Film Review: The Collector

THE COLLECTOR (1965)
Dir. William Wyler
Starring: Terence Stamp, Samantha Eggar

Director William Wyler, in his long and productive career, helmed some famous movies, including “Wuthering Heights” (1939), “Mrs. Miniver” (1942), “Roman Holiday” (1953) and “Ben Hur” (1959). One of the last films he directed was “The Collector”, the story about the origins of a serial killer, a film that influenced many modern horror stories, including “Silence of the Lambs” and “Misery”.

Based on a novel by John Fowles, “The Collector” is about Freddie Clegg (a sharp looking Terence Stamp). Freddie is a lonely butterfly collector, who wins a fortune betting on sports and buys himself a secluded home in the English country. Desperate for companionship, Freddie kidnaps a young woman, Miranda Grey (Samantha Eggar), a girl Freddie grew up fantasizing about, with her not knowing he existed.

Freddie makes a home for Miranda in his secured cellar, a dungeon really, decorated with the comforts of home. His intentions, he claims, are not to harm her, but for her to fall in love with him. Miranda tries every trick in the book trying to escape, but only succeeds in festering Freddie’s psychotic personality.

The film has a theater-type atmosphere, as it mostly takes place in the cellar. It looks similar to Hannibal Lecter’s prison cell in “Silence of the Lambs”, walled with large stones and covered with artwork, in this case Miranda’s drawings.

Terence Stamp is great as Freddie, his handsome features and meek frame garnish instant sympathy, and make his transformation from kidnapper to potential serial killer truly unsettling. Freddie, like Annie Wilkes in “Misery”, likes to use the term “La De Da”, when referring to people who think they’re better than he is. Despite his soft spoken manner, and well groomed exterior, Freddie is a time bomb, desperate for someone to defuse him before he explodes.

The only other film I can think of before “The Collector” that has had more impact on the “serial killer” genre would be “Psycho”, a much more famous and celebrated film. The genre since ’65, has become more graphic and more brutal, but the nature of the characters have not changed. Norman Bates, Travis Bickle, Jamie Gumm, Annie Wilkes and Freddie Clegg are all psychotics attempting to feel and find something they don’t have the human capacity to understand. The ability to love and be loved.