So my computer is fixed. Sort of. My hiatus has been a combination of an obsolete computer, training for South Brunswick, and not sitting in front of a screen for 9 straight hours at TCNJ on a daily basis with a desperate need to pass the time. I've seen a bunch of movies between now and my last entry, though!
Training at South Brunswick was simultaneously horrifying and exciting. On the one hand, there are so many people to know, so many policies to remember, and so many things to keep in mind that I am finally realizing why everyone makes that first year of teaching out to be, as the ever-comforting principal of Bridgewater High School called it, "A bloodbath." Conversely, however, watching the administrators and teachers model potential teaching strategies for us while giving presentations about the school got me excited to get back into the classroom. Part of me wants summer to be extended another month and another part of me wants to start planning and get in there now.
I can't seem to find a single version of today's song's video on YouTube that can be embedded, but I encourage you to find the video on there if you're bored. For the sake of time here I will just be posting a regular old still-shot that someone graciously put up so that I can deliver the video to you here today. Honestly, record labels: how does disabling embedding save you any money? This band has virtually disappeared, this song is, like, 6 years old, and if anyone wants to listen to it he or she can just go to YouTube anyway. Here's An Honest Mistake by The Bravery:
#24: The Collector
I think one of the smartest moves movie trailers make is using the phrase "Critics are calling it the..." That way, when I'm sitting on my computer or organizing my records and have the television on in the background my interest is piqued. So when the trailer for this movie professed that critics are saying that this movie is giving our generation a new horror movie icon and my eyes weren't on the screen, I hadn't considered that the critic that made that claim was from some no-name horror movie website in the same vain as Fangoria that isn't especially judicious when it comes to uber-violent slasher films.
I believe I've said this in an earlier entry and I need to reiterate it now to establish context for this review: there is no such thing as a good horror movie. 99% of horror movies consist of bad actors, awful writing, and distractingly farfetched scenarios. The Collector, unsurprisingly, is no exception. It should have been a red flag for me when two weeks after its release I discovered that only one large movie theater in my area was playing it. Add this to my list of mistakes in my approach to this movie.
To its credit, it's from the makers of Saw--a series I am not particularly fond of but which I can acknowledge for inventive deaths that if nothing else arouse interest in a "What is going to happen next?!" sort of way. The Collector similarly succeeded in presenting some nauseating, cringe-worthy scenes where your visceral reaction trumps the obvious issue of how this man acquired and set up some 18 bear traps in a room by himself... Oops! Spoiler!
But so many of the brutal kills here absolutely could not overcome the issue of the innumerable discontinuities. When exactly did this man set up all these boobie traps? How did the person who broke into the house without any awareness of the presence of the collector not encounter any traps when he first entered the house? How were a handful of exposed standard nails able to support the weight of a human being suspended on a wall? These questions didn't just go unanswered; they have no answers. They're rhetorical. They were all the shortcomings of a paper-thin plot.
And I hate to allude to any possible spoilers, but it would be almost laughable if I found out that the creators of this movie hoped for the revealing of the collector's identity to be any sort of shocking moment. Early in the movie there was that ominous man that looked at the camera just a few seconds too long not to be anyone of note, and even though it didn't even matter who the collector was this would have had to be your first horror movie ever not to recognize such a hackneyed cliche within the genre.
But by far the most absurd part of this movie lies in the unique opening credits--and I don't mean unique in a good way. The shadowy shots of gruesome jars and the musky corners of an ill-kept lab punctuated by shots of the collector shrouded in darkness set to out-of-place industrial song put the audience smack in the middle of what seemed to be a Prodigy video--and for all I know it could have actually been. I don't know if it was trying to pull off something different or if the director's little brother was in a struggling goth band but I sat there with my 0_0 face in awe at what was clearly meant to be intense but what was actually ridiculous. It was actually kind of funny, in retrospect. Maybe I should give kudos for it?
If your id is looking for some sick satiation and won't be offended by soap-opera-quality dialogue and second rate acting then you'll have to see The Collector when (if) it comes out on DVD. As for me, I'm still on my quest for a member of the few, the proud, the actually good horror movies.
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