The Collection

A sequel of sorts to The Collector, from 2009, The Collection opens with an entertaining scene in which a gimp-masked serial killer takes out an entire nightclub-full of particularly objectionable revellers with a series of gruesome traps. But then he picks the wrong girl for the collection of victims he keeps in the sort of steamer trunks last seen at Hogwarts.

With little further ado – and even less plot – a team of badasses arrive at his house of horrors to rescue the girl. But can they survive the endless traps, the petting zoo of gurning victims, the bad taxidermy, the even worse art, and all the other familiar slasher tropes that fill the rooms of the abandoned hotel? Director Marcus Dunstan makes little attempt to create either narrative tension or characters that we might care about, instead relying on buckets of blood to keep our attention. Mostly I found myself wondering where the killer finds the time to pursue his multifarious hobbies. [Keir Roper-Caldbeck]