Marcus Dunstan’s ‘THE COLLECTOR’ 15 Years Later – Slightly Dated, But Still Fun

The Collector, released in 2009, is one of my all-time favorite movies. I am thrilled and honored to get to write an article about it to celebrate its fifteenth (15!) anniversary. I don’t honestly remember its initial release, as it was during a period of my life when I didn’t watch a lot of movies. Bars and the nightlife dominated my free time back then (my early 20s), so even if it had a lot of buzz, I probably wouldn’t have known about it. When I did finally see it a few years later, once I realized it was cheaper to drink at home and rent a movie, I was awestruck and couldn’t believe I hadn’t heard more about it. 

Let’s look back…

Synopsis

Desperate to repay his debt to his ex-wife, an ex-con plots a heist at his new employer’s country home, unaware that a second criminal has also targeted the property, and rigged it with a series of deadly traps.

The Collector was directed by Marcus Dunstan, and written by Dunstan along with Patrick Melton. The pair have worked together on several movies in the Saw franchise, as well as all three movies in the Feast franchise. The influence of the Saw series here is undeniable. The Collector takes a different direction, however, since there is no “winning” in his sick game, although Josh Stewart’s Arkin believes he can find a way out. Starring alongside Stewart, Karley Scott Collins hangs tough as young Hannah Chase, helping Arkin turn the tables on The Collector, played by Juan Fernández. 

While all of the elaborate traps in The Collector make for an entertaining film, I can’t help but wonder about some aspects of it.

First, it would have to take an incredibly long time to set all of this up. I know The Collector has access to the home by working as a contractor, but I can’t imagine that he’s sneaking in all of these modifications during the building process without anyone noticing. And if he’s not doing it gradually over the course of the job, he’d need probably an absolute minimum of eight uninterrupted hours to set up his Rube Goldberg machine-style house of horrors. Then the victims need to somehow enter the house, without noticing all of the alterations.

And second, how does he remember where all the triggers for the various traps are? I would never be able to remember all of that. I am just not buying this as any sort of realistic scenario. But, to be totally honest, I don’t really care. I don’t love this movie for its realism, I love it because it’s fun to watch. 

And speaking of being fun to watch, The Collector has a very distinct early 2000s aesthetic. It’s something that I personally love, but the oversaturated colors and strange lighting do make the film feel pretty dated. Visually, it reminds me of music videos and MySpace profiles, and I love every strangely angled and oddly illuminated minute of it. But you don’t have to just take my word for it. You can check out another review here, then go watch it for yourself.

The Collector is available for rental or purchase from most digital media sites, and also streaming for free on Tubi and several other streaming platforms.