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Megan Is Missing
is a found footage movie that was not watched upon its release in 2011, but it became a viral trend on TikTok over a decade later. It was banned in New Zealand due to its disturbing content
Megan Is Missing
depicts the bleak story of two teenage best friends, Megan and Amy, who get abducted by an online predator
The horror movie aims to warn teenagers about the dangers of online predators, with a disturbing ending that will remind parents and children alike of the dangers of the internet.
Found footage is one of the most popular subgenres of horror. Still, while some films like The Blair With Project, Paranormal Activity, and Cloverfield found great success, one entry, Megan Is Missing, was overlooked by the general public. Only the most hardcore horror fans saw it when it was released in 2011. However, during the pandemic, the movie got a second wind when it became a viral TikTok trend. Writer and director Michael Goi’s film was actually filmed in 2006 at the cost of a mere $35,000, and the low-budget nature worked to its benefit. Where other found footage movies were about witches, ghosts, and monsters, Megan Is Missing is something darker because of how real it feels. It tells the story of 14-year-old Megan Stewart (Rachel Quinn) and her best friend Amy Herman (Amber Perkins) as they start talking with a boy online who isn’t who he says he is. When both girls disappear, Amy’s video camera is used to show the audience what happened next, leading to a shocking ending you’ll never be able to escape from.
Megan Is Missing
Two teenage girls encounter an Internet child predator.
Release Date May 1, 2011
Director Michael Goi
Cast Amber Perkins , Rachel Quinn , Kara Wang , April Stewart
Runtime 85 minutes
Writers Michael Goi
‘Megan Is Missing’ Was Banned Due to Its Disturbing Content
Every now and then, a film comes out that is so disturbing that it finds itself banned. This happened with 1985’s Cannibal Holocaust (one of the earliest found footage horror films), with footage so realistic that it was banned in several countries, and director Ruggero Deodato was forced to prove to an Italian court that he hadn’t made a snuff film and that all of his actors were actually alive. A more recent example is 2010’s A Serbian Film, which has been outlawed in over 40 countries.
Megan Is Missing was banned as well, in New Zealand of all places, with the Office of Film & Literature Classification saying: “The DVD is classified as objectionable. The feature depicts sexual violence and sexual conduct involving young people to such an extent and degree, and in such a manner, that the availability of the publication is likely to be injurious to the public good.” Megan Is Missing received minor attention until the 2020s when it began going viral among teenagers on Twitter and TikTok. It scared young people to no end, which is exactly what Michael Goi wanted to begin with.
Two Teenage Girls Are Abducted by an Online Predator in ‘Megan Is Missing’
Megan Is Missinggives away the bleakness of its story in the tagline of its poster, which says: “Megan and Amy are best friends. They share secrets. They chat with guys online. And in a few days, they’ll never be seen again.” Going in, we already know we’re not getting a happy ending. Usually, spoiling the ending of your own film is a horrible idea — but for Megan Is Missing, it’s necessary. It’s a story that can only be accurately told if it has the worst possible outcome.
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Megan Is Missing is told almost entirely through the video footage recorded by teenage best friends Megan and Amy. On the surface, they couldn’t be more different. Megan comes from a broken home and acts like she is older than 14, already reliant on drugs, and sexually active. Amy has supportive parents and a loving home. She is more shy and childlike than Megan, still sleeping with a teddy bear. Beneath that, however, we see what brings them together. Megan has been sexually assaulted multiple times, including by her stepfather who is in prison for his crimes. In Amy, she finds a friend who she can laugh with and makes her feel like she is still a kid. Amy’s trauma comes from the low self-esteem of becoming a teenage girl, with her thinking that she’s unlovable while being bullied by other girls at school. In Megan, she finds a friend who she can feel older and more confident with.
Related The Most Disturbing Movies of All Time, From ‘A Serbian Film’ to ‘The Poughkeepsie Tapes’ Viewer discretion is strongly, strongly, strongly advised.
These two need each other, though Megan isn’t the best person for Amy to be hanging out with. Amy tags along with Megan to a party, only to find her best friend performing oral sex on a boy in exchange for drugs. The experience is exacerbated when Amy gets hit by another boy when she refuses to have sex with him. They’re at the vulnerable age where they’re putting all of their worth into what a boy thinks of them, so it’s easy to see how Megan is lured in by a boy online who calls himself Josh. Her desire to be loved makes her blind to all the warning bells going off. Josh won’t show his face, giving conflicting reasons for why his webcam doesn’t work, and his lies start falling apart about what school he goes to, and why he didn’t show himself to talk to Megan at a party he invited her to. Even Amy falls for his behavior. Finally, the day comes for Megan to meet Josh, but she never returns. Megan is missing, and the movie is now told through news reports, Amy’s webcam chats with Josh, and the video diary she keeps.
What Happens at the End of ‘Megan Is Missing?
News reports show the hopelessness in finding Megan. All they have to go on is a grainy video of Megan in an alleyway behind a store being led away by a dark-haired man whose face we can’t make out. Most horror movies would be tempted to turn very graphic and violent at this point, with us now meeting the child predator through his eyes as he tortures and mutilates Megan. We don’t get that. Michael Goi knows that the fear of the unknown is way more terrifying for the viewer. We can only imagine what is happening to Megan, just as we are forced to imagine what some poor child is going through when we hear news stories about real-life abduction on the news. Megan Is Missing isn’t interested in giving its audience answers. We only get one hint of Megan’s fate through photos found on a website which shows Megan’s head in a block and metal contraptions forcing her mouth and nostrils open as she looks at the camera in terror. A single image like this is way more frightening than a Hostel-like gory torture scene.
Amy confronts Josh online, who goes from playing innocent to threatening, telling Amy he’s watching her. When she goes to the police with what she knows, Josh retaliates. First, we see a man lurking in the background watching her outside when Amy is making a video diary. Later, he attacks during another outside video diary moment, as an arm enters the frame and the camera stops. Megan Is Missing then tells us that the remaining 22 minutes are the final footage pulled from Amy’s found camera, foreshadowing the tragedy to come. For the last act, Josh has the camera now, filming Amy locked away in a dirty dungeon all alone in an unknown location.
What Did the Killer Do to Megan in ‘Megan Is Missing’?
Image Via Anchor Bay Films
She begs for mercy, and while most of the violence is implied, there is an extremely uncomfortable three-minute rape scene where we only see Megan’s face reacting to the physical and emotional pain. Josh then promises to let Amy go, telling her to get in a blue barrel that has been in the foreground the entire time. When he opens it, we see the decaying corpse of Megan’s body, and though Amy screams and attempts to escape, she is forced into the barrel with her dead friend. Josh then films himself digging a grave with the barrel nearby. Amy begs for several minutes to be released, telling Josh that she loves him, but he says nothing, burying her alive until the screams stop. Megan Is Missing concludes with one more video of Megan and Amy laughing together in better times.
While Megan Is Missing is an extremely disturbing film — especially the three-minute sexual assault scene of a minor — it’s not another torture film. There is very little filmed violence or blood. The real fear of the movie comes from the fact that we never see Josh’s face or find out who he is. The point of Megan Is Missing is not to be a gory movie or to reveal its sick killer and his motivation with some twist. Megan Is Missing is more like a PSA, a wildly uncomfortable version of a film you’d watch in school. It’s meant to be a warning to teenagers to be careful about who they talk to online. It’s so effective in this that Mark Klaas, whose twelve-year-old daughter Polly Klaas made headlines in 1993 after she was kidnapped and murdered, wrote a letter to Michael Goi thanking him for making Megan Is Missing, calling it important and critical. He warned invincible-feeling kids about online predators, adding:
“The final minutes of Megan is Missing made my blood run cold as it reminded me why I chose to protect other children from my Polly’s tragic demise. In cold darkness we are reminded that evil exists, yet we dread it and are loath to acknowledge it. We excuse and deny it yet it denies not us. We pity its victims, yet offer no solutions for its cause. Megan Is Missing reminds us that evil is the face on the other side of the mirror and it mocks us and makes us turn away in fear.”
Megan Is Missing is available to rent on Amazon.
Rent on Amazon