“When something’s dead, the only decent thing to do is bury it,” Elizabeth Montgomery’s younger sister tells her in the made-for-TV thriller The Victim (1972). Susan Chappel (Jess Walton) is referring to her marriage to Ben (George Maharis); she recently retained a divorce lawyer. But in a macabre twist, she’s soon dead herself—and certainly not buried.
As Kate Wainwright (Montgomery) inches closer to that horrifying discovery, we’re treated to 75 minutes of thunder and lightning and close calls with a corpse. Hitchcock’s Rope it ain’t, but The Victim (adapted by Merwin Gerard from a story by McKnight Malmar) derives its more twisted suspense from a body in a trunk. And this time it’s wicker and not entirely closed, allowing viewers to notice what escapes Kate’s attention in Ben and Susan’s dark basement.
Cranky Lesbian is a disgruntled homosexual with too much time on her hands. Click for film reviews or to follow on Instagram.