“The following film is based on actual events” is a pre-movie disclaimer that always sends me to the Googlesphere. I can’t tell you how disappointed I was as a middle schooler learning that there was in fact no chainsaw massacre in Texas. Since then I am always sure that horror-based-on-truth is horror-based-on-bullshit.
…I’m just going to leave this opening remark to dangle.
Megan is Missing is found footage HorrorDramaCrimeThriller, which could mean anything. It opens with a basic premise and acting talent that has me wondering “Am I watching an 80’s PSA? Am I in a school assembly right now?” This becomes a slow-burn horror as I imagine that I am 16 years old and in the auditorium of Plattsburgh High School, and have to do teenagerhood all over again!
(shrieks of abject terror)
Here’s MY PSA, to any teenagers reading: When some clown tells you to “cherish your high school experience because those are the best days of your life” know that it is a lie. THAT dude peaked in high school and his summary of the whole experience is desperately flawed. Life after high school is amazing. Full stop.
So these two would-be future basic bitches are having video conversations with each other about banal teenager bullshit, and the thing you will undoubtedly be asking at the three-minute mark “Why is this 14-year-old dating a guy is is so obviously a 35-year-old wedding DJ?” “Totes suss,” as two completely separate generations of teens would say. The acting is definitely at the level of a high school drama performance (again with the PHS auditorium flashbacks!), but who in their right mind watches a horror movie for the acting? You’ll have maybe nine good movie experiences total thinking like that!
Megan brings her naive friend to a party where 10 bucks gets you all the Saint Paulie Girl you can drink. Mind you this movie is set for 2007, a good 15 years after I last saw someone drinking Saint Paulie Girl on purpose. Naive girl gets drunk, Megan’s friends (including the middle-aged wedding DJ) are complete mean-girl tools to her, so they go home and have a positively mortifying FaceTime conversation about Megan’s first blowjob.
The movie continues its path of boring coupled with appalling. The actors in the movie are largely amateurs, and much of the film can just draaaaag oooooon, but then other scenes will just hurt your very soul. The stories of awkward teenagerness mixed with themes of physical, emotional and sexual abuse bring us to an abduction via some creeper on the internet that one of their friends hooked them up with. Nice friend! Then the whole mood of the movie shifts and becomes a 20-minutes-long nightmare.
Not quite as visually-disturbing as many movies reviewed on this site, but it becomes very emotionally-challenging. This kinda shit (child predators) happens. All the time. Way too often. If you’re more introspective and have teenage daughters this movie might keep you up a few nights. If you’re more of a gorehound looking for more graphic content, or a more seasoned horrorphile who has seen them all and are a bit desensitized to it, this movie might very well bore you.