The Box Collector

Plot synopsis:
The Box Collector (synopsis) 26.03.07.Harry Green is a brooding young artist, who collects boxes of all sizes and shapes and draws them. His possessive and over-protective mother Beth, a widow of twenty years, dominates him. Harry suffers from recurring nightmares, a blocked-out memory from his childhood, where he saw his drunken father run over by a train on the tracks facing their home. Beth spends her time with her cat Marquise, reminiscing about her once glorious past and dealing herself playing cards to predict her future.
When Maria Dupont , a pretty young divorcee with a toddler Kiki moves into the house next door, their lives will change profoundly. Maria is a European and on the run from her violent American ex-husband Mike. Beth sees in Maria a carbon copy of the type of woman her late husband, Harrys father, squandered their family money on. When Maria sets her lustful eyes on Harry, Beth solicits the help of Luz, the local Haitian manicurist. Luz is married to Burt, a snake handler. Luz is a self-proclaimed clairvoyant who informs Beth that Marias house is haunted and foresees bloodshed. And indeed, unpleasant things start to occur at Marias house: windows are broken, a flowerpot shattered, strange noises in the night, doors banging, windows opened, bath taps running Maria is scared but Harry is drawn towards Maria who is a sexy uninhibited tease. Harry loves her lust for life. Beside her temp job at the small towns chemical factory, once owned by Beths family, Maria gives erotic massages to late-night male visitors.
Beth loathes the young woman and cant bear the growing influence she has on Harry, who now spends most of his time babysitting Kiki. Although Beth thinks of her son as an artist, Maria discovers another side of Harry and when Mike, Marias stalking ex, finally turns up, Harry comes to her rescue and saves her from rape and a beating.
Beth starts losing her mind as Harry and Maria get closer and now love each other very much. Beth will do whatever it takes to stop the tramp next door from running off with her son. No one is going to touch Harry.
So Beths plan starts to go into action with twists, turns and revelations as Harry starts to unlock his mind and he begins to recall the events that lead to his fathers death.

Tags: flashback

Review:
People with Strange Hobbies ....
You automatically grow suspicious and lower your expectations when they're giving away movies for free.
"The Box Collector" only just came out early 2008, never played in cinemas or even hit rental stores (or at least not to my knowledge) and yet already a TV-magazine here in my country gave away free exemplars last week!
That can't be a very promising sign, now can it?
Still, I can't deny several tiny aspects about this production intrigued me right from the start.
"The Box Collector" is Belgian/Canadian collaboration (those are extremely rare) with an prominent English born producer in the director's chair  John Daly who sadly passed away in the meantime already - and the underrated Belgian director Guy Lee Thys at the scripting table.
As a fellow Belgian and probably one of the very few people who struggled through Thys' demented horror thriller "The Pencil Murders", I kind of felt obliged to see "The Box Collector" as well.
Moreover, the film stars as the aging Margot Kidder ("Black Christmas", "Sisters", "The Amityville Horror") as a psychotic mother and what self-respecting horror fanatic doesn't want to see that?
Overall, I can't really be too harsh on "The Box Collector" but it's undeniably a lackluster and derivative effort, with an extremely incoherent script and multiple utterly senseless plot twists.
The events take place in a remote and nameless little factory town.
Actually, I'm pretty sure the town must be called "Utopia".
Because there are gorgeous, voluptuous and easy-going girls everywhere (at the pharmacist, at the bar and even moving in next door) and they all have the hots for the same local yokel.
This lucky bastard, however, lives under the reign of his dominant mother and doesn't even have a clue what horrible things she (Margot Kidder) and her crazy Tarot card friend Luz discuss at the coffee table.
Her small world brightens up entirely when the sweet beautiful single mother Marie moves in next door with her daughter.
Harry falls madly in love, but obviously mommy doesn't approve.
"The Box Collector" is a strange movie.
I don't think this was an intentional choice, but merely a matter of incompetence.
The main storyline isn't exactly what you would call original.
The spooky dominant mother is one of the most commonly known thriller concepts, dating all the way back to Hitchcock's "Psycho" and possibly even far beyond, and "The Box Collector" hardly adds anything new to this.
The sub plots are wildly uneven, abruptly handled and totally irrelevant, like the marriage issues of a snake-hunting playboy and Marie's jealous ex-husband showing up again.
The final twist is just plain bizarre and you better don't put too much thought into that, or else you might end up hating the film.
Margot Kidder overacts with a passion, but the show is undoubtedly stolen by the beauty of the Belgian actresses Lyne Renee and Marie Vinck.
Yes, this country is the ideally fertile breeding ground for gorgeous, sexy women!
One last thing, the odd title refers to the fact that our protagonist like to paint boxes.
There are some strange people with even stranger hobbies out there.
Lois Lane as you've never seen her before.
An interesting take on the over protective mother theme.
A over protective mother (Kidder) think that the girl her son (Segan) is seeing is ruining the lives of everyone in the town.
This movie shows Margot Kidder as you've never seen her before.
After a new young woman moves next door and Harry (Segan) begins a relationship with her, Beth (Kidder) becomes convinced that everything bad that is happening in the town is her fault.
This was originally a TV movie, and it shows.
The story is good, but the acting outside of Kidder and Lyne Renee, who plays the neighbor, is terrible.
It is a very interesting movie though, and the fact that Lois Lane plays a borderline psycho makes it more interesting to watch.
This movie has a twist ending that comes out of nowhere and really changes the entire movie.
It's not a bad movie, but nothing "Super" either (get it?).
I give it a B-.Would I watch again?
- No. Margot Kidder reminds me of Bette Davis in this movie!.
Before watching this movie I read the reviews on line, but I find that everyone has there own idea of what is a good movie.
So I delved into the movie- who doesn't like superman with Lois Lane.
I did not read spoiler reviews, just basic ones.
I found this movie very engaging from the beginning.
Bit slow at times, bit confusing in the beginning/ intro but, those slow times actually led to a surprise that sneaks up on you!
Drags you back into the plot.
Margots performance is very good, I almost forgot she portrayed her famous character of Lois Lane.
Her performance Kinda reminds me of Bette Davis in "whatever happened to Baby Jane?" A bit physcotic/ possessive/ all about her.
Although that movie was obviously better.
I also found the other actors ( whom I really never heard of) to be very good, they added to the very unexpected twist and turns in the movie.
The ending was (as many other reviews said) Was the best part of the movie- unpredictable!
unexpected!
I recommend watching this.
Would I watch again, maybe.
No, probably.
Absolutely great (but for the last 3 minutes!).
I thoroughly enjoyed this movie, that is to say: until the last 3 minutes!
A lot has been said on this site about movies with a surprise shift at the end, the shift that's supposed to knock you down flat and totally change your view on the entire story.
Some movies have one that makes definitely sense (like "The sixth sense" for example), in a way that when you watch the movie for the second time everything suddenly fits together in a more logical way then it did before you knew "the shift".
In short: a shift may initially shock, but should ultimately make us leave the movie-theater with a feeling of satisfaction, thanks to our enhanced insight.
It should make a movie better, not worse.
Alas there are many movies (or directors or script-writers) who throw in The Final Plot Shift apparently just for their own satisfaction, or to give the whole project some sort of extra weight and depth, out of some pretentious arrogance.
They care less for logic or for the feelings of the viewers than for the childish fun of throwing a brick in a pond and enjoying the turmoil it causes.
An example for the latter is "High tension" by Alexandre Aja, who came up with such a preposterous and intelligence-defying twist in the end that the whole (very strong!) movie totally fell flat like a pinched balloon.Now I don't know the reasons of director John Daly, or better, of writer Guy Lee Thys, for their version of the Ultimate Plot Shift, but they sure as hell didn't make a better movie with it or evoked a flash of insight in the viewer (at least: in me).
It wasn't really preposterous, thank god, but more or less totally unnecessary and weird and utterly incomprehensible.
Maybe I'm too dumb to grasp it, or too lazy to spend days puzzling about it.
But to me it spoiled an otherwise very strong and solid movie and that seems like a pity.The Box Collector is about a young, uncertain and unassertive guy who lives with his widowed mother in a big house and spends his days painting images of cardboard boxes (hence the movie's title).
The mother is very dominating, to the point of castrating, crying hell over the male sex in general, apparently having had very bad experiences with her sons father.
When a sexy young lady moves in next door and starts to flirt with the son, mother goes rampant.
We then see the son, who gets a relationship with the pretty neighbor, slowly changing into an adult with a mind of his own, while the mother grows more and more insane with spite and jealousy.The strong story itself provides an exciting movie, the direction is great and thanks to skillful editing there's a steady pace with an intelligent alternation of lightweight and more heavy scenes and of drama and humor.
I liked the grotesque scenes with Luz, a fellow man-hating woman who with the mother concocts wild plans to punish men and eliminate the female predators in the little town.
These funny scenes were totally in line with the story and in that way very functional but at the same time counterbalanced the risk of too much drama.I was very impressed with the overall acting.
It must have been a tricky choice to cast Margot Kidder as the deranged obsessive mother, knowing her own recent history of a nervous breakdown.
But it was great that she went along and she does a real fine job, she is totally convincing in the portrayal of her character, at many times you just want to slap her in the face for all her chicaneries and for bullying her son.
But at the same time Kidder succeeds in letting the frailty of old age and the terror of ultimately being left alone shine through.Lyne Renee is an absolute find, she's not just a classic beauty but also extremely sexy with a very strong charisma, even I (being gay!) found her very exciting and it's understandable that all the men lust after her while all the women see her as a threat.
Just look at the little scene where she walks, almost even dances through the hall in the factory where she works, with all the working men looking her over and she's just smiling and thanking them with an extra swing of her hips and a proud sway of her head, it's priceless!!
And to boot all that: this beautiful creature is actually a very good actress!
But to me, the star of the movie was young Noah Segan.
He is totally fit for the part, he has this boyish look, he's maybe not a stunner but very appealing with his sad eyes and serious and careful attitude.
He plays the character of the son to perfection, he handles his mother with a convincing mix of patience and weariness, and makes it believable that Harry actually still loves her and feels some sort of (guilty) responsibility towards her.
His transition, thanks to Marie, into a more self-willed grown-up is done very realistic, very gradually we see him grow and make it understandable that this sexy and very experienced Marie at last sees him as a real support for herself and her child.
I really hope to see a lot more of Noah Segan in the future, hopefully in equally strong and challenging parts!Well, as I said earlier, the last 3 minutes of the movie should better be forgotten.
The scene right before The Shift was very climactic and in my opinion could have been the starting-point of a more suitable conclusion of the movie.
But who am I....Since I simply rule out the last minutes, I can without any hesitation rank this movie 9 out of 10..
When I first started watching it, I was really engaged.
It dragged somewhat throughout the movie, but it still kept my interest.
Very interesting characterizations, and good acting from Margot Kidder.
However, overall, the movie's story line was very choppy; it jumped from one thing to another; and you're not sure who's coming or going?
I found the ending disappointing.
It left me with more questions than answers?
It left me with more questions than answers?
Did the mother kill her husband?
Did her crazy tarot reading friend and crazy rattlesnake collector husband really exist?
Did the son kill his mother, and the girl that did once live next door?
Was his father having an affair with that girl, and the mother killed them both?
I was left feeling very confused with what was real and what wasn't.
The only thing I knew to be real was the son's relationship with his overbearing mother.
Otherwise, crazy movie!!