The slasher follows the story of handyman and ex-con Arkin, who aims to repay a debt to his ex-wife by robbing his new employer's country home. Unfortunately for Arkin, a far worse enemy has already laid claim to the property - and the family. As the seconds tick down to midnight, Arkin becomes a reluctant hero trapped by a masked 'Collector' in a maze of lethal invention - the Spanish Inquisition as imagined by Rube Goldberg - while trying to rescue the very family he came to rob.

BLOODY-DISGUSTING: Did you guys write this knowing Marcus would direct?

PATRICK MELTON: Yes! This was a short film that we were going to do before Project Greenlight happened. It was called Thief at the time, and the question was "What if a thief broke into the home of a serial killer?" That was sort of the rough idea, putting an ironic spin on this story. So we were going to do that; Marcus was going to direct it, and we were trying to get like ten thousand bucks to make it, it was ten pages. But then PGL happened and it kind of went on the back-burner.

BD: And how did it come to this point, getting a release through Freestyle?

Patrick: Once we had shot it (independently), we showed it to people that we knew. One of them was Mickey Liddell, and he was looking for this sort of thing; he has a fund so that he can release movies through Freestyle. And he saw it, loved it, bought it, and then allowed us to shoot some new stuff. We shot the credit sequence at the beginning, which is really cool, added some stuff to the ending, picked up a few elaborate shots that we missed throughout... bought this great soundtrack, like Korn, Comedy Christ, Depeche Mode, Bauhaus...

MARCUS DUNSTAN: And an original score by Nine Inch Nails drummer Jerome Dillon!

Patrick: Yeah, so [Lidell] kind of came in with all the bells and whistles, got us a proper sound mix at Warner Bros. And then color correction at LaserPacific with a guy named Mike Sawa, who did Mirrors and Kite Runner and stuff like that, he's really good. It's so important to have that stuff for a horror movie, so it has the right atmosphere and tone. So he brought in this A-list crew and got it to the point where it can compete with the stuff that comes out every weekend, and we owe him the world. And so here we are, with a done movie, exactly how we wanted it to be, and it comes out July 31st!

Marcus: And our big challenge is: that's coming up. And we need to get the word out, so that people that would like to see that sort of movie, there's something that's going to respect them right back and shake them by the collar from frame one to close. It's definitely the one we don't have to make a single excuse for. We're proud of this.

BD: And unlike Saw, an audience can go in without having to remember what's going on in four or five previous movies. And likewise for you guys, you can write without having to worry about, you know, "Oh wait, no, because in Saw II this guy said this so now he can't be doing that".

Marcus: And there was a nice bit of autonomy in knowing that the director could protect the script. And the writer could protect the director. And Patrick came in swinging, if we ever needed something to be done, you know, politically. It's a smaller yard to play in, but we blew it up just as we would anything else. And we had a list of taboos of bits from other projects that we couldn't do, and we made up that list and checked it off one by one and did them all with this movie!

Patrick: Having the Saw pedigree, and street cred from Feast, helped us achieve all these things. You know, sometimes you deal with people who don't really have the strongest grasp on the genre, but seeing our credits... people just sort of trust us that we might know a little bit. Those films helped us get this film where it is.

BD: With Marcus directing, did it change the way you guys usually write?

Marcus: This one was kind of interesting and frustrating. This script... normally you have a white draft and you turn it in and as it changes based on the production, you have yellow, pink, blue, brown... before you shoot. Well, this shooting draft was white. But then the first day of the shoot, (uses a producer voice) "Well, you have to lose these ten pages." (normal) And it's like "What the F- are you talking about?" (producer voice again) "And you have to lose these last five too, and these six in the middle!" (normal) So the nice thing was, the writer in my head was still around, knowing I had a story to protect. A director can sometimes be left up shit creek, just thinking "I have to get through the day" and you can sometimes lose perspective on what the whole entity is supposed to be. Fortunately for us too, we've acquired enough from the Saw movies that we knew "OK, if I can get through this day, this week, this shoot, then I can make those scenes when I get back to town. I've worked with the actors, I've got all the favors I need. Fine, I'll deal with today's issues, but when I get home I'm going to fix them all." It's not something you can do on a blockbuster, but when it's something as intimate as this, it allowed us to play and deliver exactly what we wanted to do.

BD: On that note, the MPAA I'm sure has it in for you guys, based on your previous credits...

Marcus: Four trips.

Patrick: It was four trips just for the movie, and then repeated trips for the trailer as well. And what we found was interesting; with the Saw movies, they expect those to be really bloody and violent and crazy. But now they have this heightened reality, because they don't even seem real anymore, the traps keep getting so complicated, and they have these worlds of endless streams of underground tunnels that no one has seemed to discover. But with this one, we went out of our way to set it up as this thriller, with real situations and real characters, trying to make it as plausible as possible that this could happen to anybody. So even though we have the same amount of blood that we would have in a Saw movie, it feels more intense and more disturbing, because of this realistic tone that we've been able to hit. So that was what we kept getting back from the MPAA, they would say "This is too intense to be an R movie, this is an NC-17 movie". So we were able to come to an agreement with them by taking out seven seconds of the movie. So it's really the same film, and it makes no difference in the grand scheme of things.

Marcus (laughing) And it really was just excess! It was a LOT!

Patrick: Seven seconds is nothing. At the end of the day, this is the hardest horror movie you're going to see in the theaters this year. I know Halloween II is going to be pretty brutal, because Rob does a brutal movie. But with that you get the heightened reality as well, because you expect Michael Myers to do certain things. And like, you know, it's Haddonfield, you know it doesn't exist, I know it doesn't exist, I'm from Illinois! There is a layer of detachment to it. This one does not. It can happen to anyone at anytime. Tonally I compare it to The Strangers. That movie was affecting and scary to me, because of the simple explanation - "You were home". Well, I'm home a lot, so this is scary, it can happen to me!

(Publicist gives the dreaded two minute warning)

BD: OK, I have to switch to Saw before they kick me out. You guys came in as the newcomers to the series, but now you're the overseers. Now that you're doing VII (Seven) there will be more Saw films written by you than not. Because of that, do the producers give you more freedom, since you're sort of the experts now?

Marcus: VI (Six) is where it all came together. There would not be talk of a VII (Seven) or our participation in it, if VI (Six) hadn't come together so damn well. I think a lot of that has to do with Kevin Greutert as a director, fighting and making this movie like it's only movie he may ever get to make. No excuses, BAM!

Patrick: And he's a horror fan, we speak the same language and swim in the same pool. He gets it. He knows what people want from these movies and he's gonna fight for it. And there is a consistency in these movies; it's been the same producers since the beginning: Jason Constantine, Peter Block, Mark Burg, Oren Koules, they're always there. They keep it within a certain world. And sometimes we try to do things differently, because... the thing with VI (Six) is we reacted to some of the backlash that was on V (Five) to make things different and more unique. So one thing we wanted was to not have a guy stumbling down a hallway going through a door that slams shut behind him. And then there's a TV and it turns on and Billy talks to you. Come on man, we've seen it too many times, let's not do that. So we really tried to mix things up and make it different, and make a really interesting A story that can stand alone. And once you have that, THEN you put in the John Kramer story, then you put in Hoffman, and we have this moment that ropes in Shawnee's character, in a very organic manner that doesn't seem like we just put her in there for a few days' work; it's integral to the plot.

Marcus: And she is really good...

Patrick: So you get this feeling of 'This could be it.' At the end of this movie, you have a feeling of resolution of what John Kramer set out to do when he became Jigsaw.

BD: And then we hear 'Hello, Zepp'?

(Marcus laughs)

Patrick: This movie does not end on a tape. This is not a trick ending with a new tape and a "Ohhhh here we go again!" It's not. When this movie ends, it could be the last one, and I think everyone would be perfectly happy.

BD: On that note, you guys do these movies every year now. It's unique to the series, even Friday the 13th had a year off every now and then. In a way it's more like writing an episodic TV show like 24 or something. So does the quick turnaround actually help, because you're always laying in these things that play off one or two movies later and unlike a regular film series, you don't have to remember what you wrote 5 or 6 years ago to make sure it adds up?

Marcus: It allows questions to be fresh, but the challenge is, you need to be thinking two installments ahead. So the casting of reporter A in the background? She might be integral two or three movies down the road, and we might want to pick up something about her personality now, in the background. So I like that pressure. It's a pressure to keep everyone on their toes, because there is a fan out there who has been taking a fine-tooth comb to the entire series, and knows every detail, so we need to be bulletproof every time out.

The Collector arrives in theaters July 31