Victim (2010)There are very few subjects that horror movies won't touch. Hell, there aren't ANY subjects they won't mess with. Including the idea of capturing, torturing and ultimately erasing the identity of a man for reasons that don't become apparent until the end of the movie. So, unfortunately, you have to watch the whole thing to find out what that is. But that's what I'm here for.
We begin this flinch fest with a pretty girl in a hotel room. She's being videotaped, saying she's 'never done this before' so I guess we're looking at sort of a cheap porno type movie. But things go quickly worse than any porno - the girl is attacked, beaten, and we assume murdered.
Skip to a club in an unnamed city. There are the beautiful people there, alcohol is flowing, and one young man is attempting to pick up anything in a skirt, handing them his 'business' card and telling them to call him anytime. He becomes aware that someone, face unseen in a hoodie, is watching him. He leaves, tries to be careful in the dark parking lot, and even manages to open his car door and grab the gun he keeps there, but apparently he didn't see the second guy, who whacks him over the head and he's taken.
He awakes in a cell, a type of oubliette (fancy word for dungeon or pit with an opening in the top, my lesson of the month for your vocabulary). He sees a man who is a doctor, and a large, silent thug. Despite his demanding to know why he's there and what's going on, he gets no information. They simply start drugging him, only giving him food if he does what they ask. This goes on for an undetermined period of time. One day he sees a desk in his cell - in the drawer is a little girl's diary. He reads it, almost obsessively. It's your basic little girl stuff - she wants to be pretty, she wants to be famous when she grows up, she loves her daddy, and so on. Between the tortures, drugs and incarceration he becomes more and more obsessed with the book. The doctor decides the next step can begin.
First they make him strip and put on a dress. Okay, things are about to get very flinchy here (I know that's not really a word). He's constantly crying and doesn't know why, and feels funny. The doctor tells him he's getting hormones, vitamins, etc. so there's going to be changes. Oh, so many changes. The next thing that happens to him is surgery. When he wakes, <flinch> his penis is gone, he now has a vagina and except for a few details, is technically a woman. The hormones have made his body hair growth slow, but not enough so he's made to shave, although he's still very woozy (as well as completely freaked).
And the doctor now starts calling him 'Rachel' and insists that he answers to that. He then receives breast implants, and is now allowed to recover in a guest room upstairs. He even gets to eat with the doctor and his henchman. His mind is pretty messed over, even worse than his body and he starts to believe he IS 'Rachel'. He talks in falsetto, wearing women's clothing and a long wig, calling the doctor 'father'.
Why did we go through this young man's torture? As soon as he has recovered enough, all is revealed. The doctor HAS a daughter named Rachel who wanted to go to California and be an actress. He told her no but she went anyway. She was murdered in a snuff film made by... say it with me... SAY IT... the young man who now sits in a dress in her place at the table (his name is never given). Oh but there's more flinching. See, as The Princess Bride would put it, she was only 'mostly dead'. The hospital told the father to let her go, but he instead nursed her back to health - well, sort of. She is aware but cannot do anything for herself, being paralyzed in bed. The father, his 'revenge' almost complete, now says that it is time for 'Rachel' to die. Something inside the she-male gets a little brave and manages to kill not only the large henchman (who has been staring at 'her' in an inappropriate manner and we get the idea he did the same to the original) but also the doctor. He then goes upstairs and meets the real Rachel. She looks at him, horrified. For whatever reason (Pity maybe?) he smothers her, ending her sort-of existence.
The movie ends with 'Rachel', still in a dress and wig with backpack in hand hitchhiking down the road, determined to make it to California to live our her dream of being famous. No, really, that's how it ends.
No comments:
Post a Comment