Michael Biehn dropped by New Beverly Cinema on September 7, 2012 where the theater was hosting the Los Angeles premiere of his feature film directorial debut, “The Victim.” Joining Biehn for a Q&A were his wife and co-star Jennifer Blanc, Denny Kirkwood who plays one of the police detectives, producer Lorna Paul and musician Randy Chance who provided some original songs for the movie.

The first question Biehn was asked was, of course, what finally persuaded him to step behind the camera and direct. Biehn replied he was “not all that aware of really low budget movies until he worked on ‘Grindhouse‘” with Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez. Those two directors ended up showing him a bunch of their favorite grindhouse/exploitation movies, and Biehn recollected of how he was on the set of “The Divide” one day and saw a crew member reading Rodriguez’s book “Rebel Without a Crew” in which he wrote about his first film, “El Mariachi.” Those elements are what finally got Biehn to direct as well as Blanc’s insistence in her telling him to direct. Then again, she also said, “you can’t bully him into anything.”

Biehn also stars in “The Victim” as Kyle, a loner living in a remote cabin in the woods. He said he kept thinking of “The Shining” and of how Stanley Kubrick made the hotel look so isolated out in the snowy wilderness. It was this feeling of isolation Biehn wanted to capture, and “The Victim” ended up being shot in Topanga Canyon, California which seemed to have the perfect look. He went on to say how Blanc’s mother was especially helpful as she lives up there and talked to all her neighbors about what was going to happen. Apparently, the residents of Topanga Canyon do not like it when filmmakers come to town and shoot their movies there, but Blanc’s mom ended up making things a lot easier as a result.

“The Victim” ended up being shot in 12 days, and both Biehn and Blanc said they were “not allowed to say how small the budget was.” They did, however, say it was “much lower than what it says on the IMDB website” ($800,000).” Biehn also joked about how the budget was “so low that there’s a lot about the movie I wish was different. ‘The Terminator’ had a budget of $6.5 million, and the budget on this one was about a tenth of that.”

As a result, the crew ended up doing 35 setups a day compared to the average Hollywood blockbuster which manages just 2 or 3. All the car scenes in the movie were shot in a single day on someone’s driveway out in the woods, and Biehn joked about how the crew had to keep “driving in circles all fucking day long.” They didn’t even have money to hire a stunt coordinator, and the scenes in the house between Biehn and Kirkwood had them fighting and trying not to hurt one another in the process.

Day one of production, Biehn said, was “all about sex” as he shot the sex scene between him and Blanc. He said this was because the script wasn’t finished yet and that they “had to shoot something.” This led Blanc to tell the audience Biehn’s niece worked on the film in the makeup department, and this was her first experience in the movie business. His niece ended up watching Biehn drop his robe and go onto the set stark naked, and she was apparently so freaked out by what she saw that she didn’t speak about it for days afterwards.

This led to another funny story of when one of Biehn’s sons came to the set and ended up being traumatized by the sex scene between his dad and Blanc. Biehn even said his son has not seen “The Terminator” sex scene he had with Linda Hamilton, and that scene was, as he put it, “essential to the plot.”

All this sex talk led Biehn to point out how one of the characters in “The Victim” ends up “losing their life over a blow job.” Women’s sexuality, he said, ends up giving them a lot of power over men, and this proved to be the case in real life for John Edwards and Elliott Spitzer among others. Biehn described being amused at how some men end up messing up all the good they have done in life by “blowing it all for some pussy.” Sadly, there is a lot of truth to this.

Another scene discussed was when Biehn’s character gets put in a choke hold. He ended up telling actor Ryan Honey to put him in a real choke hold and assured the actor he would tap him on the arm if it became too much. Biehn recollected he was “surprised at how fast it worked” and that he was “gonna be lucky” if he could tap out. After this, Biehn said he was in “la la land” for a while and remembered one of the producers saying they would not be trying this again.

One audience member asked how Danielle Harris (best known for her work in the “Halloween” movies) got cast as Mary. Blanc responded she and Harris are good friends and that Harris liked the script. Biehn said he always saw Harris playing “teenagers who are always running away from monsters, but here she gets to play a woman.” He also remarked at how Harris started out as an actress at a very young age and that she at times directs herself which made him see he did not have to tell her anything.

Before “The Victim” began its screening at New Beverly Cinema, Biehn made an announcement to the audience:

“If you don’t like fucking or fighting, get up and leave now,” Biehn said. “Don’t take any of what you see seriously. Think of this movie as being food like cotton candy; it doesn’t fill you up, but you will remember having fun eating it.”

The above description says it all, and we thank Michael Biehn and his colleagues for giving us a highly entertaining time at New Beverly Cinema.