Maz Murdoch (asda-man) Every self-respecting weird person who's looking to get disturbed has heard of Megan Is Missing. The only reason I sought out the film is because I'd read how so many people find it horrendously disturbing. If you hop on to the IMDb message boards (always a good place to find opinions by level-headed people) then you'll find a lot of posts by self- confessed horror movie addicts saying how they found the last twenty minutes of Megan Is Missing to be the most haunting thing they've ever seen in a horror film which is quite a big statement! I'm also one of those people who don't really find many films disturbing. The Human Centipede 2 didn't particularly bother me and I managed to watch Salo alone in the dark pretty comfortably (ish) so I'm always on the lookout for films that might actually give me sleepless nights.Megan Is Missing is atrocious. Let's get that out the way first, it is absolutely embarrassingly bad. As soon as it started my eyes widened in terror at the beyond horrendous acting from the two main characters in the film, Megan and Amy. Both of them can't act for a toffee apple and even that's being kind. Megan's wooden bedpost is probably the best actor in the whole film and steals the show. Although, let's face it there really isn't much of a show to steal. It presents itself as a true story, but this is impossible to take seriously thanks to the stilted acting and forced chemistry between Megan and Amy.As soon as the film starts we're treated to dialogue from Amy which goes something like, "We're filming on my expensive new video camera, Daddy loves me." To which Megan replies, "My Daddy loves me too, slut" and we get a painfully wooden, "Bitch!" Back from Amy. Such Shakespearean dialogue continues throughout the film and it's probably supposed to sound like natural 14 year-old girl banter, but the actors deliver their lines like their reading them from the cameraman holding up a cardboard sign. It's just a total cringe-fest and the characters couldn't get any more stereotypical or two dimensional if they tried. We've got Megan the confident, popular school bike and Amy the unpopular, angelic prude.There is an attempt to build up characters but it just ends up resulting in ridiculous clichés. At one point I even predicted in my head exactly what Megan was going to say as she breaks down awkwardly on camera about her dysfunctional upbringing. We also get treated to a needlessly long monologue from Megan about her first sexual experience which just ends up sounding like dialogue from a porn film. I also liked the director's idea of a teen house party complete with torch lights and girls randomly jumping up and down going "woo!"It's a found footage film so it's essential for it to have a realistic atmosphere, which it fails at miserably. It does make for unintentionally hilarious viewing though. It's about a girl talking to a randomer over the Internet and ending up missing after going to meet him (surprise, surprise) but the film is extremely heavy-handed with these themes. It almost feels like a student film at times, especially when they try to create news footage. I actually laughed out loud at one point where they do a re-construction of the kidnapping. I also loved the part where the newsreader teases the next story about a cocker spaniel driving a car through a shop window! I'm not kidding, the filmmakers should've made a film based on that idea.Basically, the first hour of Megan Is Missing is an hilarious example of how not to make a film. But then the next 20 minutes arrive and everything changes. It's difficult to talk about the last 20 minutes without giving away big plot twists, but I can say that it did actually disturb me. The acting gets a little more convincing (big stress on 'little') and the film becomes relentlessly terrifying. The unintentional funniness disappears and we're presented with a genuinely chilling atmosphere of horror and a sobering sense of realism. Some people say that it's like some sort of indulgent fetish thing for the director but I think it's actually done in a way that's not too exploitative or gratuitous. It's actually a well-made bit of harrowing horror.So, Megan Is Missing is a film of two halves and both halves are horrendous for different reasons. The first three quarters have no redeeming qualities, whereas the last quarter has the power to genuinely shock and unsettle without over-stepping the mark or trying to be nasty for the sake of it. It's a difficult film to recommend, but if you know what you're getting in to and are a hardened horror fan then it's definitely worth one watch. Most of it is total rubbish but in the end it presented some truly frightening ideas which did haunt me and will probably continue to haunt me for some time. So that has got to be worth something, hasn't it?

mikelepost There are so many things wrong with this movie that I don't even know where to begin. I guess I will start with the format.I'm not a fan of found footage in general, but Megan is Missing is exceptionally lazy in that it barely even adheres to this conceit. In order for the movie to work we the audience are expected to belief that teenagers in 2007 communicate almost entirely via video chat and that these conversations were recorded and stored. We are also expected to believe that photos and video of sexual assaults and murders were made available to the filmmakers. Since the film is never once convincing as found footage I have to wonder why the writer / director chose to tell the story this way.The acting ranges from barely adequate to absolutely atrocious across the board. The two main actresses are never convincing as 14/15 year olds and their performances are mediocre at best. Everyone else who appears on camera - the news anchors, the parents, the other friends - is downright embarrassing. They are not helped at all by the largely expositional and tin eared dialogue.While I am sure there are 14 year old kids out there doing drugs and having sex at random, the portrayal of those types of teens in this film did not ring true to me at all. The pervy, leering tone of the film reminded me a lot of movies I've seen by Larry Clark, where we the audience are theoretically supposed to be wringing our hands over the wasted youth of today etc. but the camera keeps ogling the hot young bodies on screen.This is particularly true of a scene where Megan recounts being forced to blow a 17 year old camp counselor when she was 10, giggling about it the whole time like it is an embarrassing sexual story and not actual rape. There are several other scenes of unnecessary sexuality in the film including a rape scene that make me feel like the film is implying that Megan deserves what eventually happens to her. That, or director Michael Goi is just a pedophile.The first 50 or so minutes of the film almost entirely consist of banal, repetitive dialogue and bad acting. Then we get to the two pictures of Megan and the final 20 minutes. This is the point where Megan is Missing shifts from being a terrible after school special and instead becomes a sadistic found footage horror film. These scenes are undeniably a gut punch and the only reason to see the movie at all.Here's the thing though: To this point Goi has positioned the film as one of those message movies that are supposed to serve as a wake up call to parents. But the film ultimately is pervy and disgusting exploitation. The director's claim that Megan is Missing is about anything other than presenting the highly sexualized torture and murder of its main characters is completely disingenuous and reminded me a LOT of the opening crawl to Chaos (2005) claiming that it was intended to save lives.The ONLY audience for this film are horror fans looking for something disturbing. That is fine, but I'm just warning you the movie absolutely sucks, nothing happens for the vast majority of the run time and you'll feel like you need a shower afterward. Consider that a warning or an endorsement.

benjaminborrelli To put it in simple terms, it's seriously one of the worst movies I have ever seen It features some of the worst directing, acting, cinematography, logic and pretty much anything you can think of that is vital to the production of a movie. I can not take anyone seriously if they say they enjoyed this movie.Don't get me wrong, I get what they were aiming for, but they did it in the most illogical and unrealistic piece of s*** way possible! It's almost like Michael Goi doesn't know a single thing about the internet or teenagers in general, but we see him on reddit and IMDb all the time? Good Job Goi! (Who elected this guy president of the ASC? Seriously?)I also really don't understand how the movie managed to feature terrible acting from the ENTIRE cast, seriously how did all this get through editing and post-production?TL;DR Don't waste your time watching this movie, it is absolute garbage.

samgiannn Megan is Missing is a movie that deserves any scorn that it gets. It has some truly terrible acting and some weird directing choices. It's not well-made horror; it's effective horror. Megan is Missing is about two best friends, Megan and Amy, who meet a guy online named Josh and eventually get abducted and go missing. A majority of the film is just set-up for the eventual abduction of the girls. You do get to see each girl's personalities, social lives and just everything about them. Megan is one of the most popular girls at school. She has a bunch of friends, goes out drinking, and blows random guys at parties. Amy is on the opposite end of the spectrum. She's neat, doesn't have many friends, and doesn't go out much. Watching the two go through their normal days throughout the first act makes the final act so much more disturbing. The film does slow down a bit whenever "Josh" comes into the picture, and there are these short scenes of newscasts that are almost unbearable to watch because it has the world's most aggravating news anchor. The last twenty minutes, however, becomes unbearable for a completely different reason. The ending changes Megan is Missing from a somewhat dull drama thriller into a truly harrowing experience. There's some imagery in there that will be hard to shake for days to come. This is honestly a terrible film, but when the horror is as brutal and unforgettable as this, it is still worth a watch if you can stomach the material.