Michael Biehn, the sturdy character actor best known for playing the good guy in the original “The Terminator,” gives directing a shot for the second time in a low-budget would-be thriller, “The Victim.”
Biehn also stars as a loner living in a cabin in the woods when a distressed stripper (played by his wife Jennifer Blanc) shows up pleading for help: Her friend and fellow ecdysiast (Danielle Harris) has just been killed in an episode of rough sex after a double date with two cops (Ryan Honey, Denny Kirkwood).
The stripper and her new protector have a few more run-ins with the dirty cops, naturally, but this 80-minute film is dreadfully paced, with the shoddy acting of everyone but Biehn magnified to punishing degrees in talky, lengthy, predictable scenes. Biehn has appeared in dozens of B-movies and evidently had no greater ambition than to come up with a grindhouse movie full of sex, gore and cheap thrills, but there is far too little of any of these to maintain interest in a straight-on story that reserves its only surprise for the final 30 seconds.