The Collection

Daddy's little rich girl gets cancelled on by her (no good) boyfriend and goes off with friend to a party so exclusive one needs a password ('Nevermore') to get in. Looks like everyone knows the password, though, as the place is stuffed. Even the boyfriend is there, making out with some random blonde.

The location has been prepared by the elusive serial killer known as the collector. The people on the dancefloor get eliminated by what looks like a part of a giant lawnmower, some get caged in and simply squeezed to death. Also on the premises is one red box, holding our hero (ish) from part 1, Arkin.

He manages to escape the house of death by jumping from a first floor window with a body (the boyfriend) in front of him to break his fall. Daddy's girl takes his place in the box. Arkin is questioned by police who apparently cannot decide whether he is just a victim or is somehow involved with the mass murder that has just occured. Just in case, they cuff him to his hospital bed.

Shortly after, he is visited by a squad like outfit tasked with finding and rescuing the newest collection piece. And they want Arkin to lead the way. They don't give him much of a choice in the matter but simply put a gun to his head. So he takes them to the location he was being held and tortured in. He can tell the way because he cut marks in his arm, one straight one whenever he had counted to 100 and a diagnol one for every turn the car made. They end up at a place called Hotel Argento (a nod to the director? maybe), which is the collector's headquarter.

Unsurprisingly, the place is a death trap. The group (including Bubble from The Wire) has to pick their way around the house and - also unsurprisingly - get killed off one by one. They find a few victims of the collector in various stages of paranoia (mostly drug infueled). Daddy's girl has by now managed to free herself from the red box and navigates her own way through the labyrinth of death.

Her and Arkin will be the only ones to make it out alive. The body of the collector, or whatever should be left of it after an explosion and extensive fire, is not found on the scene. Jump to some time later...Arkin has dedicated himself to finding the culprit, having concluded that the guy really is a collector. Of insects, that is. He finds the guy through some registry of entomologists and - after telling him that he will torture him extensively before killing him, forces him into a box.

The stage is set for part 3, I think.

7/10

The Collector

The Chase family has recently moved to a remote location and as the house needs some fixing up, they have hired Arkin (Josh Stewart, very easy on the eyes) as a handyman. They also have a bit of a bug problem, so an exterminating firm makes an appearance early on in the film

Arkin needs money to pay off his wife's debts with some shady character. He needs this money right now. Luckily, the Chase family is set to go away for a couple of weeks and he knows where the safe is hidden and the things inside it will easily get him what he needs.

After dark, he goes back to the house and lets himself in. Just when he is about to crack the code for the safe he realizes that he is not alone, after all. The next thing he notices is that the entire house is rigged with deadly traps. A masked man, the 'Collector' in the title, is looking for an addition fitting for his collection (he collects humans, apparently) an it could be one of the Chases.

The parents are both stashed away in the basement, both badly hurt. Unfortunately, he could not yet get a hold of the two daughters of the family. The older, Jill, is a bit of a trouble maker (your average teenager) and off somewhere with a boyfriend after having refused to go on the family vacation. The younger, Hannah, is simply hiding. Also in the house is the previous collection piece, a man kept inside a red box (the box is what ties the collector's crimes together).

Arkin is torn between helping the people he was going to steal from and making a run for it. The latter option made very difficult thanks to the deadly weapons that could hit him in every room in the house.

Jill and her boyfriend make an appearance. They believe the house to be empty. When they start to make out the collector takes a creepy interest but Jill spots him and after being attacked dials 911 without being able to talk to the operator. There follows the death of the boyfriend, and a disgusting death it is. Arkin comes to Jill's aid while the collector is off investigating a sound. Arkin looks bloody and beat at this point and has no business being there in the first place, so Jill assumes he is an accomplice. While backing away from him she picks up a pair of scissors to use as a weapon, triggering a trap that nails her to the wall.

After he realizes that both parents and Jill are dead at this point, Arkin makes it out of the house but when he turns to look back he sees little Hannah begging for his help from an upstairs window. So back in he goes to rescue the little girl. Despite all the traps, some acid fluids, and one very angry dog they manage to get away. Arkin, having quite the bad day, gets hit by an oncoming cop car. Nevertheless, Hannah gets rescued and he gets put in an ambulance and taken away.

But there is no happy ending for him. The collector hits the ambulance with his own car, causing it to flip over and Arkin ends up in the red box.

Bad guy wins.

8/10