The Collector

I’ve got a confession to make. I don’t usually do slasher movies. I never saw the point. I figured I’d either end up watching the bulk of the movie through the one-inch space between my index and middle fingers to avoid the sight of spilled innards or else yelling at some stupid bare-breasted teenager to run out the door and not up the stairs.

Still, the premise of The Collector intrigued me. In it, Josh Stewart stars as Arkin, an ex-convict handyman who needs to pull off one more big burglary job. The mother of his young daughter—it’s unclear if she’s his wife—has gotten herself into trouble with a loan shark, who has given her until midnight to pay back her considerable debts. So Arkin goes into action, casing the jewelry safe of the wealthy family for whom he’s been working at their remote, sprawling country home, and who are supposed to leave for vacation that afternoon. When he gets there with his bag of tools, Arkin hears the sounds of someone being tortured, making it clear that not only is the family still in the house, but they are in fact being held hostage by a deranged maniac.

The family consists of the usual cast of characters: the handsome but physically flimsy dad (Michael Reilly Burke), the vain mother clinging to her once-considerable beauty by shooting up Botox in the bathroom mirror (Andrea Roth), the rebellious teenager constantly courting statutory rape (Madeline Zima, all grown up from her days as the Sheffield family’s lispy little one on The Nanny), and the cute-as-a-button youngest daughter (Karley Scott Collins).

Then, of course, there’s the psycho (Juan Fernandez). In this case, he’s called The Collector because he chooses one member of each family he terrorizes to add to his “collection,” using them as bait for his future human mincemeat. The audience doesn’t learn much about him or his motives—only that he has access to tools of torment that range from razor blades and fishing wire to meat hooks and bear traps (not to mention complicated pulleys, kitchen knives, and one rabid dog). And, contrary to my usual expectations, that’s just fine.

Written by Marcus Dunstan and Patrick Melton, who co-wrote Saw IV, V, and VI, this film had me so far on the edge of my seat—and yes, watching from my one-inch viewfinder—that I forgot to care about character development. From the spine-chilling original music by Jerome Dillon to the dark, gritty cinematography by Brandon Cox, this film fires on all cylinders to get you cringing and squirming. Mercifully, it’s not all blood and guts, although there is certainly no shortage of that. Dunstan as director shrewdly chooses to leave some of the nastiest bits to the imagination. At one point, he shows The Collector holding a needle and thread to the mother’s mouth and then refocuses on Arkin’s eyes reacting to the blood-curdling screams as he breaks through a window to get the heck out of the house.

Actually, it’s one of the most interesting moments in the film from a character standpoint. At this point, Arkin has finally outsmarted the well prepared baddie, and is able to escape with enough gemstones in his pockets to save his own imperiled family. With his affable West Virginia drawl and Sean Penn (only less intense) good looks, Stewart plays the tortured anti-hero to a T. So when he makes the choice to run up the proverbial stairs, instead of out the proverbial door to save the family’s youngest daughter, Hannah, he manages not to invoke my desire to shout profuse profanities at the screen. It is this very choice that elevates The Collector from others in this genre that I can happily pass on.

I’ll admit that I had to suspend quite a lot of disbelief to get through the house of horrors that The Collector managed to set up for this family. How did he booby trap every single room in a matter of a few short hours? And why do these people always live so far away from police stations and nosy neighbors? But like many a good thrill ride, it’s best if you just lean into it.