of the serial killer known as “The Collector” is blackmailed to rescue an innocent girl from the killer’s booby-trapped warehouse.
In 2009, The Collector was released and while it wasn’t a huge hit it did catch the attention of a lot of people. Coming from a couple of the writers from the Saw series, The Collector definitely tried to cater to that particular audience. While the initial premise was pretty solid I wasn’t a fan of the film itself because it felt like another “torture porn” film and it had a lot of similarities to the Saw series. Jump to 2012 and we a get a sequel, The Collection, which wasn’t something I had high hopes for but was pleasantly surprised when it turned out to be quite entertaining.
This one picks up right where the first left off with the survivor of the last film, Arkin (Josh Stewart), escaping the trunk in which The Collector had captured him during a rave where everyone has died except for one girl, Elena (Emma Fitzpatrick). Elena is the daughter of a very wealthy man (Christopher McDonald) who will do anything to get her back. He hires a team of mercenaries led by his longtime partner Lucello (Lee Tergesen) to try and take down The Collector and rescue his daughter. The mercenaries find Arkin to get his help since he’s dealt with this man before but The Collector is always prepared so getting back Elena won’t be easy.
What made me like this much more than the first is mainly that it didn’t feel like a “torture porn” film. Sure there’s plenty of gore and blood being splattered all over the screen but there are very few moments where we watch as characters are tortured for long periods of time until they are killed off. They pull no punches this time around and kill characters off left and right without any hesitation. The film is also less than 80 minutes long, minus the credits, so they don’t have a lot of time to sit around and they fill almost every moment with something to keep us interested.
Now even though this is enjoyable it’s still not a great film by any means. The story is very weak and honestly I didn’t really care whether they saved the girl in the end or not. Other than Arkin and Elena you don’t really get to know any of the other characters, so when they die it doesn’t even matter. We do get to know a little bit about Lucello and he’s one of the best parts, but as usual Lee Tergesen is very underused here. None of the performances are particularly great except for Tergesen and Josh Stewart, who are both fairly good in their roles. Emma Fitzpatrick isn’t anything special, Christopher McDonald barely has any screen time, and the rest of the cast doesn’t do all that much either.
The Collection brings the blood and gore, moves at a very fast pace and features some fun and inventive deaths. Other than that there isn’t much else to recommend, but it is a solid horror sequel that vastly surpasses its predecessor, which is something we don’t see too often these days.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★
Jake Peffer
