Victim

A young man is abducted by a mad scientist, who subjects him to bizarre physical and psychological tortures. It becomes clear that the madman is preparing him for something heinous... but what?

Although it's not a well made enough movie that I think it would worked on it's own, Victim seriously suffers from the fact that another movie came out around the same time with a very similar premise. If you've seen The Skin I Live In, then that will pull the rug right out from under this one. Victim is not a very good movie, but the premise at the center (which I won't spoil in case you haven't seen Skin) is seriously fucked up and might have had some impact if I had been unprepared. Victim was actually released a few months earlier; I bet the filmmakers fucking hate Almodovar for stealing their thunder. It's actually amazing how close the two concepts are; even the mad scientist's motivation is more or less the same.

Of course, the big difference is that Almodovar is a brilliant filmmaker who uses the profoundly disturbing concept as one small piece of a twisty, turny puzzle that explores the nature of identity, and surface appearance vs. the inner-self. Victim is just a sick joke stretched out to feature length. Props to the filmmakers for really going all the way with a nasty idea, but the final result is surprisingly tedious (especially once you figure out what's going on); there's only really enough material here for a short film.

Rating: C-