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, taken the family hostage and rigged the house with a series of deadly traps.I've seen a lot of praise for this movie on several horror sites, but I thought it was really just a decent part torture porn, part home invasion film. There's a lot of gore but not that much creativity or anything to set it apart from other films of this nature. The collector does use some traps and such, but nothing nearly as creative or cool as anything from the Saw films, and in fact Home Alone probably has as much in the way of smart traps. For instance, he uses bear traps... but just lays them around the room.
Overall it feels like a Saw movie too, with the use of grainy, high contrast shots and lots of quick edits. This isn't a bad thing mind you, I'm just pointing it out. I like the feel of it and as I said before too, there's plenty of gore to go around.
Maybe the best thing going for it is that it original in a sense that it's not a remake like so much horror now. Here's a new villain we can cheer against and a new hero to cheer for, so there's much character development to be set-up, but most will have to be your imagination. We never really learn why the collector is doing what he does, other than just for he hell of it I guess, or how he accomplishes what he does (in such a short time). Our "hero" isn't much different, as there's a bit of background but way too many holes in his story to really put you in his corner. It's all sort of mindless, which I don't mind too much I guess. Seems like it could have been a lot more though with some fleshing out of the characters.
All-in-all it's a decent little horror flick, probably somewhat hurt by the over-hype and expectations.
6.5/10
