Megan Is Missing Movie Franchise

CW: discussion of graphic material

If you have been anywhere on the internet lately you probably have heard about the scary movie from 2011 titled Megan is Missing. The movie has been getting a lot of recognition or hype. The hashtag #meganismissing has 119.4 million views on TikTok and you can find many tweets of people talking about the movie on Twitter. For example, when I looked up the hashtag the first tweet I saw was by @rnxnaz “I should’ve just minded my business. Now I can’t sleep. The barrel scene keeps replaying in my head.” Some people obviously do not like the movie because they think it is bad or a waste of money. I went on the website Rotten Tomatoes to see more opinions on the movie. The ratings are 35% and the most used tags for the movie are Disturbing, Graphic, Bad Acting, Violent, Dark, Explicit, and Creepy. 

The movie is not rated but it talks about a lot of sensitive topics like kidnapping and rape. It is also based on real events and the director Michael Goi made a warning saying “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 the 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 wanna see.” If you want to watch the movie those are some things you should consider before watching. 

You can rent Megan is Missing on YouTube movies and Amazon Prime. The movie starts in a home movie style where we are introduced to the main characters Megan Stewart and Amy Herman. Megan is a popular girl who does well in school while Amy doesn’t have many friends and could be described as a prude. Throughout the movie you find out things like how Megan doesn’t have a good home life and was abused and assaulted most of her life, she also does drugs and parties. Amy doesn’t understand these things but she tries as hard as she can for Megan. She’s Megan’s best friend, but Amy also doesn’t get along with Megan’s other friends. Later in the movie, Megan’s other friend told her about the guy she had met online and showed her a picture of “Josh.” The friend gives information about Josh to Megan, Megan starts a video chat with Josh and finds out that his camera doesn’t work, he invites her to a party and she goes but doesn’t end up seeing him there. After this she still ends up meeting up with “Josh” then she goes missing. Amy wanted to look into her best friend’s disappearance and she was suspicious of Josh so she went to the cops with her information on Josh and when he found out he got mad about her telling on him and later abducted her. This is when the movie starts getting graphic! He holds Amy in a bunker. She is in her bra and underwear and chained up. “Josh” makes her beg for her teddy bear and get on her hands and knees to eat. He rapes her then tells her he’s gonna let her go home, He takes her to a barrel, opens it, and shows Megan’s dead body. Amy gets in the barrel with Megan. He buries them and that’s the end of the movie. 

During most of the movie, I felt a lot of emotions like fear and sadness to an extent. I believe the message they were trying to get across is internet safety and not talking with strangers online because you never know who they really are. The movie perfectly captures what it is trying to get across but also puts a false sense of reality on how teenagers actually act, there isn’t much I didn’t like about the movie but I personally disagree with some of Michael Goi’s choices with some of the acting in the movie. Overall it’s a good movie, you should check it out if you’re not fearful about the topics involved.