He'll Take Everyone: The Collection (2012)

The Collection (2012)

Rating: **1/2

Starring: Josh Stewart, Emma Fitzpatrick, Christopher McDonald

Now, don't get me wrong, I love a good sequel to a great movie as much as the next guy does but, good God, this is a far cry from the 2009 home invasion slasher I learned to love.

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The man behind the leather mask
is back for more!

Some time after the first movie, Arkins, the lead thief with a heart of gold last seen captured by the Collector, spots an opportunity to leg it while various traps set inside a hidden warehouse rave murders and mutilates every partying teens inside.

Every. Partying. Teen.

Except one, a girl with a hearing disability named Elena who gets captured and collected by the Collector.

After this gruesomely gory yet meaningless bloodbath, Arkins is later hired (blackmailed to be more exact) by Elena's wealthy father to get his daughter back, hoping the thief who already knows a thing or two about the masked freak can guide a group of mercenaries into raiding the Collector's lair. As you would expect from a maniac with a penchant for traps, the Collector's humble abode is rigged with enough traps to slice, squish and shred anyone who dares to enter and it isn't long before one by one, the mercs dwindle down in number. 

All the while, Elena tries her best to find a way to survive and escape her captor, navigating through rooms full of flesh trophies and Stockholm-stricken collected victims without losing a limb or two.

While The Collector (2009) was an intense home invasion slasher relying on stylish visuals, atmosphere and some moderate gore to make up with its lack of strong plotting, The Collection (2012) dwells into horror-action category featuring first person shooter-inspired narratives that dropped the overly dark and moody tone of the first and replaced it with a copious amount of gore and action set-pieces. In fact, it hardly even counts as a slasher since its direction leans more as an Aliens (1986) inspired survival/siege film, wherein people are put up against a menace with as much shoot-em-up action sequences as possible, incidentally meaning that there will be other baddies for the group to fight such as zombie-like drugged maniacs and attack dogs.

Four mercenaries against a man
who single-handedly murdered hundred.
Not a good equation. 

Even the Collector himself was changed to fit this high octane approach, going from a methodical and sadistic masked slasher with an ambiguous motive on why he's "collecting" people in the first film, to more of a video game boss surrounded by big guns, big traps and an overly villainous reason behind his slayings. He's basically a walking cliché of shoot-em-up bad guys here, which isn't made better when the cast of would-be victims he is surrounded with (even Arkins, who done a lot in the first film to earn a status of an anti-hero) are hardly likable or that developed, practically making them paper thin meat scheduled to be killed off in after every five to ten minutes. 

Now, it ain't all that bad, I admit; if we're gonna talk about gore and only gore, The Collection might fare you well seeing the stuff is all over the place. Literally. If you like shooter games or fast-paced action/horror like that over-burned Resident Evil movie franchise, then this might fare you well, too. This is the kind of movie that exists solely to be braindead fun and if you're in the mood for savage blood splashes, hot lead pumping and brawl outs between hired mercs and masked slashers then this cheesed-up action/horror splatter-thon is definitely for you. But if you're hoping to see a genuinely and intense scary slasher flick, I'm sure there are other titles out there fit to fill your visceral need for scares and chills because this definitely isn't one of them. 

I guess you could say I'm glad I was able to see The Collection (2012), but this is going to be one of those movies that I'll occasionally watch if there's nothing else good to sit through. 

Bodycount:
2 females and 1 male shredded down by rotating spikes

233 victims shredded down by rotating spikes
1 male sliced by rigged sword
1 female sliced by rigged sword

1 female crushed to death by a lowering ceiling

16 victims crushed to death by a lowering ceiling
6 victims found murdered
1 female found with throat cut

1 male found dead inside a crate
1 female seen disemboweled

1 male stabbed to death with dagger

1 female shot on the head

1 female shot
6 individuals shot dead
1 female gets a pen knife stabbed into her mouth
1 male had his head decimated by bomb
1 male impaled on spikes
1 female had her throat cut with dagger
1 male gets a hook to the jaw
1 female crushed inside a spiked iron maiden
1 dog stabbed on the throat with a pen knife, shot dead
1 female stabbed on the back with daggers
1 dog decapitated
1 male repeatedly stabbed with dagger
Total: 283*
(*Note counting the number of bodies seen either littered or displayed as flesh sculptures in the Collector's lair.)