Poster Artwork
You could be forgiven for thinking that Victim, from directors Matt Eskandari and Michael A. Pierce, is just another in a long line of kidnap and torture flicks. Just take a look at the basic premise, a young man is kidnapped and then held hostage whilst a doctor performs experiments on him. Seems pretty cut and dry doesn’t it? Fortunately that is not the case in this dark and disturbing movie.
Victim starts with some handheld style footage of a young girl being assaulted and presumably murdered. It then shifts focus to a young man, who is never named, sitting at a bar chatting up the staff. Upon leaving he is attacked and wakes up in what appears to be some sort of cage. With no idea how he got there the poor fella eventually meets the creepy and slightly effeminate Dr Volt and his man mountain assistant Mr George. They have no intentions of filling their victim in on why he is there, mainly because Mr George never speaks and the doctor is just plain cryptic, not to mention creepy. Instead they perform operations on him in an attempt to change his appearance as well as completely eradicate any previous memories he once had. The young man’s only companion being a young girls diary which he reads when he is not being subjected the physical assault of his captors.
Now this story itself is thoroughly engrossing, you want to know why the seemingly mad doctor is doing this, not to mention why Mr George is so eager to help. The problem is the film makers decided to add a story strand involving a police detectives investigation which only serves to break up the flow of the film as well as bolster the movie’s running time. I personally found it to be an unnecessary element that really does add nothing to the movie.
That really could have hindered my enjoyment of Victim had it not been for the main plot-line and the performances from the three main leads. All give wonderful performances from Stephen Weigand as the hapless victim who you will not recognize by the end of the film, Bob Bancroft as the doctor gives an incredibly measured performance bordering on the psychotic but seemingly always in control of his diabolical plans to Brendan Kelly as Mr George. Now he may not say much, if anything, but his physical presence in the role manages to illicit fear as well as a pitiful sympathy for him. All three were quite terrific.
The film technically seemed very cold and precise, although I do not say this in a negative light. The further the film travels the more it will get under your skin, it is genuinely disturbing and the subject matter may well turn off the knuckle-draggers out there. This is not a schlocky beer and pizza movie at all. There is a fair amount of violence and a modicum of claret here and there, in fact one or two scenes will have the guys crossing their legs and praying for the scenes to end without really showing anything. It’s always the scenes that don’t show everything that seem to work best don’t you think? Well that is definitely the case here.
On the downside there are a couple of plot holes here that did spoil what could have been an excellent film. It’s still good, it’s actually very good, but the one plot hole in particular is the basis for the entire movie’s premise. Of course, I could have missed something, alas I don’t think that is the case.
Plot holes and crappy detective subplots aside Victim was a thoroughly engrossing and disturbing film that is well worth checking out. Me? I might actually consider purchasing it at some point. It’s well made, well acted and even if you do work out what is going on it will still have to power to surprise and possibly even shock you.
