THE VICTIM

Up until now, for me personally anyway, the scariest thing to come out of Thailand was its traditional curry (A potent coconut allergy will serve to induce such terror!). But now on UK DVD for the first time comes director Monthon Arayangkoon’s 2006 ghoulish flick THE VICTIM.

Inspiration for the movie came via the real life procedures used by the Thai Royal Police in their criminal investigations. Actual convicted criminals are forced to perform re-enactments of their horrendous doings with actresses standing in for the genuine victims. The performance gives the police force public kudos in the national media for their ability to capture murderers, rapists and everyone in between!

Onto Arayangkoon’s fictional movie and a hopeful actress, Ting (Pitchanart Sakakorn), is blessed with talent but, frustratingly, has hardly had any real opportunities to prove her abilities. But one day, while Ting is bringing the locals attention to just how convincing her top notch "game show laugh" is, she gets an unexpected break. The Bangna Police Department require an actress to play the role of ‘the victim’ in various skits for reasons above. Alas, Lieutenant Te (Kiradej Ketakinta) makes an approach and a deal is struck.

Ting is very wary about her newfound job due to some festering paranoia about "insulting the souls of the dead". Nonetheless, her performances are amazing and she soon secures a lucrative long term contract.

Despite excelling at her work, personal guilt still hovers nefariously over her. Ting starts to hold lone vigils at the crime scenes out of respect to the deceased and it is during these that some weird apparitions start to manifest. Things start to turn completely absurd though when the police secure an incredulous break in a high profile case regarding the murder of Meen (Apasari Nitibhon), a former Miss Thailand no less. Tissue samples indeed provide evidence of her murder; but they have been obtained from what can only be described as a ghost...

Being the dedicated professional that she is, Ting starts to research the victim Meen with gusto. It leads her to an ex-acquaintance Fai (Penpak Sirikul), whose furtive lesbian advances toward Meen were apparently not reciprocated.

All this guides us to roughly the halfway point of the movie. Without revealing too much it’s safe to say that from here on in, the narrative boldly gets ripped inside out!

THE VICTIM is an interesting movie in many respects with plenty of jumps along the way but it’s over reliance on computers to create the scares ultimately prevented it from being genuinely frightening. I could have accepted the use of CGI if it was soley used to generate the smoky ethereal beings. But what gave the movie (the first half anyway) a gaudy TV show feel as if I was watching CSI Bangkok (!) were the brief computer gore shots. One scene in particular (when small slits bizarrely appear on Tings’ cheek) would have been far more effective had they employed more conventional methods, akin to when the abrasions appeared on Regan’s ankles in the Exorcist.

Ironically it was that particular scene that, in my opinion, led to the movies stand out sequence. As Ting bravely treads the final steps of Meen, to the point she lays in the deceased models bath tub, a truly hallucinogenic reverie transpires. The camera squeezed every morsel out of the 1.78:1 widescreen panorama to ratio to craft a positively claustrophobic and hideous trance like vista with Ting immersed in the throng of lost tortured souls. Superb.

I also appreciated the subtle links Ting provided in order to allow the supernatural elements to manifest. Her "respect for the souls" and such, granted plausibility that her character could attract such uncanny events within the narrative.

Still remaining positive and another intriguing facet of the movie was its ability to remain eerie even when no paranormal instances were employed. The scene in which Fai reminisces about Meen with Ting, and in a disturbingly obsessive manner dresses Ting as Meen, was deranged and creepy.

Earlier I mentioned the twist of storyline around the halfway point and I felt along with this came a change of the movies pacing. While the first part played out with an expeditious series of events to feed the plot, the latter half slowed down considerably, concerning itself with sheer atmosphere as oppose to an action packed climax. That’s not necessarily a criticism from these quarters but the combination of a dawdling pace along with the aforementioned alteration of style did make the 105 minute runtime seem a little longer.

One thing I DID feel could have been improved on was the utilization of audio. While Dolby Digital 2.0 soundtrack was more than capable of providing subtle ambience in which to stab the many bass filled jolts into, I couldn’t help but feel the surround speakers were sorely underused. Considering the movie had a considerable amount of ghostlike whispers and hisses I felt these were too centralised. Scattering these verbal undertones around the rears would have made for a much more effective viewing experience.

The disc itself simply comes with a menu allowing play movie or scene selection. The language is Thai with clear English subtitles in distinct white lettering which proved thorough enough to even translate the "HELP ME" pleads from an imperceptible entity at one point.

Basically, there is enough originality and slickly photographed sequences to make THE VICTIM worth a watch, especially for those of you with a penchant for Asian ghost stories.

Review by Marc Lissenburg