If there are two things many horror fans love, they’re elaborate violence and horrific suffering. Both of these can be expected from The Collected, for which the first few images have now been released.
Despite lacking any numerical designation, The Collected is actually the third in a series that began with The Collector in 2009 and continued with The Collection in 2012. Written by Patrick Melton and Marcus Dunstan and directed by the latter, the movie titles refer to the actions of a masked madman who is a collector of people, taking one person from each place he invades and killing the rest.
The first film follows a handyman who attempts to steal a valuable ruby from his rich employers to pay off a debt to loan sharks, only to discover the family have been imprisoned and their house littered with traps preventing them from leaving and horrifically killing or mutilating the unwary. Naturally, the sequel ups the gore and body count exponentially, and also briefly delves into the backstory of the killer.
Plot-wise, what we can expect from The Collected has yet to be specified. Although it would be easy to assume another assortment of variously unlikable people being brutally slaughtered by increasingly elaborate death traps, given how the second movie ends that’s not quite such a straightforward continuation and it will require some narrative wrangling to return to any kind of status quo. However, it’s been confirmed that Josh Stewart, who starred in both films, and Emma Fitzpatrick, who was central in the second, will be returning.
Originally titled The Midnight Man, the first movie was initially pitched as a potential prequel to the Saw franchise, which at the time had reached its third installment that saw the death of Jigsaw and the departure of series creators Leigh Whannell and James Wan. Although the script and concept were rejected by Saw’s producers, the brutal imagination of the writing resulted in Dunstan and Melton being brought on to write the increasingly interminable saga’s fourth through seventh outings.
While neither predecessor of The Collected exactly set the world alight, both are more than passable and entertaining horror flicks, and there’s no reason to doubt that this will be more of the same, which can only be a good thing.
