"The Horseman" Review - Written by Anthony T

The Horseman
Year: 2010
Director: Steven Kastrissios
Stars: Peter Marshall, Caroline Marohasy
MPAA Rating: R
Studio: Screen Media Films
Running Time: 96 Mins







It’s time yet for another torture porn film to review, but it‘s different from Bloodmyth and She‘s Crushed. This time, it’s an action/horror film, in the vain of “Taken” and “Hostel“ .

“The Horseman” is an Australian revenge film about Christian, a divorce businessman, who is going through a tough time in his life when his daughter dies under complicated circumstances. He then find out what happened to her, when a video arrives in the mail. Christian sees the tape to find out that his daughter was intoxicated and mistreated in the last moments of her life. Fueled by anger and rage, he begins to build a body count to find the truth about. Amidst this rage, he comes across a young runaway, who is not unlike his daughter and builds a fragile relationship.

Finally after having to sit through the films that I mentioned in the beginning, there actually going to be a positive review considering the subject matter and subgenre.

“The Horseman” is one very brutal film from start to finish. First time feature Writer/director Steven Kastrissios does a very good balancing the pace of the film. For an action film to succeed, it has to move at an intense pace to be effective and enjoyable. The film here moves at a slow pace and usually I would be bored because in these types of films, I like the pace of the film to move along. It wasn’t the case here, but I accept that because of the way that Kastrissios puts emotion into the main characters. The reason that he makes the character very interesting, Kastrissios directs gets a lot of emotion out of his lead actor, Peter Marshall. I thought this was the best thing out of this whole film. The performance gets you into the story, when often times films like this will lag until the next action sequence. Speaking of the action sequences, I thought they were directed, very well. They come off more shocking then you would expect in a normal action film. Kastrissios does a good job directing those sequences as they give depth into the emotion state of the main character, while providing the necessary elements that are needed to keep a film like this moving.

Kastrissios’ screenplay does a good job keeping this film from not turning into either one of those all out action or torture films. The reason it doesn’t go all out into either direction is the way that Kastrissios makes the story about the Christian and not about how many or he kills. It makes the story become relevant, which is not seen in most films of this kind. I liked how it also focused on the character’s state of mind, especially when he driving on the road with the runaway during the course of the film. He does that through the various flashbacks that in the film. By telling most of the story that way, it makes you think what is going on in his mind. Another thing that I liked about this film was the scenes with the main character and the teenage runaway. It’s added into this film to give the main character some humanity amidst all the monstrous things that he is doing to the people that killed his daughter. I think, it also really slows the film down to the point your not completely horrified of this character. That’s a good thing because at the end of the day, this is an action film, not an all out horror film.

“The Horseman” is an action packed film that “Death Wish” meet the torture porn genre.

Review Rating: Four Stars.