29
Metascore
11 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com
- 70VarietyVarietyWith both feet planted firmly on the sticky accelerator of the torture-porn vehicle, The Collector is a surprisingly stylish and confident high-concept thriller.
- 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.
- 50L.A. WeeklyChuck WilsonL.A. WeeklyChuck WilsonMaking 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.
- 42The A.V. ClubScott TobiasThe A.V. ClubScott TobiasFor 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.
- 30Austin ChronicleMarc SavlovAustin ChronicleMarc SavlovThe Collector feels like the final, welcome nail in the bizarrely popular torture-porn coffin.
- 30Chicago ReaderChicago ReaderAs 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.
- 25Entertainment WeeklyOwen GleibermanEntertainment WeeklyOwen GleibermanThe result is a sub-"Saw" knockoff that manages to be brutal yet monotonous, not to mention monstrously unpleasant.
- 20The Hollywood ReporterMichael RechtshaffenThe Hollywood ReporterMichael RechtshaffenIn 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.
- 20The New York TimesJeannette CatsoulisThe New York TimesJeannette CatsoulisOffers agony in a vacuum, a villain without a motive and a hero with more personal problems than lines of dialogue.
- 12Boston GlobeWesley MorrisBoston GlobeWesley MorrisAnother helping of egregious slicing and slashing.