The Collector

The four words that best describe The Collector are: Don't waste your money! As is the going trend in horror films of late, The Collector starring Josh Stewart (the name you may not recognize but the face belongs to former police Det. William LaMontange, reluctant husband of FBI Agent JJ Jareau on CBS's Criminal Minds), gives very little attention to character development and plot and more attention than could accurately be seen as necessary to gore for gore's sake.

Yes, loyal readers, I understand there are people in this world who enjoy these directionless gorey displays of human entrails and torn flesh. I don't understand WHY these people enjoy these movies but I do understand they are out there.

The premise of the story was a decent one. Arkin (Stewart) is an ex-con (a character flaw you'll miss if you go for popcorn at the wrong moment; it's only mentioned once and in passing) whose ex-wife (a detail I only learned from reading the synopsis on the IMDb....see what I mean about poor character development? There's more information about the MC in the synopsis than the actual movie)... Arkin is an ex-con whose ex-wife needs an indeterminate amount of money to repay a loan shark so Arkin decides to rob his jeweler boss's house while the jeweler and his family are away on vacation. Unfortunately, someone else beat Arkin to the punch and littered the house with traps.

That was all I knew about the movie going into it. Sounds tame enough, right? Wrong. Shortly after Arkin breaks into the home we learn that not only are the traps rigged to kill but the trapper would rather do it himself...as slowly and painfully as he possibly can. Any unsuspecting victim would prefer the traps to the alternative. Wait, didn't I see this movie when it was called.....every other spatter-gore movie about a deranged sociopath?

Seriously, kids, if we keep watching spatter-gore pictures, they'll keep making them. If we keep watching them, there is nothing to force horror movie writers to try using their own imaginations. Don't waste your money on The Collector. Skip it. It's not worth it. Go see ....frankly anything currently playing has to be better than this. I would even advocate seeing G-Force before recommending anyone giving money to the unoriginal lunatics who created The Collector.