Collected!

Another day, another horror movie. In some ways, nicely done, in other ways very derivative. (This came out a year ago in the States!)

The setup, which I don't recall being used before (but could be wrong), is that robber goes into a house in which a vicious killer has already entered. Although you'll be forgiven for not realising this when watching the movie as it takes a while to get to that, and spends a fair bit of time (in comparison with the audience wanting to get on with it) setting everything and establishing motivation for the "hero".

But eventually we get to it, with lots of dark nastiness. (I was amused by the cat, but then I was obviously seeing a creature effect.) I have to say that it ended pretty much how I expected, and there are many set-ups that make you go "there's no way he could have had time to set that up", but beyond that it is quite enjoyable (for the genre). Nice atmosphere in places. (And I wouldn't be surprised to find that the actor playing the killer wore contacts.)

Josh Stewart is the "hero" of the piece (the guy is there to rob, come on, how heroic is that?), but it looks like he's on the verge of falling asleep. While we have the family we are supposed to care about (pah!), Juan Fernandez does a better job as the Collector. Not that we get his emotional backstory (oh the sequels they could pump out investigating that), but there is a real sense of menace about him.

A different setup but not that far from other horror/slasher pics.

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