It's been a while getting here, because between the initial announcements and the actual production, Marcus Dunstan had the small matter of Piranha 3DD's screenplay to handle. Now, however, The Collection** is almost upon us, and to prove it, here's the first official trailer.
We begin with possibly the worst club night since you were talked into going to Eros that time, the result of which is lone survivor Elena (Emma Fitzpatrick) being packed into a trunk that we've seen before... We then get some quick clips of The Collector's protagonist Arkin (Josh Stewart) imparting some advice learned through painful previous experience, and some business with moths, dogs, tanks (of the display kind, although there's some military activity too), fire and lightbulbs. The Collector's base is revealed to be the Hotel Argento, and while we're spotting Italian horror homages, it's* possible* that the spiders are a nod to Lucio Fulci.
The first film saw The Collector booby-trapping a house he'd targeted, while this one takes us deep into his own lair. The set-up, just about discernable from the quick-cut trailer, is that Elena's father (Christopher McDonald) hires a gang of mercenaries to get her back. The mercs in turn recruit Arkin as someone with a unique knowledge base that might prove useful.
Things weren't looking too good for Arkin last time we saw him (post-credits in The Collector) but his circumstances have improved, since The Collection picks him up in hospital. You might think he'd be unlikely to want to comply with any plan that put him back in The Collector's path, but the mercs have a certain amount of blackmail leverage: Arkin is a burglar, after all.
There's a definite escalation here; it looks like The Collection is intended as the** Aliens** to The Collector's Alien. As previously, Dunstan has directed and co-written with his usual collaborator Patrick Melton (Feasts 1 and 2, Saws 4-7). The Collection makes its debut at Fantastic Fest in the next few days, and gets a wide release in the States on November 30. There's no release info for the UK so far.
