VICTIM

Anyone who claims that Asian horror has lost its power to scare or disturb can set down and be quiet with the release of Victim. Not only does this post-modern experimental symbiosis of traditional ghost story themes and avant-garde techniques terrify, it also challenges! If you're looking for a movie that terrifies and makes you think while doing it, this is it!

Simply put, Victim makes it fun to be scared again. Combing elements of the vengeful wraith and curse motif that has been overused by Grudge and Ringu clones, Victim takes these well worn elements and subverts them beneath their own conventions. Making the old new and the expected surprising, the plot of this thrilling piece of surrealism sets up one set of events only to change tactics -- and as a consequence the entire story -- halfway through. The bulk of the narrative focuses on a young aspiring actress who gives her services to the local police who have her act out the roles of victims with perpetrators/possible suspects so that the crime may be reconstructed and guilt/innocence established. Wrapped up in her work, seeking to know and feel as these victims did, our naïve heroine slowly becomes possessed by one of the victims who she is imitating. As a rash of unexplained spectral deaths occur around her and she is attacked by the deceased woman's lover/friend, the entire story that we've been following is revealed to be . . . Well, I refuse to ruin the surprise, or how expertly the filmmakers make what could be seen as a contrivance seem organic to the story, shocking but in no way gratuitous. In fact, the changing set of rules, characters, and plot points heighten the previously established suspense, making the vengeful, cruel conspiracy of an evil spirit both thoughtful and terrifying.

Victim will have you looking over your shoulder, beneath the bed . . . and in the mirror! It's style and imagery is seeped in surrealistic dread and shocks, and the suspense is intimately attached to characters we're made to care about -- twice, as each is revealed to be something other than what we thought -- a theme exploited with tragic resonance. The puzzling and threatening illusions of nature and characterization, settings and appearances is milked for every drop of suspense their worth. The bold structural change revitalizes a moribund genre with razor sharp style and dizzying energy. Finally, we see an Asian ghost story that stands apart from the rest. Victim resembles a dark mirror reflecting what we fear most -- ourselves, the lies we tell ourselves, one another, and perception (the very way in which we define ourselves and the world within us. The world itself -- experiences and settings -- are even called into question here, saving the central thematic threads of identity and a cursed object from feeling cliché.

Like a cold, damp hand in the dark, the director's skill at pacing clamps hold and doesn't let go, resulting in a first rate ghost story.

Review by William Simmons