20131114: Horror Review--Victim

Victim

1. Production Fundamentals; reception
1. American live action feature length film, 2010, NR, 74 minutes, horror, aspect 1.78.
2. IMDB: 6.0/10.0 from 3,799 audience ratings.  Estimated budget, 5 million USD.
3. Rotten Tomatoes: 'No score yet...' and 71% liked it from 404 audience ratings.
4. Netflix: 3.0/5.0 from 140,638 audience ratings.
5. Directed by Matt Eskandari and Michael A. Pierce; screenplay by Michael Hultquist.
6. Starring: Stephen Weigand as Young Man, Bob Bancroft as Dr. Rudolph Volk, Brendan Kelly as Mr. George, Jennifer Howie as Rachel Volk, Stacy Haiduk as Det. Janet Corwin.


2. Setup, Plot
1. The opening, thankfully short, is in hand-held camera land.  Quite a few useful facts here are covered up by the bad camera work...to get the viewer to watch the ending, of course.


2. I was sorely tempted to abandon the film during the opening sequence.  It was neither of artistic value nor informative.  Was I glad that I watched the rest?  No.


3. We switch to 1.78 aspect ratio and professional work with modern cameras.


4. The second opening, also incredibly short, is about a club scene where the entitled squander money on alcohol and other drugs.  The 'Young Man' from the club scene is held up as the title character.  I am quite willing to see the entitled crushed into hamburger.


5. In the third tableau, we're in a very dirty, grim, combination prison and experimentation and torture lab. The lab is located in the basement of a large real property worth somewhere in the millions USD for the gated house and grounds.


6. The Young Man almost escapes, and sends a 911 call.  He is recaptured fairly quickly, so the 911 response is only a uniform visit some days later.  Meanwhile, the Victim receives more attention, that is, beatings, having his fingerprints burned off, sonic attack, and so on.  The uniforms kick the case up to a Detective Janet Corwin.  Dr. Volk defuses her questions with reasonable lies.


7. Thirty minutes into the film, Young Man cannot remember his own name.  How nice.


8. A bit later, Dr. Volk has him wearing a dress, painting is fingernails, and getting his body hair removed.  Dr. Volk moves on to full castration and a sex change operation.  Young Man is no longer that, and his downward trajectory into unhappiness continues.


9. Detective Corwin does some more work on Rachel Volk, Dr. Volk's daughter.  She found out Rachel was reportedly murdered.  She goes to Volk's house, discovers Young Man, then is killed by George.  They bury the body, then send a fake text to cover the trail temporarily.


10. Then the breast implants are executed, plus healing, plus lessons on grooming and deportment.


11. Time marches on.  Detective Corwin is missed, but not found.  The faux Rachel is healed up, and into the role.  After a refined dinner party, things go badly.  That is, back to the hand-held nonsense at the start.  The faux Rachel is to recreate with George the bad happenings that went down in the opening sequence, which was a snuff film with Rachel as the star.


12. How does it turn out the second time?  Do we finally find out what happened the first time, that was hidden (intentionally) the first time?  Did Dr Volk get what he wanted?


3. Conclusions
1. One line summary:  Five million USD should buy real actors and a real script; not here.
2. Two stars of five.


4. Scores
1. Cinematography: 4/10 Useless hand-held nonsense detracts from the majority of the film.


2. Sound: 4/10 Useless hand-held nonsense detracts from the majority of the film.


3. Acting: 4/10 Stephen Weigand's first film; unfortunately, not his last. The rest of the performances were between ho-hum and so-what.


4. Screenplay: 4/10 There was a bit of story in the middle that I thought was serviceable.  However, the ending was unsatisfying, since nothing that was hoped to be achieved was achieved.  Looking at the overarching structure, though, that was impossible from the get go.  The means used made the desired end unattainable.