He'll Take Everyone: The Collection (2012)

The Collection (2012)

rating: **1/2

starring: Josh Stewart, Emma Fitzpatrick, Christopher McDonald

Ugh, do they really have to do it this way? I mean, don't get me wrong, I love a good sequel to a great movie as much as the next guy does (unless said guy is also skeptical like me. He'll probably the brother I never had...), but, oh God, this isn't The Collector I learned to love.

The man behind the leather mask
is back for more!

Some time after the events of the first movie, this sequel follows our lead (both in this movie and piror) Arkins finally escaping his captor after a trap set inside a hidden warehouse rave began to murder and mutilate every partying teens inside. I mean, everyone. Strangely, I've been put off by this, ten minutes or so into the movie and this enormous bodycount slaps me on the face by giving me enough CGI grue to please a hundred gorehounds sitting in a room. I know I love gore, but this was just death porn, deaths without style, flair or taste. The previous movie have suspense. This? Well, I didn't recognized my true fear until the part when Arkins was hired (blackmailed to me more exact) by a kidnapped daughter's father, to guide his group of mercenaries into raiding the Collector's lair. So armed to the teeth, these punks broke inside our killer's domain, obviously rigged with enough traps to slice, squish and shred anyone who dares to, without a plan of all things, and one by one, they either get killed off in a trap, by the Collector himself, or by a trap operated by the Collector.

Meanwhile, Elena, The Collector's current addition to his lethal hobby, tries her best to find a way to survive and escape her captor. After having some close calls herself, she soon met up with our team, and altogether try to live through the night without losing a limb or two.

After all that anticipation, I was left there disappointed at how much this franchise had stepped down just to entertain us. While The Collector was a tension filled home invasion slasher relying on stylish visuals, atmosphere and some moderate gore to make up with its lack of strong plotting, The Collection dwells into horror-action category, featuring first person shooter inspired narrative that dropped the overly dark and moody tone of the first and replaced it with some shallow gore and action scenes. In fact, does this even count as a slasher? I think I'm beginning to see how some people doesn't consider the sequel to Alexandre Aja's The Hill have Eyes remake as a slasher, as it's lost all the proper patterning in terms of stalk and killing, making this film a similar case, as it heavily borrows an Aliens inspired survival/seige film where people are put up against a menace with as much shoot-em-up action sequence as possible. Ironically, this means inclusion of other baddies for the group to fight off, such as zombie-like drugged maniacs and attack dogs.

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

Sadly, even the Collector himself here also fell victim to this; if he's a methodic, sadistic masked slasher in the first, in here he's just another bad guy with big guns, big traps and obsessed with killing with a reason. His ambiguous motive of the first to why he's "collecting" people makes him scary; now, we found out he's murdering people so he can make a giant pickled bug collection made out of human parts, cuz he turns out to be a deranged son of an entomologist, bug scientist or something. Great, we now know why he does it, so now what? Are we supposed to share his interest for insects? No, that just made him a very cliched bad guy.

But worst of it all, and I'll keep this simple, is that not one of the cast, not even Arkins, who we all learned to root for in the first, is likable or that developed. For reals. They're paper thin meat scheduled to be killed off in after every five to ten minutes. Nuff' said.

Now, it ain't all that bad, I admit, but I can't shake off the feeling The Collection could had done better than it could had. All I see here is one action/horror cliches ticked off the box one by one, with the traps here delivering the promised gore, sadly exploited and became SAW trap clones that just kills and kills. You could try and persuade me to switch off or try to enjoy the movie on its own, but I can't. So much of the movie  is a sequel that relies on continuity from the previous flick and when I do try to enjoy it as a not-to-be-taken-seriously kind of horror flick, I could do that but that'll just make this movie as average as any gore flick that I enjoyed previously, thus kinda beats the purpose of a sequel.

So if we're gonna talk about gore, and only gore, The Collection might fare you well. If you like shooter games or fast-paced action/horror like that overburned Resident Evil franchise, then this might fare you well, too. Hoping to see a well directed, semi-original take on a familiar horror sub-genre structure? Um, you could try this one and see maybe I'm just being bias, but personally, no. I'm sure there's some other horror title out there with a brain, but this definitely isn't one of them. Been anticipating for this sequel? Go ahead and treat yourself, you kinda earned it and I could at least give the movie that much  of a support. Me? I'll just say I'm glad I was able to see it, but not gonna be all giddy when the DVD are up for grabs.

Bodycount:
1 male shredded through rotating spikes

1 female shredded through rotating spikes
1 female shredded through rotating spikes
A number of victims shredded through rotating spikes
1 male sliced in half by sword
1 female sliced in half by sword
1 female crushed to death by lowering ceiling
A number of victims crushed
1 female found with throat cut
1 male found dead
1 female seen disemboweled
1 male stabbed to death with dagger
1 male shot
1 female shot
4 males and 1 female shot dead
1 female gets a flashlight shoved into her mouth
1 male decimated by bomb
1 male impaled on spikes
1 female throat cut with dagger
1 male hook to the jaw
1 female crushed inside a spiked iron maiden
1 female dagger to the back
1 male repeatedly stabbed with dagger
total: 25+