THE COLLECTOR is a psychological thriller film about the relationship between a confused hunter and his, even more confused, victim. It is based on the 1963 novel of the same name by John Fowles. A dark tone of the film corresponds to an authentic location and changes in the relationship between the two main protagonists. In fact, their relationship has passed through all stages, considering that both seek some kind of rescue.A lonely and unbalanced young man kidnaps and imprisons a pretty, young art student. He has, in the windowless stone cellar of his house, prepared a room for his prisoner. He is a butterfly collector and treats a young student as if she is one of his specimens. Soon, he admits his fatally love for her, while she tries to take advantage of those moments for escape attempt. After several unsuccessful attempts, she tries to connect with him and finally to seduce him. However, his problem is, to her sorrow, much more complex...The characterization is very good, because two very complex and stiff characters constantly collide.Terence Stamp as Freddie Clegg is a lonely, confused and somehow fascinating character. His psyche is torn between his calculations, love and a sense of possession. We do not know the cause of his behavior. His desires are not correlated with his monotonous nature. Mr. Stamp has offered a very good performance.Samantha Eggar as Miranda Grey is a beautiful and confused victim who runs through all possible states of the psyche, such as fear, depression, melancholy and ultimately despair. She shows a certain amount of compassion, through her futile escape attempts and bonding with Freddie. The beautiful Ms. Eggar has offered a convincing performance.The conclusion, despite some discrepancies, such as winning the lottery, or a suspicious neighbor, is realistic, cruel and terrifying.

Gorgeous in a rather creepy, uncomfortable way. Terence Stamp is superb and Samantha Eggar, extraordinary. The sexual tension is tangible even if it is one sided. That's were the sickness resides. He is convinced that she will eventually love him. Isn't that the definition of madness? But when that madness looks like Terence Stamp, everything becomes immediately more complicated. I sat hoping for both their hopes to be fulfilled. Absurd, right? Perhaps but I wanted her to escape and I wanted him to have a moment of real honest intimacy with her - Impossible I know but that's what makes The Collector so compelling. The scene where he takes her out of the bathtub is one of the most perverse sex scenes without sex I've ever seen. Samantha Eggar was nominated for an Oscar but not Terence Stamp. In my own wishful mind, he won, big time. He certainly deserved it.

Throughout the years I have seen plenty of William Wyler movies but this one is probably the one that sticks out, since it's a movie that is not very typical for him or his normal style. It's unlike anything else really and not really all that common for its time either.You could say that with this movie William Wyler is attempting a more Alfred Hitchcock type of approach, with a minimal amount of settings and characters in it, in order to create a sense of suspense. And out of all the Hitchcock type of wannabe-movies, this is one that actually works out really well and also as still very original on its own. Thing that makes this movie great is that you never can be sure what to expect from it. This is mostly because its main character, played by a very young Terence Stamp, is so incredibly unpredictable. On the one hand you can definitely see and recognize a sad but still friendly and well-meaning side to him, while at others he's being a total psychopath, who can be violent and unpredictable with his actions.This is where most of the tension comes from. The unusual dynamic between the two main characters, the one tries to win her heart, while the other is more focused on escaping and purely surviving, gives the movie plenty of depth and provides it with some unexpected moments in it. You really never know what to expect, since it often remains unclear what is truly going on inside of the heads of the two main characters and the movie keeps you guessing, basically till the end, on how it is going to all come to an end.It also truly adds a lot that this is movie set in England, as opposed to a random American city for instance. It's more dark, bleak, moody, Gothic type of atmosphere does a lot for this movie, as well as its very English actors, of which Terence Stamp will stick most to the mind, as the unpredictable young guy with a couple of screws loose and an unhealthy obsession for a young girl, played by Samantha Eggar.The story itself is being kept quite simple and the storytelling is also of the slower kind, so perhaps this movie is not for just everybody. However if you can appreciate and enjoy a more subtle and atmospheric kind of psychological thriller, this is an absolute must-see for you.8/10 http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/

There were a number of films produced around this time involving a woman being kept prisoner -- "Whatever Happened To Baby Jane," "Lady In A Cage" -- but this particular format itself belongs to a genus that might be called the Hostage Movie. They're too numerous to recount but examples include "The Desperate Hours" and "Dog Day Afternoon." In "The Collector," Terence Stamp is a repressed young bank teller who wins seventy thousand pounds in a lottery, buys a Tudor country home, kidnaps the luscious young art student, Samantha Eggar, and holds her captive in a reasonably comfortable cellar until (he hopes) she falls in love with him. Stamp may be sullen but he's been desperately desirous of her since he began stalking her some time ago. He has this Gothic dungeon outfitted with a rack of clothes, personal gear, a comfortable bed, an electric fireplace, and modern lamps. He brings her whatever food she asks for. Of course it doesn't work out. It doesn't work out in two senses. She doesn't fall in love with him, nor are the viewer's expectations about her escape fulfilled.The movie doesn't avoid the usual clichés of the genre: the banging on locked doors, shouting through a newly broken window, feigning illness, offering sex in exchange for release, trying to slip a secret message to someone outside, making false promises. But the novel's author, John Fowles, is a skillful and imaginative writer, and this is a LOT more thoughtful than a run-of-the-mill hostage movie.Stamp's character is unsympathetic but in a way that engages out sympathy. He's an uneducated working-class bloke. Eggar is a doctor's daughter, not rich but talented and upwardly mobile. It's not just a conflict between personalities; it's a clash between classes.One of her favorite books is Salinger's "Catcher in the Rye." Stamp has never heard of it but is determined to read and understand it. But he CAN'T. To him, Holden Caulfield, the preppy protagonist, is a phony himself because he's been pampered and has money, so he has no right to condemn others. Stamp doesn't phrase his criticism exactly this way because he's not articulate enough. And yet he has a point. How much more disturbed would Holden Caulfield been, and how much wiggle room would we give him for his disdain, if he'd been a student at a vocational high school in Pittsburgh? Eggar counters this argument at first by transparently agreeing with him -- "an interesting point of view" -- but Stamp may be unschooled but he's not stupid and sees through the condescension and recognizes the motive behind it. The motive, of course, is that Samantha Eggar will say or do anything to get the hell out of that dungeon, otherwise she'll be there until she dies. They go briefly through a similar routine with a Picasso portrait. Stamp: "It's ugly. People don't look like that." Eggar: "He's trying to show us different sides of the subject." Again, maybe my aesthetic appreciation apparatus is deteriorating but I can see Stamp's point when he argues that people say it's great only because everybody else is saying so.But this isn't a movie about art -- except to the extent that it embodies it. It's still about social class. And Stamp carries around the resentment, anger, and suppressed self-loathing of somebody with the mentality of a fifth grader who knows he'll never fit into the "posh" world of a young lady like Eggar.Terence Stamp has a limited acting range but he fits the template of the role rather well. Samantha Eggar is a beautiful woman with alarmingly auburn hair who is liable to remind a view of Mrs. Emma Peel with more generous features and more tentative vocal contours. The other contours are pretty similar.At one point, Eggar describes Stamp as a "madman" and she's not far off the mark. His butterfly collection suggests obsession. (The movie spells out the connection between the butterflies and Eggar a little too clearly, underestimating the audience.) But Stamp's character is mad in another way. He's not exactly crazy but he lacks social skills in the same way that most schizophrenics do. He simply doesn't know how to handle himself with other people. He does and says things that are odd, ungainly, and probably a little bizarre. He's not sinister. He's pathetic. And like most hostage takers, he creates a tiny world in which he is the King.