He, Like, Collects Things

Title:  The Collector

Actors/Director/Anything Worth Mentioning Right Away:  No, I have no idea who any of the actors in this movie are or have ever been.

Introduction:   I pulled this off of the library shelf and it said it had something to do with Saw IV, V and VI.  I figured I’d give it a shot.   Turns out the director/co-writer directed those Saw movies, but then also worked on the Feast trilogy with another director, a team which will reunite for Piranha 3DD.   You can now judge when this review was posted because I’m going to tell you that Piranha 3DD is due out some time next year.

Location:  Primarily in the same house, but they do go to a few other places.

Plot:  I don’t really want to ruin the plot for anyone who hasn’t seen this one, but let me just say the two following things (which go together)   First off, this is what has become somewhat standard of a torture flick.   If you’re really into the Saw series (the whole series) then you’ll probably enjoy this storyline.   Second, it should be noted that this was originally pitched (but shot down) as being a prequel to the Saw series.   If that doesn’t give you a good idea of what this is like (and help you make comparisons between The Collector and Jigsaw) then I don’t know what else to tell you.

Acting:   The main actor (who is a loser that needs money) is a wannabe Sean Penn only, you know, without the skill.   The other actors and such in this film are easily forgettable, aside from The Collector himself.

Production:  While this may or may not have been in theaters, it looks like it could have been.   But you know what’s better than that?   This freaking soundtrack, man.   We have the Combichrist song “Shut Up and Bleed”, as well as one of the best song titles ever in “Bela Lugosi’s Dead” (by Bauhaus, duh).    To close it out, this movie ends on Nico Vega’s “Beast”.   Yes, sometimes soundtracks are way better than the actual movies (The Crow 2, Tron Legacy) but this is a case where… Okay, the soundtrack is way better but the movie itself still isn’t that bad.

Sex/Nudity:  Yeah, not so much.

Special Effects:   For what they have, with dismembered limbs and what not, they look good.

Overall Verdict:   This movie got me thinking, which is a good thing, but it got me thinking about movies in general, which might not be so good specifically for this movie.    When I was a kid, the first ever movie I saw in the Rocky series was Rocky V.   While that has been panned by critics as the worst in the entire series (And at this point in time I don’t disagree with them) it was still the first one that I saw, which exposed me to the rest of them.   The thing is, certain movies, if you told me they had a sequel I could say, “Yeah, I don’t need to see that” because most times the sequel (or consequent series of movies to follow) isn’t always better than the first one.   So if I didn’t really enjoy the first, then I’m probably going to sleep through ones to follow.   However, this theory does have holes in it because Cabin Fever was an awesome movie but the sequel sucked, but let’s blame that on the studio and overall lack of Eli Roth, shall we?   So there are exceptions to this sort of rule, but what I’m trying to say is that whether or not a movie is good or bad, you can judge it sometimes based on a sequel.   When I learned that this movie was going to be getting a sequel- The Collection- my initial reaction was “Yeah, I’d watch that”, which is a reflection upon this movie itself if I’ve ever seen one.    Because while Rocky V was so bad that nearly twenty years later Sylvester “Rocky Balboa himself” Stallone would go out of his way to write another chapter, I’ll always have fond memories of seeing Rocky and Tommy Gunn street fight on TNT, usually around Thanksgiving.