Megan Stewart, 14, and her best friend Amy Herman, 13, though opposites in personality, are best friends. Megan carries the front of being the most popular girl in school, but this masks a lifestyle of hard partying, drugs, alcohol and indiscriminate sex. Amy, unpopular and socially awkward, clings to her relationship with Megan as a lifeline to social acceptance. Together, these two young girls forge a deep friendship based on their mutual needs. The two girls regularly communicate by web chat cameras or cell phone and even meet boys online. As Megan seeks friends who are different from her usual posse of hangers-on, she is introduced by a friend online to a 17-year-old boy named Josh in a chat room. Megan and Josh bond quickly, leaving Amy feeling a bit left out. One day, Megan goes to meet Josh in person, and she is never seen again. Amy launches into a concentrated effort to find her friend. As the media swirls around the story of Megan's disappearance, Amy discovers the horrifying truth about what happened to her friend. Based on research into seven actual cases of child abduction, MEGAN IS MISSING is an uncompromising, gut-wrenching view of the world children live in today. Harrowing in its realism, the film uses only fact-based incidences to depict the lives of ordinary kids walking in the midst of extraordinary evil. (IMDB)
Rating: NR
Runtime: 1 hour 25 minutes
Genre(s): Drama, Horror, Thriller
Released: May 2011
Directed by: Michael Goi
Written by: Michael Goi
Starring: Amber Perkins, Rachel Quinn, Dean Waite
I found this on Hulu and decided to give it a shot. I was expecting a Lifetime-style drama about how talking to strangers on the internet is bad. What I got, however, was a found footage-style thriller/horror film. It opens by explaining this is based on true events and then goes on to portray the footage as "real". You are told from the beginning when the girls go missing. The majority of the film is spent following the very stereotypical girls doing cliche teenage stuff. The acting goes back and forth from being painfully believable and just feeling really forced. After Megan's disappearance, the creepy element really starts to kick in. There is one scene where Amy is sitting under a bridge with a teddy bear. While she is explaining why she keeps it there, a figure appears in the background behind some bushes. It is a very simple thing, but the way it was done creeped me out. From here on the movie takes a turn for the very dark and disturbing in a way that I wish I had been warned ahead of time about. The last 20ish minutes is very hard to watch and I would not recommend that anyone who is easily triggered watch this. It has been a few days since I watched this movie, and the images from the last half are still sticking with me.
Rating: ★★★★★☆☆☆☆☆5.5/10
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