The Horseman - Mein ist die Rache

Peter Marshall plays a pest control technician and revenge driven father who tortures and kills men who are responsible for the death of his daughter.The girl died just after shooting a threesome in an underground gonzo porn film."The Horseman" by Steve Kasrtissios is one hell of a brutal revenge thriller.The scenes of violence are extremely harsh and unflinching.The film is loaded with nasty fights and sadistic torture.The people are beaten with crowbar,claw hammer,sledgehammer,throats are slashed,genitals mutilated and nipples severed.The finale is incredibly violent.The central performance by Peter Marshall is exceptional.His wounded character oozes grief and retribution.9 crowbars out of 10.

but this is essentially an exploitation film.

The most outstanding thing is the lead actors performance which was pretty amazing. I was expecting more from the film after the first half an hour or so, but the film never achieves the depth that Peter Marshall's performance suggests. The script doesn't do justice to the production or the acting.

It's enjoyable revenge flick but to try and engage with it on a level beyond that just exposes how silly and tasteless it all is.

Despite these misgivings there is a lot to like about the film and I hope the director and Peter Marshall especially progress to bigger and better things.

He's in pest control. The pests are human; specifically, pornographers. And though the name badge on his denim work dungarees says 'Christian', his ethical sensibilities have more in common with the Old Testament than with turning the other cheek.

The apocalyptically titled 'The Horseman' is the latest in a galloping line of 'vigilante dad' films stretching back to Ingmar Bergman's 'The Virgin Spring', in which a father, usually a divorcée or widower, made nutty by grief, ruthlessly picks off those responsible for violating and/or offing their daughters, nieces or wives. 'What would you do?' these films ask, like a caring Dr Miriam Stoppard. Before supplying the answer in the voice of Michael Winner: 'blow their balls off, dear!'

In Paul Schrader's 'Hardcore', for example, George C Scott's single-parent Calvinist makes merry hell in the porn pits of Los Angeles, after spotting his runaway daughter Kristen in a blue movie. While in Steven Soderbergh's 'The Limey', Terence Stamp's ex-con investigates his daughter Jenny's suspicious death in - where else - LA, leaving a trail of dead heavies behind him. While the 2006 Danish animation Princess sees a former missionary taking bloody revenge on those contributing to his porn star sister's sordid demise. Charles Bronson, especially, has form here: in 1958's 'Gang War', his mild-mannered maths teacher becomes self-appointed judge, jury and executioner when his wife is murdered by mobsters. While in 1974's 'Death Wish', his mild-mannered architect (was anyone buying this, by the way?) turns squinty-eyed vigilante after muggers rape and kill his wife and daughter. To lose one family to muggers may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose two looks like carelessness, as Oscar Wilde observed, before Bronson shot him.

The common denominator for many of these films - or to put it another way, the movie they're half-inching their plots from - is Mike Hodges' Britcrime classic 'Get Carter', the daddy of 'relative retribution' movies, in which Michael Caine's one-man murder-machine avenges the death of his brother and the virtual rape of his niece Doreen, coerced into a stag flick called 'Teacher's Pet' by the plum-faced fellow who went on to pull pints for Arthur and Terry at The Winchester.

In The Horseman the anonymously-posted porn video goes by the lovely name of 'Young City Sluts II', whose leading lady Jesse latterly resides in an urn in her dad's van, having expired on a tide of booze, opiates and bodily fluids post-shoot. If nothing else, this film underlines the fact that human ashes do not look in the least like fine, velvety sand; they look like kitty litter. Roving through rural Queensland, Christian (Peter Marshall) attempts to restore the karmic balance, leaving the distributor, director and performers with faces resembling bowls of peach melba, and a shortfall of testicles. A scene in which one leery larrikin has fishing hooks threaded through his Niagaras nearly rivals Hard Candy for leg-crossing trauma.

"Ozzie boys terrorising each other!" is how Quentin Tarantino describes the golden era of Australian exploitation movies in Mark Hartley's fantastic documentary Not Quite Hollywood: The Wild, Untold Story Of Ozploitation! And Steven Kastrissios's unflinching debut feature is just that: a riper slice of old school-style Ozploitation you could hardly wish for. However, as Tarantino also emphasised, "The reason you watch exploitation cinema is to have those moments when you're like, 'is this actually happening?! Am I actually seeing this?!'" And the first time The Horseman whips up a skull-soufflé with the conversational end of a crowbar, it might well make you blink, or at least reconsider seeking employment with the adult film industry. Yet within the first half-hour The Horseman finds itself trotting up a cul-de-sac.

This is bum-numbingly repetitive stuff: the Horseman locates target, and the lumbering Ocker-Beasts roll around on the floor, until the Horseman finally gets the better of his opponent with something blunt. Repeat six times until the audience relinquishes the urge to exist or becomes fixated on a rogue popcorn husk stuck in the back of the throat.

It's a real pity, because buried among the endless stabbings, gougings and nipple abuse (not to mention an unlikely scene when our middle-aged anti-hero dispatches three muscled twentysomethings single-handedly) there's clearly a classier movie struggling to get a word in edgeways. Aside from a solid central performance by Marshall as the deeply troubled, self-harming anti-hero, there's some interesting, complex stuff surrounding issues of culpability (Jesse, we discover, entered the industry entirely of her own volition), some fine technical flourishes, and good, naturalistic rapport between Christian and the young hitchhiking runaway Alice (Caroline Marohasy) he meets on the road, and with whom he comes to share an ersatz father-daughter relationship; a plot strand which also turns up in Hardcore - the ultra-devout Jake Van Dorn striking up a similar bond with Season Hubley's young hooker Niki.

So while The Horseman mightn't be the most accomplished entry in the recent New Wave of Australian horrors (see also Greg McLean's 'Wolf Creek' and 'Jamie Blanks' 'Storm Warning') this isn't to suggest it's altogether bound for the knacker's yard. There's enough potential here to suggest director Kastrissios is definitely a name to watch. He just needs to trust the fact that audiences are just as interested in characterisation and narrative as in seeing white walls repeatedly decorated with 'Neural Mist' by Dulux.

The Horseman is a great revenge thriller with the courage not only to raise moral questions about what its protagonist is doing, but also to show violence in all its ugliness. It features an excellent performance by Peter Marshall, and some genuinely creative torture methods.

Marshall's character has just lost his daughter to a drug overdose. From an anonymously mailed DVD, he learns she was involved in a porno shoot just before she died. This revelation sends him on a brutal rampage directed at everyone who participated in the shoot.

What sets this film apart from most other films in this genre is its moral ambiguity. The filmmakers do not shy away from the bloody results of the protagonist's violence, and as several characters note, it is made clear that the daughter voluntarily participated in the shoot. Marshall's performance reinforces this aspect of the film, as even he comes to have doubts about what he's doing.

The film does slip somewhat in its final third, as the filmmakers resort to a typical action ending, with a final confrontation with the most evil pornographer of all. However, this does not detract from the overall quality of the film.

First off, this film isn't going to appeal to everyone. It features graphic violence (most of it unseen) and a quite mundane plot that plods along. However, if you are a fan of old 70's and 80's exploitation films then you are in for a real treat. The story follows a man, who has been sent a video of his recently deceased daughter in a porn film. She's smacked off her t*ts and obviously isn't a willing participant. He takes it upon himself to track down all copies of said film, and anyone involved in it's making...And destroy them! This is gritty stuff. With little to no soundtrack, there is almost a documentary feel to it. It really makes you ask the question: What would you do? Although the plot isn't at all similar, it has the same kind of realism to films like the underrated 70's classic 'death weekend' and 'The Last House on the Left'. There is real drama here and characters that you truly root for. I hope this little gem doesn't slip under the radar because there are a lot of film fans (myself included) that have been waiting for this type of film to come along since the early 80's!