Movies
[BD Review] ‘The Collection’ Is A Bigger And Sillier Sequel That Still Manages To Be Fun
While I didn’t fall in love with The Collection, there’s something admirable about its ambition to not be more of the same. Its increased scope and willingness to stray from the beats of its predecessor, The Collector, indicate that co-writers Patrick Melton and Marcus Dunstan (the latter of whom also directed) have an actual creative engagement with the material. So if the good news is that they’re not treading the same ground as the first film, the bad news is that – depending on what you’re looking to get out of the experience – it may not work as well.
I rarely play the “depending what you’re looking to get out of the experience” card. After all, what you want is a good horror movie, right? The Collection is certainly entertaining enough to qualify in that regard. But if you’re looking for something with the tension, intimacy, character, relative subtlety and nuance of The Collector… you might be in for a surprise. I’m not the first one to make the Alien vs. Aliens comparison, but I think it’s an apt analogy that breaks down the fundamental differences between the two films. While The Collection has plenty of scares, traps and gore it’s almost an action movie at heart, complete with hired mercenaries subbing in for the colonial marines of Aliens. Another key similarity is that Arkin (Josh Stewart), who we last saw being slammed into a red trunk at the end of The Collector, makes an early escape only to be pressured into playing the Ripley role by leading the mercs back into the lair of The Collector – a world that only he knows.
Why are they heading into said lair? To rescue Elena (Emma Fitzpatrick), the daughter of a wealthy man with the means to hire his own security detail to retrieve her. She’s kidnapped in spectacular fashion during a the film’s particularly inspired opening sequence. Gone is the slow burn of The Collector‘s first 30 minutes, this sequel hits the ground running. If I had to guess, I’d say that around 80 people die in the exhilarating opening 15 minutes of the new film. From the opening titles on up to the aforementioned bloodbath, The Collection demonstrates an impressive swagger – but it has difficulty sustaining it.
A lot of that difficulty stems from the fact that we don’t care as much about the characters this time around. Arkin seems to have lost some dimensionality (which sort of makes sense given his predicament) and the mercenaries are almost flat-out anonymous, relying solely on smart casting to make an impact. When I spoke to Melton and Dunstan earlier this week, they conceded that with an 82 minute run time it’s nearly impossible to allow for Aliens style introductions to our “soldiers.” So there’s a conscious trade-off here in which The Collection sacrifices some potential investment in its secondary characters for sheer momentum.
And, for the most part, that trade-off works. The movie flies by with an impressive amount of carnage to behold. The Collector’s lair makes for a menacing, intricate and surprisingly beautiful setting. The statuesque displays of his prior victims are interesting and artful (even if I’m not sure how storing them in water could at all preserve them). Even additions that are tonal missteps that clash with the first film’s relative practicality, such as a captive/submissive pixie dream girl who would feel more at home in The People Under The Stairs, keep us alert (if not scratching our heads).
If you’re a fan of The Collector, I would advise you to see The Collection with the knowledge that you’re revisiting elements of the original within the context of a new genre. If you’ve never seen The Collector, that’s fine. The new film works well enough on its own intentionally silly terms.
I first heard about The Mandela Catalogue through a couple of nephews who were obsessed with the ARG’s sinister mythology. It was only after watching Wendigoon’s in-depth analysis of the series that I realized just how deep this rabbit hole goes.
In fact, I’d already been exposed to the nightmarish visuals of Alex Kister’s YouTube creation for years at that point without even realizing that it was the origin of several viral “cursed images” and spooky memes that had leaked into the wider internet – with this viral element actually being a part of the Catalogue’s overarching narrative.
Flash-forward to 2026 and the unprecedented success of Kane Parsons’ Backrooms has led to Hollywood betting on horrific internet properties with existing fanbases, which means that Kister’s unique hybrid of both religious and analog horror is finally headed to the big screen with a script written by Kister himself alongside Tyler Clifton.
While this news shouldn’t be too surprising if you’ve been keeping up with the ongoing success of The Mandela Catalogue (both myself and Wendigoon having previously predicted that the series would inevitably make the jump to theaters one day), plenty of horror fans are likely confused as to why so many folks are excited for what appears to be a Hollywood adaptation of a series of creepy .jpeg images under a VHS filter.
With that in mind, today I’d like to invite fellow readers to accompany me as I explore the origins of Alex Kister’s viral hit and attempt to explain exactly why we should all be excited about the Mandela Catalogue adaptation!
From High School Writing Project to Internet Horror Phenomenon
The first seeds of The Mandela Catalogue were sown when Kister was still in high school and developed a writing project subverting religious tropes in a world where biblical history had been altered by demonic forces. A little while later, Kister came across an analog horror contest on Reddit and decided to adapt his ideas into a standalone video where he would edit a religious kids’ cartoon –The Beginner’s Bible: The Nativity, to be specific- into something far creepier. This is how the iconic Overthrone video was born, with this viral short film taking on a life of its own as fans demanded more eerie content from Kister.
Though the video was originally meant to be a one-and-done sort of affair, with Kister actually regretting some of its primitive visuals and considering the editing amateurish and “YouTube-Poop-like” when compared to his current standards, fan reaction and free time during the COVID-19 pandemic encouraged the (then) seventeen-year-old filmmaker to continue producing content set in this same world. The Mandela Catalogue name was inspired by the Mandela Effect conspiracy theory, as the series would slowly begin to explore the subtle horror of alternate histories.
Inspired by existential dread brought on by extended periods of quarantine as well as a personal crisis of faith, Kister continued to expand his alternate timeline where the rise of Christianity had been prevented by what was presumably the Devil disguised as the Archangel Gabriel. This alternate course of fictional events led to the existence of certain paranormal anomalies that had come to be accepted as “normal” by the 1990s, which is why most of the series’ supernatural horror is presented in such a matter-of-fact manner.
Most of this background information and religious lore is delivered by increasingly cryptic broadcasts and in-universe PSAs, as well as the occasional found footage video, that often have to be decoded by clever viewers. Of course, it’s the consistently disturbing imagery that made the series so popular – much of which was originally created by Kister on a smartphone!
The Alternates: Horror’s Most Unsettling Modern Monsters
The show’s early episodes mostly take place within the fictional Mandela County in Wisconsin and depict life in a world where demonic entities are capable of using media to enter our reality. This process usually involves scaring victims into killing themselves and then repurposing their bodies as horrific doppelgangers referred to as “Alternates”. This terrifying phenomenon has become so common that local police already have specialized procedures in place to deal with the issue, though this usually consists of simply ignoring calls for help so as to avoid spreading so-called “Metaphysical Awareness Disorder” any further.
Over time, Kister would expand this mythology and incorporate different kinds of Alternates into the mix, though the story never stopped deconstructing religious concepts. The series’ second volume exponentially increased both video quality and the overall narrative scope as we began to follow the lives of characters who had already grown up in this dystopian hellscape where the government is forced to prohibit religion, television, and even mirrors in the hopes of mitigating the damage done by the ongoing invasion of otherworldly entities.
The really interesting part comes into play when you realize exactly how the Alternates make use of scary media in order to spread their demonic influence, with the analog horror of it all being a diegetic part of the story and something of a memetic trap orchestrated by the false Gabriel.
I particularly appreciate how some characters begin to suspect that there’s something wrong with their version of reality and that things weren’t meant to play out this way, especially when Mark utters the haunting line “who have I been praying to all this time?” That’s why I think The Mandela Catalogue is an effective piece of religious horror even if you don’t subscribe to the Christian worldview, as the mere idea of a world where evil has already won is a universally terrifying concept in and of itself. Not only that, but the series’ uncanny analog imagery alone is already worth the price of admission, as you’ve likely already noticed by looking at the pictures accompanying this article.
Why The Feature Adaptation Could Be Horror’s Next Big Success
It’s actually been a whole year since Kister first announced that he had been working on a feature-length screenplay for a Mandela Catalogue movie since 2022, with his proposed story following an ensemble of high-school graduates who uncover a supernatural conspiracy after the mysterious disappearance of a fellow student. This premise sounds similar to narrative elements present in the series’ second volume, but I’m pretty sure that Kister is going to go the Kane Parsons route and make the movie more of a spin-off than a re-imagining of its source material.
While notable Hollywood producers like Aaron B. Koontz, Scott Stuber, and Steven Spielberg himself are backing the upcoming project, I feel like there’s no one better to adapt this deeply personal exploration of faith and the dark side of communication than the person who first came up with it. That’s why I can’t wait to see Kister’s work on the big screen, as I have a feeling that this young filmmaker is the next one on the list about to make cinematic history – especially since this is clearly a passion project that has been in the works for years at this point!
That being said, there’s always a chance that the film could end up unleashing a fresh wave of Alternate incursions, but I guess that’s just a risk we’ll have to take.
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