Megan is Missing is a controversial film that depicts two teenagers that are dealing with the struggles of normal teen life. Things begin to shake up when Megan, the rebellious teen, sneaks out to meet a stranger she talked to briefly on the internet. After this meet-up, Megan goes Missing, which is when the film switches paths from creepy to shocking. The film was released on May 3, 2011, and was directed and written by Micheal Goi. Micheal Goi said during an interview that he shot this film in 10 days and that it only took 8 ½ days to write. Micheal wanted to “open parents’ eyes” to online predators, which is why the last couple minutes of the film are so disturbing. Some argue that the grisly images and videos, in the end, weren’t needed and that it was too much therefore not accomplishing Goi’s goal. 

     Micheal Goi says he did 2 years of research to make the film. He worked with a Forensics Investigator and gathered notes on evidence of these sorts of crimes. Since its popularity boosted on TikTok, Goi has had to make a couple of videos for people that were just now finding out about the film to warn of the intense themes shown throughout it. One of the concerns that people had was that the last 20 minutes of the movie may be snuff material and that the gruesome torture pictures and videos were real. Micheal Goi made a warning video explaining that the disturbing scenes were not real but rather recreations of things he and the investigator saw. He then posted an official warning video for the film stating:

      “Do not watch the movie in the middle of the night. Do not watch the movie alone. And if you see the words ‘photo number one’ pop up on your screen, you have about four seconds to shut off the movie if you’re already kind of freaking out before you start seeing things that maybe you don’t want to see”. 

     Megan is Missing needs a trigger warning because there are depictions of horrid acts, not just implications. The discussion that comes after these type of movies are always controversial. On one side, people fear these types of scenes, especially when they’re directed and written by men, are the director’s way of living out a fantasy. I understand this fear and I can understand when people feel that way. I believe that if it adds to the story productively then, even though hard to watch, it doesn’t cross a line. If it’s just depictions of extreme sexual violence for the sake of shocking the viewer and doesn’t have a place in the movie, then I believe it crosses a line and feels uncomfortable with the unanswered reason why the scene was even put in the film. An example of a movie that contains sexual violence that adds to the story is I Spit on Your Grave and an example of a film that uses this content just to shock the viewer would be Cannibal Holocaust. Both have extremely disturbing sexual violence scenes, but one I feel adds to the story and the other is just put there solely for shock value.. This is my opinion, and everyone’s opinion on this subject is valid. Horror is Subjective, but this is where I and many others struggle with the film, was this scene an addition, or was it to shock the viewer? 

     I think by looking at Gois’s background and seeing the type of films and projects he’s worked on since this film I would predict that he made this film with the reasonings he said in his interviews. The year was 2011 which was right around when everyone started using the internet as a source of entertainment. There are rumors that Goi wrote this movie based on the Ashley Pond and Miranda Gaddis story. These two girls were kidnapped and buried in the backyard of Ward Weaver III. The timeline of events in the film is very similar to this disturbing case. Even though that theory wasn’t ever confirmed or denied, I believe it’s likely that Goi maybe found inspiration from crimes like that one. The truth is that violent sex crimes are hard to discuss, and they’re even harder to discuss when the victims are children. I believe we should have hard discussions to learn and help prevent these things from happening to our children. If we stay ignorant of the horrible things that people do, we neglect children of the protection they deserve. Unfortunately, PC (politically correct) conversations don’t always have enough power to make people care. So I believe that Goi’s reasoning for telling this story was purely to raise awareness and not the suspected reason of sick pleasure. I understand if you have a different opinion. 

     Did Megan is Missing raise awareness like Goi wanted? New Zealand banned the movie because they believed that it overly sexualized teenagers and had too disturbing depictions of sexual violence involving kids. This discussion about Megan is Missing will never come to a conclusion because of how disturbing the film was. The mix of awful acting, bad editing, and disturbing scenes makes it hard for people to agree. Was this movie horribly good or impressively bad? Was Megan is Missing a film that raised awareness or a film that went too far?  Find out in the Megan is Missing Review what my opinion and rating are of the film.