Based on Jack Ketchum’s book, which is based on the real life murder of Sylvia Likens, this realistic horror flick suffers more depending on what you take into it. The more you know about the real life story the film’s exaggerations seem gratuitous. If you’ve seen the film AN AMERICAN CRIME, which is based more directly on the real story, you’ll find the acting in this film lacking. But the biggest problem with the film is Gregory Wilson’s voyeuristic direction, which makes the audience uncomfortable in all the wrong ways.
Following the death of their parents, Meg (Blythe Auffarth, KEEPING THE FAITH) and Susan Loughlin (Madeline Taylor, JOHN ADAMS) go to live with their Aunt Ruth (Blanche Baker, SIXTEEN CANDLES), who has too many kids of her own to handle. She rules over Meg like a warden, severely punishing her for any presumed offense. Meg does everything she can to deflect the abuse away from her sickly little sister. Eventually Ruth chains Meg up in the basement subjecting her to continuous torture, including branding and rape. She encourages her own children and the neighbor kids to join in.
The story is told in flashbacks from the point of view of one of those neighbors. David (Daniel Manche, I SELL THE DEAD) is a witness to the savage events, but he is too afraid to say anything. The decisions he made and should have made plague him into adulthood.
The voyeurism of Wilson’s direction lingers on the sexual torture. Meg is often seen in full frontal nudity strung up and bleeding as teens watch her. Like David, Wilson watches and we feel helpless to do anything. This could be effective in doses, but it’s pervasive and begins to feel too much like a snuff film. These problems are only exemplified if you know that the sexual torture done to Meg is exaggerated. The real story was gruesome enough, why add even more perverse torture to a fictionalized version that for the most part follows the real story lock step? I felt like the film was more interested in sexual torture than the character suffering from it.
Then we come to the casting. Outside of Auffarth, the cast isn’t up for the challenge. Auffarth brings genuine warmth and vulnerability to Meg, which makes us care about her. The only problem is she is clearly a 22-year-old actress playing a teen who is developing a romance with David, who is played by 14-year-old actor. Awkward to say the least. Baker chews the scenery like a drunken Southern belle after Sunday services. She makes the audience uneasy, but it’s because her performance ranges from stilted to over the top not because she’s creating any menace.
The biggest change from the real story and the fictional one actually changes the most disturbing part of the story. But Ketchum and screenwriters Daniel Farrands & Philip Nutman want to have a sympathetic central character. But then Wilson comes along and makes us watch what David sees, draining that sympathy away and replacing it with disgust.
Rick DeMott
Animation World Network
Creator of Rick's Flicks Picks
