So what’s the point of all this violence?

Collection

Although Arkin owes Elena’s family nothing and has never met the hired killers, there is an immediate and unbelievable hostility between the scruffy torture victim and the team’s leader, Lucello (Lee Tergesen).

When Elena escapes from the box in which she was transported, she discovers that she has been taken hostage by a sick man who is disassembling human bodies and reconstructing them like lifesize dolls.

Lucello’s squad has to avoid a series of booby traps, like a torture-porn version of the board game Mouse Trap, in order to reach Elena and save her from certain death in the dark, labyrinthine warehouse.

The chase and escape deliver no palpable sense of fear, and the emotional story underlying the plot has no resonance.

“The Collection” never hits audiences in the stomach with any imme- diate sense of danger, and the dialogue and most of the performances feel entirely too campy for the movie to actually be taken seriously.

Maybe that is the point, but I don’t think so.

More than anything, the sequel feels like an excuse for Dunstan and his effects team to see how creative they could be in the bloody killing of people using all manner of pointy metal objects.

But, as is often the case at Fantastic Fest, one man’s trash is another man’s treasure. While I shook my head at the ridiculousness of it all and quietly left the theater after the festival screening, dozens of other folks cheered and hollered with glee at the film’s conclusion.

And, no, the Collector’s face is never revealed, so that possibly leaves the door open for a third movie in the series.

Isn’t that nice?