Editorials
[Editorial] ‘The Collector’ and ‘The Collection’ are Still Begging for a Third Film to Complete the Trilogy
With the hugely profitable Saw franchise losing steam and clearly coming to an end at the time (at least for a good long while), a new horror icon made his debut on the big screen and aimed to take up Jigsaw’s mantle as the master of torture. I’m of course referring to The Collector, released just a few months prior to Saw‘s sixth installment in late July 2009.
I bring up The Collector and the Saw franchise in the same breath for a handful of reasons, one of them being that the former film was directed by Marcus Dunstan and co-written by Dunstan and Patrick Melton, the duo who together wrote Saw IV, Saw V, Saw VI and later Saw 3D for Lionsgate. And not only are there similarities between the unnamed “Collector” and Jigsaw, but it’s interesting to note that The Collector actually began its life as a pitch for a prequel to the Saw franchise. In many ways, it was literally born out of Saw‘s success.
But The Collector, make no mistake, was its own beast entirely. Like the original Saw, it was one of the rare horror films from the past 10 years that was clearly begging for a sequel, introducing a badass new villain while also pairing him up with a memorable hero as his adversary. No, not a final girl but rather a “final guy,” another rarity in the horror world.
Playing out like an intense, ultra violent home invasion film, The Collector introduced Arkin O’Brien (Josh Stewart), a compelling hero precisely because his life choices all but ensured that he was never supposed to be one. In order to pay a debt and save his family, ex-con Arkin breaks into his employer’s home while the family is away (or so he thinks…), and he soon realizes that he’s not alone in the house. This begins a game of cat-and-mouse between Arkin and the trap-happy “Collector,” a sinister dude with a black mask and uber creepy glowing eyes.
The Collector’s particular approach to murder? He likes to rig up Jigsaw-like traps in homes and dispatch entire families, “collecting” one survivor from each house he hits up. In The Collector, Arkin is the one “collected” in the final moments, setting up a sequel that the film’s box office take was high enough to warrant: The Collection, released in 2012.
Taking the Aliens approach to The Collector‘s Alien, The Collection amped up the action for a sequel that was less tense but arguably even more fun, centered on a group of mercenaries who enlist the help of Arkin to take down the Collector on his home turf: the Argento Hotel (wink, wink), where we finally get to see the Collector’s collection on full display.
The Collection doubled down on the fun factor right off the bat with a glorious opening scene, wherein the Collector goes full Ghost Ship and turns an entire dance club into a human meat grinder. The sequel unleashed gory mayhem the whole way through, firmly establishing Arkin as a badass franchise hero and the Collector as a truly iconic franchise villain.
And yet, despite The Collection leaving us off on a cliffhanger (Arkin collects the Collector!), we never did get a third film to truly turn The Collector into a franchise. Sadly, The Collection was a box office flop in 2012, pulling in just $8.9 million *worldwide* on a reported $10 million production budget. Prior to those numbers coming in, a sequel was very much on the menu.
In a chat right here on Bloody Disgusting prior to the film’s release, Dunstan and Melton told us that the third film’s working title was The Collected, and that it was to show us the Collector without his mask. They teased, “It has to be a different movie. The first two are their own experience. [The Collected] is what happens now.”
As of August 2017, Dunstan still had a strong desire to bring Arkin back and complete the trilogy. He told Addicted to Horror Movies at that time, “We’ve been taking slooooow steps toward having something more concrete to share than ‘we hope so!’ I will bellow loud & proud when such a day comes this way!”
That day still hasn’t come. And though the under-performance of The Collection suggests it sadly may never, we’re still holding out hope that we haven’t seen the last of the Collector.
Maybe if we’re all loud enough…
It’s been 75 years since The Thing From Another World first warned us to “watch the skies”, and filmgoers have done just that by showing up to multiple instances of extraterrestrial contact on the big screen. This makes sense, as a recent CBS news poll estimated that 63% of Americans believe in intelligent life on other planets, and the ongoing disclosure movement aims to raise that number with each passing day.
With Steven Spielberg’s Disclosure Day leaving many genre fans hungry for more alien footage (preferably of the spooky variety), today I’d like to share a list recommending six underrated alien invasion thrillers for your viewing pleasure. After all, regardless of whether or not you believe that we’re alone in the universe, it can be fun to dream about the worst-case scenario if our cosmic neighbors ever decide to visit.
For the purposes of this list, we’ll be focusing on lesser-known invasion stories rather than the popular extraterrestrials of franchises like Alien and Close Encounters of the Third (or even Fourth) Kind. That being said, don’t forget to comment below with your own alien favorites if you think we missed a particularly thrilling movie.
While it won’t be featured in this article, I’d highly recommend checking out Dean Alioto’s UFO Abduction/The McPherson Tape if you’re up for some ufology-inspired found footage thrills.
With that out of the way, onto the list!
6. The Arrival (1996)
Not to be confused with Denis Villeneuve’s Academy Award-winning Amy Adams vehicle about learning to communicate peacefully with extraterrestrial life, David Twohy’s The Arrival is a much more straightforward (but no less entertaining) genre romp where Charlie Sheen faces a global conspiracy involving hostile alien invaders.
It’s not exactly up there with Close Encounters or even Independence Day, but Twohy’s conspiratorial thriller plays out like an exceptionally fun episode of The X-Files that I’d recommend to sci-fi/horror fans who don’t mind a little bit of wonky CGI and 90s excess alongside their alien thrills.
5. Extraterrestrial (2014)
The Vicious Brothers made a name for themselves with the success of 2011’s Grave Encounters, but that was far from the Canadian duo’s only collaboration. And while it’s not exactly a fan favorite, I always point out 2014’s Extraterrestrial as one of their most underrated projects simply because I agree with the filmmakers’ opinion that there aren’t enough ‘cool alien abduction movies’ out there.
Admittedly, the majority of the picture functions like a run-of-the-mill creature feature with paper-thin characters and familiar horror tropes, but I’d argue that the cosmically-terrifying final act elevates the experience to new and memorable heights. The movie also boasts great performances by both Michael Ironside and Emily Perkins – a combination that more than makes up for the occasionally janky CGI.
4. Alien Raiders (2008)
Director Ben Rock has gone on record lamenting how his John-Carpenter-inspired creature feature was forcefully renamed from Supermarket to the painfully obvious Alien Raiders (a change which likely resulted in many potential viewers skipping out on the experience), but the new title doesn’t change the fact that this single-location thriller is something of a hidden gem.
Taking place entirely within a supermarket, Alien Raiders tells the story of an ensemble of customers and employees who are taken hostage by a group of armed men looking for something far more dangerous than an easy payout. I won’t get into details in order to avoid spoiling the experience, but I’d highly recommend this criminally underseen flick to fans of John Carpenter and the Resident Evil games.
3. Phoenix Forgotten (2017)
You’d think that a Ridley-Scott-produced retelling of one of the most infamous real-life UFO sightings of all time would have a bigger following, but I rarely see Justin Barber’s Found Footage period piece brought up during discussions about extraterrestrial-focused horror movies.
This is a huge shame, as Phoenix Forgotten is just as spooky as it is convincing, with this well-researched dive into the Phoenix Lights incident benefiting from surprisingly believable special effects as well as an appropriately horrific finale.
2. Communion (1989)
I wouldn’t blame you for disregarding Whitley Strieber’s controversial book about his alleged close encounter as sensationalist slop, but I’d argue that Phillipe Mora’s 1989 adaptation of these events is much better than the source material. After all, the movie works as a standalone piece of speculative fiction while also benefiting from an incredible performance by the one and only Christopher Walken!
Mora’s take on Communion may not be particularly scary, but the film is still an unforgettable character study regardless of whether or not the abduction really happened. Not only that, but the flick also paved the way for plenty of future sci-fi stories where the extraterrestrial invaders aren’t as evil as they initially appear.
1. Altered (2006)
Originally envisioned as a Sam Raimi-style horror-comedy titled Probed, Eduardo Sánchez (of The Blair Witch Project fame) eventually realized that it would be much more interesting to turn the film into a serious exploration of the emotional aftermath of a traumatic abduction incident.
That’s how we got Altered, a clever inversion of the standard abduction narrative that follows a group of troubled friends as they capture and experiment on an alien in order to enact revenge for their own abduction years prior.
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