The Collector

The Collector is a guilty pleasure of mine.  When it hit the big screen I had nary a clue what it was all about, only that it was some slasher movie written by the guys who wrote some Saw sequels.  I wasn't exactly hooked..  SAW is unapologetic about gore...yes...but there wasn't much to come back to and the twists often seemed forced and full of more holes than an Italian cruise ship.  One night I was particularly bored with the normal bloodshed and brutality.  I wanted to see something new, so I emerged from the tomb on the prowl for cinematic depravity, and I think I found it with The Collector.  I went to the local cinema and picked the closest approximate thing to my gutter puppy tastes.

 Besides it being a slasher, an attempted franchise ramp up, there is really no good reason for me to like this film.  The main protagonist isn't very sympathetic, and makes one very dumb move that puts him back into danger towards the end (an alternate ending available on disc acknowledges this gaff).  The cat and mouse semantics of the film shouldn't work.  Hell the semantics of everything shouldn't work in this.  The killer manages to setup trap after deadly trap, elaborate things that would take a normal person hours to pull off, in mere minutes off screen.  Part of me wants to suspend my belief and say "well, we don't know how long it's been since the protagonist (Corkin) left the house that day and came back", but the movie points out the time crunch by making all the action take place in the same day.  The Collector's motivation isn't exactly clear either.  We can assume he collects things, people, stuff, but none of this really happens in the movie.  He kidnaps two people in total, not exactly "collector" status.  And it has some of that music video editing that I dread like chicken pox.

But besides all that nonsense I liked the movie and am guilty for it.  Guilty of bad taste.  Guilty of supporting trash.  Lock me up, throw away the key, I admit to it all...I liked The Collector and didn't care that it was brainless shock schlock.  I liked all the parallel images they drew between the Collector and spiders.  His insect reflective eyes and movements set him apart from other stalk and slashers, and the whole trapping bit is new.  It might not make much logical sense, but somehow it worked for me.  It wasn't exactly as suspenseful but I was morbidly interested, and continue to be.  I re-watched this last night and still thought I liked it, despite my brain telling me I shouldn't, I couldn't...no not me!  I've seen it about ten times since watching it in the theater, and I still like it.

I guess I'm just very interested in the bad guy.  I want to know what he's doing with these people, where his obsession comes from, what his collection actually looks like.  I enjoyed his creep spider-like prowl, his strange gait, his careful planning and execution...I want to see more...

So who's going with me to see THE COLLECTION when it rolls out?