SYNOPSIS: When Elena's (Emma Fitzpatrick) friends take her to a secret party at an undisclosed location, she never imagined she would become the latest victim of The Collector, a psychopathic killer. The Collector kidnaps and transports her to an abandoned hotel he's transformed into his own private maze of torture and death. Upon learning of his daughter's disappearance, Elena's wealthy father (Christopher McDonald) hires a group of mercenaries to retrieve her from the vicious grips of The Collector. These mercenaries coerce Arkin (Josh Stewart), the only man to have escaped the wrath of this heinous monster, to lead them through the gruesome labyrinth. Now, Arkin finds himself fighting for his own life in order to save Elena. "The Collection," directed by Marcus Dunstan and written by Dunstan and Patrick Melton, is a suspense horror film with nonstop thrills at every turn, starring Josh Stewart (The Dark Knight Rises), Emma Fitzpatrick (The Social Network), and Christopher McDonald (Requiem for a Dream).

REVIEW: Gruesome as gruesome can possibly get! That’s what this follow up to the largely forgotten 2009 horror flick, The Collector film, is. If you have seen the original one [The Collector] and liked it, then I would take a wild guess that you would probably love this one; However if you haven’t seen it, then you would probably have to be in to “slasher-flicks” to appreciate the goriness of this installment. After reading about the original, it seems as though scriptwriters, Patrick Melton and Director Marcus Dunstan have teamed up once again and taken all that was loved about the predecessor and amplified it to bring us this latest “slash-fest.” In line with others in the same genre such as Saw and The Hills have Eyes, this horrifying bloodbath of a movie will cause the strongest of hearts to cringe. It seemed as though the movie started off on a bloody thrill-ride and never let up for more than about two minutes at best, clocking in at a swift 82 minutes.

Unfortunately, I didn’t really enjoy this latest installment because it seemed as though genuine scare tactics and nail-biting tension have been sacrificed for all-out squirm-inducing endurance tests… these are types of torture sequences that seemed to be designed to assess the perseverance and stomachs of the audience. I’m talking about scenes that you might tell a friend about, after the movie, and then dare them to sit through the same scenes. 

Nevertheless, ‘The Collection’ doesn’t seem to be a bad sequel, and it certainly attempts to impress with its elaborate set-ups and traps, however, there comes a point in the movie, to which one will probably ask: can we not get past the Saw-like scenes of booby-trapped doors and the dirty, harshly-lit hallways shot with grimy and grisly death sequences? That is, unless you are a die-hard ‘slasher-flick’ fan and can’t get enough of the subgenre. Nevertheless, this adrenaline-fueled approach to a serial killer’s traps and overly calculated mass-slaughter scenes, provided for some effective horror for the genre’s followers.

While much of the movie feels over-the-top and extreme in every way possible, I feel that Melton and Dunstan succeeded in satisfying the ‘slash-fest’ subgenre coming off of the last of the Saw series. They certainly achieved what would be expected of a follow up to The Collector film. For effort, it deserves a simple three out of five stars.

Review By Movie-Man Stan 

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