An Informal Review of The Collector (2009)

It was overall passable. It works as a torture flick with not that much substance really. In terms of audio and visuals it's actually pretty cool with the exception of some editing choices but given it was made in '09 they just are what the horror genre was doing back then. I liked a lot of the lighting choices though.

Honestly the main problem is that it didn't really pick an identity for itself in terms of horror subgenre, it relied a lot on the torture elements which is why I'm calling it that but it also included elements of the slasher and home invasion genres. It could have really spread its wings more in terms of psychological aspects but whatever. The torture trap design was really intricate and cool but again, I don't understand why the villain would know how to or bother to do that because in the hook in the beginning of the movie the house wasn't trapped at all? Maybe it gets touched on in the later entries but honestly I think it would have been a stronger movie if they played the home entry angle more straight because the moments where he had to be more stealthy on the fly had a stronger feel to them. None of the characters except the main man we follow were really all that fleshed out which made the deaths in it honestly just make me laugh, which is impressive because I usually don't like overly gory productions but I guess I was in the mood for one tonight. Pleased to announce there was no injury at all to the kid in the movie although a cat and a dog both die. 

The torture trap design was really intricate and cool but again, I don't understand why the villain would know how to or bother to do that because in the hook in the beginning of the movie the house wasn't trapped at all? Maybe it gets touched on in the later entries but honestly I think it would have been a stronger movie if they played the home entry angle more straight because the moments where he had to be more stealthy on the fly had a stronger feel to them.

Insects are a prevalent theme in it which is clearly to help reinforce the collection theming of the movie but I wish that it would have kind of dripped us more info on it. It is the first in a series though so I'll cut them some slack in that regard because clearly the villain gets more info in later entries. And speaking of I actually really fuck with his design, his eyes are really weird and unsettling which ngl is probably my favorite part of the movie. There's also a really brief moment where he's humanized because he stops in the middle of killing someone to let a spider out which was interesting. 

The ending makes sense but it was also like, kind of lame honestly... There was also a moment in the beginning that I thought would come back later but didn't, and I don't know if They Forgot or if it was an intentional subversion.