Baron Mynd's Nasty Finds - "The Cook, The Thief, His Wife & Her Lover"

[sral]

Megan Is Missing

This one is a cautionary tale about internet usage and how you never really know who you could be talking to... We follow two teenage girls, Megan the more outgoing, popular and sexually active - her friend, Amy, the quieter, virgin, unpopular type. Megan gets talking to a guy via a chatroom. He says his webcam is broke etc but in her naivety she doesn't see anything untoward. There are a few instances he has opportunity to meet with her and doesn't show up, explaining himself away, despite at one point being at a party she was also at and being able to describe everything she was wearing. She puts it down to him being extremely shy. If that doesn't cause alarm bells to start ringing I guess nothing will. But again, she's just a kid, I guess it may not have clicked.

They eventually agree to meet at the rear of a premises, where we're shown she's grabbed by the hand by a male and led away. The next day no one knows where she is. Amy (her best friend) grows weary as they usually speak everyday and eventually a news report explains Megan is missing.

Amy is still in contact with the mysterious screen name her friend had been talking to prior to this. One day Amy is recording a tribute message for her friend via a video camera she's been bought, when she too is snatched and vanishes. We're then treated to footage from the found video camera of the last 22 minutes recorded on its film. In this were shown a 14 year old Amy chained up in a cell and made to eat food from a bowl like a dog. She's then led to another part of the kidnappers underground lair where she's brutally sexually assaulted, but the drama doesn't end there...

After this Amy begs her assailant to let her go home. He agrees, telling her to climb into a large barrel so as she won't see where the attack took place. As she nears the barrel she can see that inside is her former friend Megan's corpse.

As Amy cries out, she is dragged and placed inside the barrel with Megan's dead body. A prolonged scene follows as the killer then digs a hole big enough for the barrel to fit in, while Amy pleads from inside it, still alive. The barrel is buried after what feels like forever and the killer leaves the scene. Horrific!

The entire film is shot with the intention of appearing like a mockumentory, all from found footage of mobile phones, images left on the girls PC's, and film from Amy's camcorder. Right from the start of the film were shown webcam and recorded footage from the video. I'm not so sure that I believe the claim this is based on a real event, or that the last twenty-odd minutes we see are unedited as the film claims. It's certainly an horrific ordeal, but there's little evidence - if any - I've seen of this taking place (and I've looked, believe me). It seems more likely the film was built around a lot of different news stories and pieced together to make a whole. All in all it was a good film, I wasn't so impressed by the acting early on but as the film progressed it improved. The rape scene probably affected me more than Irreversibles, if I'm honest, and there are a few photographs seen of Megan being tortured prior to that that look awful, but I won't spoil anything for those who want to check it out. This wasn't as disturbing to me as others out there, but I can imagine to parents with a daughter this definitely could be terrifying. Well worth checking out, ignore the reviews!