Megan is Missing
Year: 2011
Director: Michael Goi
Starring: Amber Perkins & Rachel Quinn
Runtime: 89 mins
BBFC: Unrated
Published: 18/11/20
Director: Michael Goi
Starring: Amber Perkins & Rachel Quinn
Runtime: 89 mins
BBFC: Unrated
Published: 18/11/20
If you’re a regular reader, you’ll know that I’m a big fan of controversial material. Films that push the boundaries of what is thought acceptable and spark a conversation about the material at hand. Earlier this year I covered Cuties and believe that regardless of the quality of the film that it is something that should be seen so we can better understand the subject matter at hand and how to deal with it appropriately, instead of condemning it and sweeping it under the carpet (which the film points the finger at as the cause for how events transpire). Anyway, it’s now November and we finally have our next big controversial film…only difference is that it came out nine years ago.
Megan is Missing has recently been cropping up on social media platform, Tik Tok, where users are posting reactions to the film’s graphic depictions of sexual violence and condemning the films existence. So, never one to shy away from a controversy, I’m here to answer the questions of 1: Is the film good? And 2: Does it go too far?
Before I continue with the review, be warned that this review will contain in depth details about scenes of sexual assault that occur in Megan is Missing. If this is a sensitive subject for you then you may want to just miss this one out.
Amy is thirteen years old, nearly fourteen. She is starting to develop an interest in boys but is unconfident in herself, believing that she is unattractive because she doesn’t wear makeup, dress in revealing clothes, or have a provocative demeanour like her best friend Megan. Megan comes from a broken home and has suffered a history of sexual assault at the hands of her stepfather, who first raped her at the age of nine. The two couldn’t be more different but are drawn together by their desire to be more like the other.
Megan is introduced to Josh, a seventeen-year-old boy who lives nearby, over an online chatroom. Josh claims his webcam is broken and so can only provide audio on the webchats. Megan begins talking to Josh extremely frequently over the following days before agreeing to meet him. Megan never returns home from this meeting and a local investigation begins as Amy tries to inform the police about Josh. However, it proves to be too little too late as Amy is abducted by Josh shortly thereafter. What follows is an extended sequence depicting the torture, rape, and eventual murder of Amy at the hands of Josh, having done the same to Megan days earlier.
Megan is Missing has recently been cropping up on social media platform, Tik Tok, where users are posting reactions to the film’s graphic depictions of sexual violence and condemning the films existence. So, never one to shy away from a controversy, I’m here to answer the questions of 1: Is the film good? And 2: Does it go too far?
Before I continue with the review, be warned that this review will contain in depth details about scenes of sexual assault that occur in Megan is Missing. If this is a sensitive subject for you then you may want to just miss this one out.
Amy is thirteen years old, nearly fourteen. She is starting to develop an interest in boys but is unconfident in herself, believing that she is unattractive because she doesn’t wear makeup, dress in revealing clothes, or have a provocative demeanour like her best friend Megan. Megan comes from a broken home and has suffered a history of sexual assault at the hands of her stepfather, who first raped her at the age of nine. The two couldn’t be more different but are drawn together by their desire to be more like the other.
Megan is introduced to Josh, a seventeen-year-old boy who lives nearby, over an online chatroom. Josh claims his webcam is broken and so can only provide audio on the webchats. Megan begins talking to Josh extremely frequently over the following days before agreeing to meet him. Megan never returns home from this meeting and a local investigation begins as Amy tries to inform the police about Josh. However, it proves to be too little too late as Amy is abducted by Josh shortly thereafter. What follows is an extended sequence depicting the torture, rape, and eventual murder of Amy at the hands of Josh, having done the same to Megan days earlier.
To answer Question 1: Megan is Missing is not a good film, at all. But director Michael Goi (who later went on to play a major role in American Horror Story) claims the film isn’t designed to be entertaining and instead an educational shock to the system for young people who are active in online chatrooms. It’s also never been submitted for certification in the UK meaning if you want to watch it you’ll have to rely on pirated versions online, or import it from the U.S. The film opens with claims that it is based on true events, but that statement is about as apt as its use in The Cohen Brother’s 1996 crime thriller Fargo, in that what the film depicts is completely fictitious, but the story is an amalgamation of various different and unrelated true stories.
It is no secret that young people go missing every day and a good number of them are because they met up with someone online who they didn’t know in real life. Some return safe and sound, many do not. Some kidnappers are brought to justice, many are not. So, whilst the story of Amy and Megan is not as real as the film would like you to believe it does have a grounding in reality and Goi certainly tries to get that across in how the film is constructed.
Megan is Missing is a found footage film…sort of. The opening of the film informs the viewer that what they are about to watch is a collection of recordings from the girls’ computers, mobile phones, and camcorders; news clips, and images collected from the police investigation that have been collated and edited together to create a cohesive story. Though there are a number of instances where the camera appears to be operated by someone else entirely as both characters are present, and the camera is moving, so I’m not quite sure why the film can’t even obey its own logic.
As a result, the camera work is shoddy at best, but also very low quality because it’s supposed to have been filmed on camera phones and early digital camcorders. You may or may not know that The Blair Witch Project is one of my favourite films and that has some awful camera work, but it’s excusable to an extent because the video quality is still good because it was filmed using actual film. Early and cheap digital camera quality is not good, it’s extremely pixelated most of the time and they lack the ability to properly focus on anything, so the image just appears flat. The film is also very frequently broken up with paragraphs of text on a black background. This is infuriating because it breaks up the flow of the film so much. The inclusion of still images is puzzling too because there’s no sound whilst these images are shown, and it makes the film feel incredibly amateur.
It is no secret that young people go missing every day and a good number of them are because they met up with someone online who they didn’t know in real life. Some return safe and sound, many do not. Some kidnappers are brought to justice, many are not. So, whilst the story of Amy and Megan is not as real as the film would like you to believe it does have a grounding in reality and Goi certainly tries to get that across in how the film is constructed.
Megan is Missing is a found footage film…sort of. The opening of the film informs the viewer that what they are about to watch is a collection of recordings from the girls’ computers, mobile phones, and camcorders; news clips, and images collected from the police investigation that have been collated and edited together to create a cohesive story. Though there are a number of instances where the camera appears to be operated by someone else entirely as both characters are present, and the camera is moving, so I’m not quite sure why the film can’t even obey its own logic.
As a result, the camera work is shoddy at best, but also very low quality because it’s supposed to have been filmed on camera phones and early digital camcorders. You may or may not know that The Blair Witch Project is one of my favourite films and that has some awful camera work, but it’s excusable to an extent because the video quality is still good because it was filmed using actual film. Early and cheap digital camera quality is not good, it’s extremely pixelated most of the time and they lack the ability to properly focus on anything, so the image just appears flat. The film is also very frequently broken up with paragraphs of text on a black background. This is infuriating because it breaks up the flow of the film so much. The inclusion of still images is puzzling too because there’s no sound whilst these images are shown, and it makes the film feel incredibly amateur.
The performances are pretty awful. Most people who star in the film had only done stuff like commercials before and for many this was their first feature film. This includes our two leads Megan & Amy (Rachel Quinn & Amy Perkins). The dialogue was either completely improvised or the script was total garbage, I’m not sure which but whatever it is, it’s bad. Most dialogue in the film is either Megan and Amy talking about boys, Megan complaining about how horrible her life is, or Amy delivering a video diary about her insecurities. It’s hardly thrilling stuff, but it serves its purpose and develops our characters enough so that once the horrific events of the final act of the film come around, it hits pretty hard.
I guess I’ve backed myself into a corner here and now I must talk about the final twenty minutes of the film. Outside of a couple of scenes of obscured sexual acts performed by Megan the film is incredibly tame for the first hour or so. Then the viewer is informed that some pictures of Megan were uploaded to a fetish website several months after her disappearance and we are then shown two images of Megan in some kind of rack with an apparatus on her face to force her mouth open and pull her nose back so hard that it’s tearing the skin around her nostrils. She’s very bloody and bruised and is very clearly being violently sexually abused by her captor. They’re pretty graphic and certainly don’t hold back. Bearing in mind that Megan’s actress is around the same age as the character she is portraying (around fourteen to fifteen years old).
A few minutes later is when we see Amy’s abduction, and we are then informed that the following twenty minutes of footage were found on her camcorder which was discovered near her place of abduction. What comes next is a series of clips that involve acts of degradation, as well as a three minute sequence where we watch Amy get raped leaving little to the imagination; Amy is then forced into a plastic barrel containing the decomposing corpse of Megan. This is followed by a seven minute sequence where Josh digs a grave in the woods whilst Amy’s pleas can be heard from the barrel. The barrel is pushed into the grave and then covered over as Amy’s cries begin to be drowned out. The film ends with a short clip of Megan and Amy discussing what they plan on doing with the rest of their lives that was evidently filmed some ago, with all their dreams left unfulfilled.
It’s a very difficult set of sequences to watch, and whilst most people will say the rape scene is the hardest to sit through, I personally found Amy being forced to eat from a bowl on the floor without the use of her hands, and her desperate pleas to not die whilst Josh digs the grave the hardest to watch. Just how far Josh goes to break Amy’s mind is incredibly disturbing and sickening, listening to her attempt to appeal to him by saying she loves him and will never leave him and be his forever if he lets her live is genuinely upsetting because you can detect a hint of truth behind those cries.
I guess I’ve backed myself into a corner here and now I must talk about the final twenty minutes of the film. Outside of a couple of scenes of obscured sexual acts performed by Megan the film is incredibly tame for the first hour or so. Then the viewer is informed that some pictures of Megan were uploaded to a fetish website several months after her disappearance and we are then shown two images of Megan in some kind of rack with an apparatus on her face to force her mouth open and pull her nose back so hard that it’s tearing the skin around her nostrils. She’s very bloody and bruised and is very clearly being violently sexually abused by her captor. They’re pretty graphic and certainly don’t hold back. Bearing in mind that Megan’s actress is around the same age as the character she is portraying (around fourteen to fifteen years old).
A few minutes later is when we see Amy’s abduction, and we are then informed that the following twenty minutes of footage were found on her camcorder which was discovered near her place of abduction. What comes next is a series of clips that involve acts of degradation, as well as a three minute sequence where we watch Amy get raped leaving little to the imagination; Amy is then forced into a plastic barrel containing the decomposing corpse of Megan. This is followed by a seven minute sequence where Josh digs a grave in the woods whilst Amy’s pleas can be heard from the barrel. The barrel is pushed into the grave and then covered over as Amy’s cries begin to be drowned out. The film ends with a short clip of Megan and Amy discussing what they plan on doing with the rest of their lives that was evidently filmed some ago, with all their dreams left unfulfilled.
It’s a very difficult set of sequences to watch, and whilst most people will say the rape scene is the hardest to sit through, I personally found Amy being forced to eat from a bowl on the floor without the use of her hands, and her desperate pleas to not die whilst Josh digs the grave the hardest to watch. Just how far Josh goes to break Amy’s mind is incredibly disturbing and sickening, listening to her attempt to appeal to him by saying she loves him and will never leave him and be his forever if he lets her live is genuinely upsetting because you can detect a hint of truth behind those cries.
Is it exploitative? A difficult question to answer really as both actresses were in their mid-teens at the time of filming. In fact, Goi actually invited the family members to the filming of these scenes because he wanted them to be the judges of how much was too much. From the sounds of it, the decisions about what was filmed, how it was filmed, and how violent it appeared were completely in the hands of the actors and those closest to them to control. So, is that exploitation? It’s certainly not tasteful, but then again, the film was clearly never designed as such. To make it less grotesque would, in the director’s eyes, soften the blow and do a disservice to the severity of the subject material. I’m inclined to agree with that sentiment, though I’m unsure to what extent.
The director has argued that the film should only be seen for educational purposes, and in fact he actively discourages people from watching it because of how gruesome it is. That’s something I can get behind because he clearly doesn’t deem it as entertainment.
I find it tough to make a decision on because the film is pretty bad to say the least, so defending it being as gruesome as it is feels odd. But criticising it and demanding it to be censored also seems to defeat the purpose of its existence in the first place. If I had a child would I show them this film as a warning not to speak to strangers on the internet, I doubt it. So then can it really justify its existence?
In summary, Megan is Missing is a bad film. There’s almost nothing good about it to be perfectly honest. But its warning message is certainly going to be an effective one because of how unrelentingly bleak and in your face it is. It’s a film that makes me uneasy and it has managed to get under my skin, knowing that I have spoken to people online who I don’t know, and I’ve met up with them. I turned out ok, but it could have easily gone very differently. If you’re easily triggered, particularly by sexual assault, then avoid this film like the plague. But don’t go watching it for entertainment either because you’re not going to be entertained. I guess, only watch this film if you want to be taught a lesson, even if it is hard to watch.
The director has argued that the film should only be seen for educational purposes, and in fact he actively discourages people from watching it because of how gruesome it is. That’s something I can get behind because he clearly doesn’t deem it as entertainment.
I find it tough to make a decision on because the film is pretty bad to say the least, so defending it being as gruesome as it is feels odd. But criticising it and demanding it to be censored also seems to defeat the purpose of its existence in the first place. If I had a child would I show them this film as a warning not to speak to strangers on the internet, I doubt it. So then can it really justify its existence?
In summary, Megan is Missing is a bad film. There’s almost nothing good about it to be perfectly honest. But its warning message is certainly going to be an effective one because of how unrelentingly bleak and in your face it is. It’s a film that makes me uneasy and it has managed to get under my skin, knowing that I have spoken to people online who I don’t know, and I’ve met up with them. I turned out ok, but it could have easily gone very differently. If you’re easily triggered, particularly by sexual assault, then avoid this film like the plague. But don’t go watching it for entertainment either because you’re not going to be entertained. I guess, only watch this film if you want to be taught a lesson, even if it is hard to watch.