Its been my understanding that the past year or two for original horror has been quite poor, there has of course been the odd exception like the clever & cool Laid to Rest, but like I said horror has been pretty much on repeat. While remakes of Friday the 13th & the soon to be released remake of Nightmare on Elm Street still rank high in the box office it’s the more original lower budget flicks that really appeal to me. The film itself felt very much like a SAW movie to me but that’s because the same writer was involved in various SAW projects, regardless if you like the SAW franchise try not to be biased when it comes to The Collector because it’s a whole other box of tricks completely.The first half hour or so is a little slow but it serves to perfectly set up the story & provide an insight into the main character before the horror begins. When a contractor completes a job on a mansion in the country he gets less money than he expected. He needs the money to pay off the dangerous loan sharks that are hounding him & his family. From working on the house he knows that the family is away on vacation & where their valuables such as a jewellery are located, and so he breaks in to steal whatever he can use to keep the loan sharks at bay. The catch is that he has to get the job done by midnight or else the loan sharks will come looking for him. As he starts working on the families safe he starts to hear strange noises coming from below, he soon learns that the house is not as unoccupied as he was led to believe. What follows is a horrifically brilliant.
The plot is more or less centred around the main characters escape from the house but its not as easy as it sounds. The house is full of all kinds of traps that are both terrifying & ingenious, so its no surprise that there were talks of turning it into a SAW prequel . With a decent mixture of fantastically freaky visual effects & classic things going bump in the night The Collector succeeded in scaring me absolutely witless. Not only did it use the visual effects effectively it managed to blend in some amazing sound effects that really added to the sense or fear & urgency felt by the main character. There were all sorts of traps utilizing knives/razor blades even fishing hooks, all of these of course made me jump & occasionally wince. When the movie really does get going its tense & since the idea is to make you jump as you wonder what’s in the dark its no surprise that the house itself is almost completely shot in the dark. The darkness really adds to the horror & claustrophobic feeling of the main set-piece indeed it works so well that the house itself should be classed as a main character with a leading role in the film. don’t let the fact that its so closely connected to the SAW franchise put you off watching The Collector, if you are looking for a truly scary movie with a few good lashings of visual terror/gore then look no further as this movie delivers all of the above in bucket loads.
