DOCtoberFest 2014 Day 21: “The Collection” (2013)

Remember when you were in 10th grade? Invariably, there was always this one kid who was really deep into heavy metal and would draw band logos all over his Pee-Chee folder. And then in art class, study hall or lunch, he’d bust out his pens and draw all these gnarly, twisted death traps (usually with girl classmates and teachers as victims).

OK. Got that guy in mind? Good.

Now imagine his dad works in Hollywood. Director, writer, producer, it doesn’t matter. He’s in a rush to a meeting and doesn’t notice his kid’s doodles shuffled under his work papers, and when he’s about to make a pitch to the Hollywood Powers That Be, his kid’s doodles slip out onto the conference table. Before Hollywood guy can explain, The Powers That Be grab them, look them over and say “Perfect! Let’s go with it! There’s no plot, no story, no logic and nothing even remotely redeeming about this. Let’s fast-track this bad boy!”

And that’s likely the untold story on how “The Collection” (2013) got made.


This “movie” (a loose term, at best) is really nothing more than a series of preposterous death traps — seemingly from the imagination of an emotionally stunted 15-year-old headbanger — stitched together with all the writing skill of an emotionally stunted 15-year-old headbanger. Someone please tell me how a middle-aged psychopathic entomologist has the wherewithal to secretly rig a dance club into an elaborate Rube Goldberg-esque death machine consisting of 3,000 feet of tripwires, hydraulic “crush rooms,” wall-mounted switchblades the size of katanas, automated locking doors, and a 60-foot-wide, ceiling-mounted, steam-powered retractable thresher that turns a dance floor into three tons of chum?

"Huh huh huh. That's cool."

Doesn’t matter.

How about a guy who escapes the psycho entomologist’s Death Machine Dance Club, breaks his arm jumping out a window, is rushed to the hospital, gets his arm set and put into a plaster cast (along with x-rays, I’m sure), gets his myriad other injuries patched up, is bathed/cleaned up by hospital staff, is arrested and his hospital room is under police protection, receives a Get Well card and vase of roses from the killer entomologist, orders his visiting wife to hide out at her mom’s house, then is visited by a black-ops squad who enlist him to track down this psycho entomologist who kidnapped Shooter McGavin’s daughter at the Death Machine Dance Club. Sounds like a busy week, right? No, this apparently happens in ONE EVENING.

Why do I think this? Because we see the kidnapped girl still locked in the trunk she was stuffed in at the Death Machine Dance Club, showing no signs of being in the trunk for any longer than a few hours. No exhaustion, no bloodied hands from trying to escape, no pee pee or doo doo in the trunk.

Doesn’t matter.

From there we get to the psycho entomologist’s hideout — a gigantic, abandoned hotel still with power and water, apparently right there in the city limits — and then we get another hour of death traps, torture porn, attack dogs, drugged-up-victims-turned-attack-zombies, insanely large plot holes, and incredulous, logic-defying situations. This had all the subtlety, acting chops and clever narrative of a carnival House of Horrors ride. I checked out long before the end of Beavis’ wet dream. This “movie” is a death trap for the audience.

I’m giving this a Flying F. I’m not even going to tell you where to find it.


  1. KeithG says:

    For once I’d like to see people pass up the unassuming death house. Then the mastermind says, ” but I spent so much time on the elaborate traps!”

    Have you seen kolobus?

  2. Our Man Horn says:

    I haven’t seen “Kolobus”… yet. But I’ll put it on my shopping list! The death trap thing is getting pretty worn out, amiriteorwhut?

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