The Victim

The Victim

Thriller

2011

Rated: R

Running Time: 83 minutes

Starring: Michael Biehn, Danielle Harris, Jennifer Blanc

Directed By: Michael Biehn

Rating: 0.5 out of 10

Outline

A man living in a remote cabin is inundated with unwanted visitors.

Review

I saw Danielle Harris on the cover of this DVD and said to myself, why not. A little voice in my mind told me that this was going to be bad, but I could never have imagined what levels of wretchedness that this movie would get to. The Victim is the story of a man living by himself in a remote cabin. He is minding his own business when a group of visitors show up unannounced.

I am not entirely sure who the victim was supposed to be in this movie. Was it one of its unfortunate characters? Or was it the viewer for having to sit through this drivel? Anyways, the movie starts off and I actually found it to be a quite interesting beginning. You see the guy from the remote cabin, shopping for some supplies. You see a woman being chased through the woods, and you see another woman having sex in the woods. You will be wondering how the film connects with these three different storylines. I am here to tell you that it is not worth the wait. It is as if the director (Biehn) didn’t know where the story was going so he edited the film without care or thought. What happens is this film is cluttered and entirely disjointed. Not only that, virtually nothing happens for the first hour of this movie. You see strippers doing cocaine and trying on skimpy outfits, you see lots of conversations about nothing, you see lots of driving around in the dark, and you see plenty of nudity. What you won’t see is anything remotely representing a decent movie. The different groups of visitors descend on the man’s remote cabin with tales of murder and deceit, but the stories they tell are fraught with boredom and little else. The deep woods are supposed to illicit unknown fears, not feelings of your time being wasted.

The acting was a fail across the board in this. It is as if the actors were handed the script right before the scene was shot, and then had a hard time recalling their lines. The worst of the bunch was clearly Jennifer Blanc. She plays a stripper on the run named Eva. She was little more than an ample filled sweater in this film. Her delivery is cringe worthy, and her emotional range is non-existent.

As the film carries on it never really settles into any specific genre. If this is supposed to be horror, there is no horror. If this film is supposed to be a thriller, there are no thrills. If this film is supposed to be an exploitation film, there is no exploitation. The film is little more than a tale of corrupt cops, scantily clad strippers, and a creepy dude in a cabin. And trees, lots and lots of trees, and when you think something actually might happen, more trees. The many scenes of torture and the abrupt scene of Rob Zombieish (Yes I just used the word Zombieish) styled violence will not arouse any emotions in the viewer. The ending sees a conclusion to why the visitors have arrived at the cabin, but the twist is asinine. In conclusion, this film sucked out loud from about the 5 minute mark to the very end. It has little going for it except two things. The first thing is no matter the time, no matter how life or death the situation, no matter the place, and no matter if you just met, it is always appropriate to have sex to save yourself (and it also is apparently an effective tool, pardon the pun.) The second thing is if you are going to have a movie about a cabin in the woods, get Joss Whedon to help.

Director and writer Michael Biehn seems lost in this endeavor. What happened to this dude? I thought he was going to be big after seeing him in Terminator and Aliens, back in the day. Now he is creating movies that The SyFy network would be embarrassed to put on. The musical score in this is awful and the editing is amateurish. The camera work coupled with the weak acting makes this film a snooze fest instead of gripping. I will not hold it against Biehn as this film had a miniscule budget (Est. 800,000) but wow this was awful.

I cannot recommend this movie. I gave it 0.5 solely for the fact that I love Danielle Harris.

T Factor + If you love horror and grind house styled films then this could score higher on the rating scale.

T Factor – None

If you liked this film reel recommendations: Vacancy, The Strangers.