Don’t you hate it when you show up at a party and someone is wearing the same outfit? I know I do. And while most of us would just be content to suffer our public flogging in “Us” magazine and get on with out lives, this ain’t the case with the wronged ladies of MaxX Ginnane’s “Fashion Victim.” They return to the offending boutique and exact bloody retribution.
Maybe it’s because I have trouble matching accessories, or because Australians have a different sense of humor than I do, or because all of the “victims” in this movie are – at best – deranged psychopaths, but I had some difficulty empathizing with any of the characters. The nympho running the boutique (no really, she’s listed as “Nympho” in the credits) is only interested in palming off her overstock of bad toga outfits (supplied by sweatshop operator Don) on every woman who enters the store, then having sex with them. Her customers, including the crazed Sniper, the lusty extrovert Nikki, and the repressed secretary Cynthia, have no problem obliging her until they all show up at the same club wearing the same hideous ensemble. It’s “The Road Warrior” meets “The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert” (from a fashion sense) at that point, and it’s bad news for our unfortunate Nympho.
Nikki, resplendent in fright wig, quite capably freaks out the mundanes in her jaunt through the city. And Sniper (doing her best Charles Whitman) lives up to her name by picking off unwary civilians, but all the attached hamming delays the inevitable gory finale far too long.
MaxX Ginnane should stick to bondage documentaries. And I even hear Sarah from “Joe Millionaire” is looking for work.
