Quartile rating: 6/10 · 1 rating
Fourteen-year–old Megan and her best friend Amy spend a lot of time on the internet, posting videos of themselves and chatting with guys online. One night Megan chats with a guy named Josh who convinces her to meet him for a date. The next day, Megan is missing—forever. Based on actual cases of child abduction.
Megan Is Missing is a low-budget found-footage horror that gained notoriety more for its disturbing content than its craft. The plot is thin and predictable, following a familiar internet-predator cautionary tale with underdeveloped characters and clunky dialogue. The acting from its young, largely inexperienced cast is inconsistent and often stilted, undermining emotional investment. Cinematography is intentionally rough and lo-fi as part of the found-footage conceit, functional but unremarkable. Novelty gets a slight bump for its pseudo-documentary screenlife approach to the predator thriller subgenre and its raw, unvarnished tone, which at least has a distinctive bleakness. The ending — particularly the infamous barrel sequence — is genuinely disturbing and harrowing, earning above-average marks for sheer visceral impact even if it borders on exploitation.