More horror porn

(Published in The Sunday Guardian, on December 16, 2012, retrieved from http://www.sunday-guardian.com/masala-art/more-horror-porn)

Cast: Josh Stewart, Emma Fitzpatrick, Randall Archer and others

Director: Marcus Dunstan

Rating: 1 star

Okay, so this is what you need to ask yourself: Do you really want to watch a movie written and directed by a man whose Wikipedia page says he “experimented with 16mm film, often using himself as the guinea pig in poorly executed stunts that left him dragging behind a car, the target of flying knives, and thrice being set on fire”? Duncan proudly promotes The Collection as a product of “the twisted writers of Saw IV, V, VI and VII”. His other achievements apparently include holding the record for “spilling the most fake blood ever in a student film”. Yay.

Honestly, there’s only so much gore you can give an audience. Thanks to the Saw series, the Final Destination series, and all the other low-budget horror porn Hollywood has churned out, we can watch, cringe, yawn and then munch on nachos as people scream. Spikes jutting into eyes? Bring it on. Interlocking gears to shred good folks? Bring it on. Mechanism that makes knives sluice through people on a dance floor? Bring it on.

So, how’s this one different from its genre-mates? I’m not sure, except that it has fewer teenagers. And it stars Josh Stewart, playing ex-con Arkin O’Brien, though he looks more like a suit from Wall Street than a gaolbird. He’s locked up in a trunk. That’s what the Collector does – put people in trunks. And, according to Wikipedia, that’s what he did in the first movie. But he does his killings on a larger scale now, and likes posh neighbourhoods.

This film is populated by people crazy enough to ask for their arms to be broken in order to open latches. And the movie’s about these people escaping from even crazier people. Having been fortunate enough to have missed the film to which this is a sequel, I had to Google The Collector. I can’t see how the filmmakers found funding for The Collection. Anyway, somewhat pathetically, the sequel takes the trouble to fill us in on what we’ve missed, which is: (a) Arkin’s an ex-con (b) The Collector is a cruel man (c) People will die (d) People will get tortured and locked up in trunks (e) Some people will live to tell the tale.

There’s some pseudoscience and pseudopsychology thrown into the mix, along with drugged out zombies, mutilated victims, volunteers – or not – for vivisections, and random limbs arranged to resemble insects.

The Verdict: Yet another old-ways-to-kill-new-people film, whose saving grace is that it closes the door on further sequels.