A young woman (Emma Fitzpatrick) is kidnapped during a mass killing, leading her wealthy father (Christopher McDonald) to hire a team of mercenaries to rescue her. Their best hope lies in the assistance of Arkin (Josh Stewart) – a man that already escaped the killer’s clutches once.

The Collection (2012) is a particularly bloody horror film directed by Marcus Dunstan and written by Dunstan and Patrick Melton. It is a sequel to their 2009 film The Collector, although nowhere in its Australian packaging at least is the earlier work referenced. Nor does it seem necessary to watch The Collector in preparation: by-and-large The Collection stands by itself.

Dunstan and Melton have shared a lucrative screenwriting career, including credits for their own Feast horror series as well as the fourth-through-seventh instalments of the popular Saw franchise. With those films in mind, it is no surprise in watching The Collection: a gory odyssey through an abandoned hotel filled with deadly traps, sadistic torture, and bucketloads of blood. I deeply dislike the term ‘torture porn’, preferring terms like ‘extreme cinema’ or ‘survival horror’, but it is fair to say if you are familiar with the concept then you will know precisely what to expect here.

On a level of straightforward bloody carnage, The Collection certainly provides its fair share. An early Rube Goldberg exercise in mass murder is inventively if improbably staged, and the over-the-top violence is shocking enough to amuse its intended audience of horror enthusiasts. Sadly the film never extends beyond those basic parameters. What made the Saw films so enjoyable was their combination of grand guignol excess, trap-like narratives, and knowing social commentary. In The Collection there is simply violence: it has a certain visceral effects, but it does not take long for the novelty to wear thin – as thin, in fact, as its weakly developed characters.

The key actors are game and committed, including Fitzpatrick, Stewart, and Lee Tergeson, but they have limited arcs with which to work. Plot and character take a back seat to blood and dismemberment, and as a result there is very little to consider or criticise. The villainous “Collector”, who wears a black leather gimp mask while silently torturing his victims, lacks any sort of panache or striking iconography. It is oddly generic right where the film most desperately need to be distinctive. Emma Fitzpatrick’s character uses a hearing aid, but as far as I can make out the actor herself is not hearing impaired – another lost casting opportunity for people with disability.

Sam McCurdy’s photography broadly apes that of the Saw franchise. The film uses Saw‘s own composer Charlie Clouser, who fails to generate any memorable compositions or melodies. Even Saw editor Kevin Greutert is onboard for this odd little side project.

A third Collector film was planned, and indeed started filming before its producers pulled their funding. I cannot imagine it is likely to be revived any time soon. In all honesty, and based on what is on offer here, there simply is not an impetus to keep the franchise going.