The Collection (2012)

The Collection (2012)

directed by:  Marcus Dunstan
starring:  Josh Stewart, Emma Fitzpatrick, Christopher McDonald, Lee Tergesen, Andre Royo, Randall Archer
Genre - Horror/Torture Porn
Tagline - "Every Great Collector Has A Vision"
Format - DVD (Rental)

    This film is on my list of worst sequels of all time.  I give this film one star solely on the basis of the actors in the film minus Randall Archer who never should have taken the place of Juan Fernandez whom I was elated to have guessed was behind the mask in The Collector, well I said the guy from Crocodile Dundee 2 but I recognized his creepy eyes right off the bat.  Neither actor playing this sinister villain really had much to do but stare and throw out some skin crawling mannerisms.  Why did I hate this show stopper of killer trap special effects and blood soaked gore?  First without reviewing The Collector here may I just say that I loved it because it had a believable story, characters you cared about, a couple of surprises, and over the top unbelievable gory trap effects.  This addition to the franchise just dropped the believable story and went straight for the jugular when it came to the torture/kill traps.  Starting out with a giant room full of ravers who get mowed down literally as if they were grass in a field.  It was at this point that I knew I would hate this film and yet it continued to outdo itself it that respect.

    Not only is it on my worst sequels list but worst sequels created by the same director/writer.  Marcus Dunstan just fell off his director's chair into a pile of radioactive dog poo is all I can think.  Much like Adam Green did with Hatchet 2 and Robert Hall did with Chromeskull:  Laid To Rest 2.  These guys wrote and/or directed one hell of a beginning and then just went bat shit crazy with the sequel something some seem to enjoy but not me, not at all.  Yes there are a number of non-reality stunts and death scenes in both The Collector and The Collection but to me that's it, do everything else reality based.  But no we have a girl trapped in a box who frees herself using a bra strap that just had me giggling like a school girl and ready to shut it off if it wasn't for my love of the gore.  Effects wise other than some bad CGI blood which I abhor and find no excuse valid for using.  My favorite part of the film is definitely the performance of Josh Stewart he nailed it just as he did in the last film.  The plot goes on from the first film with the Collector setting up a series of traps in a warehouse where he seems to have set up a home base of disgusting tapestries and aquariums full of human bodies displayed like art.  He lures a large number of young people to a fake rave there and kills all of them off until he's down to the last few.  Of course unknown to the Collector one of the survivors is a young girl (Fitzpatrick) with a very rich father (McDonald) who has hired a group of bounty hunters to kidnap the sole survivor of the first film in order to find his daughter and kill the Collector.  Well of course nothing goes as planned and people are killed off left and right.  Then we come to a number of previous survivors of his games including the final icing on the cake for my hatred of this film...a zombie type of drugged out creatures barely human.  This was it for me Dunstan obviously or the studio obviously jumped on the zombie bandwagon here throwing these things in just to draw in zombie/infected lovers like myself.  Well you didn't fool me.  I was so angry by the end of this film I had to cleanse my pallet by watching Mystery Science Theatre.