Movies
Weekend Box Office
Film Awards & Top 10s By Year
All-Time High Scores
All-Time Low Scores
Wide Releases
Now In Theaters
76
(500) Days of Summer
49
2012
60
9
17
All About Steve
37
Amelia
53
Astro Boy
70
Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans
52
Blind Side
47
Box, The
61
Capitalism: A Love Story
55
Christmas Carol, A
43
Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant
66
Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs
23
Couples Retreat
39
Fame
30
Final Destination, The
34
Fourth Kind, The
41
G-Force
46
Halloween II
73
Hangover, The
78
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
66
Informant!, The
69
Inglourious Basterds
58
Invention of Lying, The
47
Jennifer's Body
66
Julie & Julia
34
Law Abiding Citizen
54
Men Who Stare At Goats, The
67
Michael Jackson's This Is It
28
Pandorum
58
Pirate Radio
39
Planet 51
30
Saw VI
53
Shorts
33
Stepfather, The
45
Surrogates
46
Twilight Saga: New Moon, The
71
Where the Wild Things Are
67
Whip It
28
Whiteout
73
Zombieland
Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
Limited Releases
Now In Theaters
58
(Untitled)
96
35 Shots of Rum![]()
56
Adam
39
Adventures of Power
66
Afterschool
73
Amreeka
49
Antichrist
76
Baader Meinhof Complex, The
86
Beaches of Agnes, The![]()
71
Big Fan
65
Black Dynamite
76
Bliss
26
Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day, The
44
Brief Interviews with Hideous Men
81
Bright Star![]()
76
Broken Embraces
70
Bronson
62
Cloud 9
65
Coco Before Chanel
69
Cold Souls
60
Collapse
82
Cove, The![]()
75
Crude
82
Damned United, The![]()
53
Dare
50
Defamation
67
Departures
70
Earth Days
85
Education, An![]()
55
Endgame
88
Fantastic Mr. Fox![]()
31
Fix
49
Food Beware: The French Organic Revolution
80
Food, Inc.
xx
From Mexico with Love
28
Gentlemen Broncos
72
Good Hair
89
Goodbye Solo![]()
63
Horse Boy, The
74
House of the Devil, The
xx
How to Seduce Difficult Women
26
I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell
70
It Might Get Loud
46
Killing Kasztner
43
Little Traitor, The
34
Looking for Palladin
80
Lorna's Silence
46
Love Hurts
84
Maid, The![]()
45
Mammoth
75
Messenger, The
55
Missing Person, The
59
More Than a Game
34
Motherhood
62
My One and Only
48
New York, I Love You
66
No Impact Man
26
Oh My God
68
Paranormal Activity
68
Paris
79
Precious: Based on the Novel by Sapphire
73
Red Cliff
69
September Issue, The
79
Serious Man, A
65
Skin
41
Splinterheads
42
Staten Island
50
Stoning of Soraya M., The
58
Storm
82
Sun, The![]()
49
Ten9Eight: Shoot for the Moon
73
That Evening Sun
61
Trucker
49
Turning Green
83
U2 3D![]()
45
Uncertainty
67
Visual Acoustics
32
War on Kids
67
Way We Get By, The
65
Wedding Song, The
xx
White on Rice
59
William Kunstler: Disturbing the Universe
74
Woman in Berlin, A
43
Women in Trouble
69
Yoo-Hoo, Mrs. Goldberg
Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
Collector, The

Generally unfavorable reviews
Based on 11 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 9 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie >
Movie Info
Genre(s): Crime | Horror | Suspense/Thriller
Written by:
Marcus Dunstan
Patrick Melton
Directed by: Marcus Dunstan
Release Date:
Theatrical: July 31, 2009
Running Time: 88 minutes, Color
Origin: USA
Summary
RATING: R for pervasive sadistic bloody violence, language and some sexuality/nudity
Starring Josh Stewart, Karley Scott Collins, Juan Fernandez, Jabari Thomas, Colvin Roberson, and Michael Reilly Burke
For handyman and ex-con Arkin, a quiet home and a family on vacation is an “opportunity”. For inside the house lies a jeweler’s safe, and inside the safe is a gem – his only hope for repaying a debt to his ex-wife and keeping what’s left of his family intact. Unfortunately for Arkin, inside the house is also a box containing the latest addition to a collection catalogued in blood, bone and tears. As the seconds tick down to midnight, Arkin becomes a reluctant hero trapped by a masked “Collector” in a maze of lethal invention. (Freestyle Releasing)
Also On The Web: Internet Movie Database Official Studio Site
What The Critics Said
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
Variety John Anderson
With both feet planted firmly on the sticky accelerator of the torture-porn vehicle, The Collector is a surprisingly stylish and confident high-concept thriller.
Read Full Review >Los Angeles Times Michael Ordona
Either you go for this sort of extreme, senseless gore or you don't. With its plot and lead performance, The Collector is, at least, an unusual specimen.
Read Full Review >LA Weekly Chuck Wilson
Making his directorial debut, Dunstan displays a knack for building suspense. And yet, weirdly, amidst all the requisite blood spray, one senses a reluctance on the filmmaker’s part to linger lovingly over the pierced skins and protruding entrails of the killer’s various victims.
Read Full Review >Film Threat Stina Chyn
The Collector’s destructive behavior enters the realm of the ridiculous before it ever touches the land of evil-badassness.
Read Full Review >The Onion (A.V. Club) Scott Tobias
For his directorial debut, The Collector, Dunstan streamlines the "Saw" concept slightly by silencing the killer and focusing more intently on a house that’s been converted into a jury-rigged deathtrap.
Read Full Review >Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov
The Collector feels like the final, welcome nail in the bizarrely popular torture-porn coffin.
Read Full Review >Chicago Reader Staff (Not credited)
As the seconds tick down to midnight, Arkin becomes a reluctant hero trapped by a masked Collector in a maze of lethal invention--the Spanish Inquisition as imagined by Rube Goldberg--while trying to rescue the very family he came to rob.
Read Full Review >Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman
The result is a sub-"Saw" knockoff that manages to be brutal yet monotonous, not to mention monstrously unpleasant.
Read Full Review >The Hollywood Reporter Michael Rechtshaffen
In the absence of a sturdy, plausible foundation on which to hook all those grisly bits, the film, originally a Dimension release, tends to play out more like a protracted "Saw" outtake reel.
Read Full Review >The New York Times Jeannette Catsoulis
Offers agony in a vacuum, a villain without a motive and a hero with more personal problems than lines of dialogue.
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 4.8 (out of 10) based on 9 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
Trey W. gave it an8:
Awesome movie, With a small plot but still really good plot none the less and lots of gore. I would say this was one movie I really enjoyed. People who are rating it so low I do not know what your smoking or what kind of horror movie you think is good... please do not tell me you like the ring.
Iloz Z gave it a4:
The dilemma facing Arkin, to save both families or his own skin, is something not often seen in horror movie fare. It provides a catalyst for audience involvement that goes beyond vicarious body-count watching. When the Collector goes after the little girl, forcing Arkin to make difficult choices between physical safety and his conscience, it made me root for this home team to hit a home run. But all Dunstan and Melton can do is get stranded at first base. They dote on the bloody-hell messy parts of the movie, replacing most of the suspense with typical--for a psycho-butcher-torturer movie--outcomes. Closeup views of lip sewing, chisel to teeth, shears poised to snip a pliers-held tongue, carving a roast without the roast, and, really, just about every dire torture-gore situation and its outcome we now anticipate due to their overuse is here in lavish closeup. It is stylish, it is done well, but it has all been done before.
Chris gave it a0:
I once strapped a camera to my dog's back to see what a canine does in a twenty four hour time frame. As it turns out, my German Shepard is a far better writer than Mark Dunstan (the guy who created this sh*tty film). The Collector aka "How Not to Make a Movie" is by far the worst film of all time.
Upton K gave it an8:
For torture porn, this was fairly gripping. I left the theatre assaulted and a bit puzzled. There are a lot of unanswered questions, but realism is not something one expects while viewing a movie about an omnipotent killer who can out think their prey at every twist and turn. Very little of the plot makes sense. However, your eyes, ears and sense of the appropriate are so overwhelmed by the sound and editing technique employed - you don't have time to ponder much. It's on the ride home that you begin to ask yourself... what about...? And why did he.....? And how did they…? And by that point it's a little late. This is by no means a classic, but it sure killed an hour and a half of my life at lightening speed. As for this being an homage to Hitchcock? Really? I don't think so, bud. In what reality?
paul s gave it a3:
Boring, not a good movie at all.
Brad C gave it a9:
Grabs you by the throat and squeezes.
Robert S. gave it a10:
Scary, sick, awesome!!!
