Review: 'The Collection' is a pointless gorefest

Film: The Collection
Director: Marcus Dunstan
Cast: Josh Stewart, Emma Fitzpatrick
Rating:*

From Marcus Dunstan whose blood-steeped screenplays include the abysmal later films of the Saw franchise comes a sequel to the 2009 hit The Collector.

A new addition to the 'torture porn' sub-genre of horror thrillers, the film is unflinching in its mission to depict stomach-turning sadism.

The plot is wafer-thin. After quite literally mowing down revellers in a nightclub, the villain (an entomologist in S&M getup) gets his leather mitts on the heroine Elena (Fitzpatrick).

Holed up in the hellish abandoned Hotel Argento (get the reference?), she must break free from the sick collector's rigged house.

The Collection would prove to be a useful aid for the desensitisation of individuals against gratuitous violence. Impalement is a recurring sight along with slashing, fractures and people being burnt alive.

Yet when all the gore is swept off, nothing much remains. There is barely enough tension in the hotel arising from encounters with the sadist and his deadly contraptions. Stewart, who returns from the previous film as criminal turned victim Arkin, leads a team of armed men into the house.

Expectations of  him bringing about bloody vengeance against his former tormentor are whetted in the beginning but the underwhelming writing that makes the film fall short of them. While Stewart is adequate, Fitzpatrick, who was seen last in The Social Network, is deserving of much better lead roles.

Don't watch The Collection unless you are seeking out a film that is low on story but high on body count.

Unfortunately for Dustan, no matter how inventive the killing of characters is, it can only take a thriller so far.