Michael Goi
Megan Is Missing

Megan is Missing.

I was introduced to it as "the ending is something heavy that I won't even tell you about."
I read little about it here and there.
Trusting the person who mentioned it, I watched it even though subtitles in Italian do not exist (thank God, there are English ones. And it was a nice surprise, I didn't think I'd understand anything. Oh, 100%! Let me brag a little for no reason, come on. Yes, yes, let me keep up this joking tone, as I've just finished writing this piece, and I can already tell you that there will be little clarity and even less joy).

Then I turned off the TV, walked past the mirror, saw myself as angry as when I found out a dwarf was sleeping with my ex, and went out with my friends.

Since then, three weeks have passed, and not a day has gone by without my thoughts stumbling upon memories of the film.

The horror and the total lack of judgment.

The inability that I continue to carry with me: at the moment, I can tell you that if you are normal people, you must stay light years away from this film. If you know what time and day "Chi l'ha visto" is on, this is your film.
It is made for you, dedicated to you, and is your point of arrival (hopefully).
Having made this necessary clarification, I inform you that spoilers abound below, and 99% of you would prefer to never watch this film (regardless of which of the two aforementioned categories you belong to).

Horror.
The horror genre has been accused for years and years, almost forever, of being a stupid thing for kids that isn't even scary, and they are all the same, and they are poorly shot, acted worse...
And maybe we could stop talking nonsense and watch a horror movie every now and then. Maybe one that isn't produced by a gigantic production house and doesn't aim to please an audience aged 13 to 45.
To give examples: The Others, Nightmare, Saw, The Evil Dead... These are not "THE" horror cinema.
And there isn't only "Shining".

Horror, from "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari" (1920) onward, is the genre that has worked the most with metaphors and metalanguage to give the viewer, in addition to the promised "horror," a double reading key of the work, conveying a message while talking about something else, or anyway shifting the focus of attention to something else, compared to the center of the film. "Dawn of the Dead" is a film about capitalism much more than a film about the undead sucking brains. "Dawn of the Dead" is a criticism of capitalism decidedly more ferocious than anything Stone has ever done in his life. It's a fact, the films are there, and if one doesn't believe it, they can watch them.

Obviously, not all horror films offer this double reading key, "Nightmare" for instance, is just entertainment.

"Megan is Missing" has this key, and it makes its "analysis" decidedly more complex. If it didn't have it, it would be very easy: an effective horror, a shitty film, burn it like Last Tango in Paris.

The film fits into the "mockumentary/found footage" genre, it's a hypothetical special report that retraces through clip images "stolen" from the PCs of the two protagonists, and specials from various sensationalist pornographic services like "Verissimo," "Chi l'ha visto," and various abominations.

You know from the title: Megan will disappear.
You know from the first scene: seven days after Megan's disappearance, her friend Amy will also disappear.

Initially, it's not clear what you're watching: how will they disappear? Am I watching a horror with demons and possessions or a mystery film that won't explain anything? You're watching "Verissimo," probably the way its authors would like to present it to you.

For half the film, you stay in the rooms of the two protagonists and their camera phones.

Megan is outgoing, strong, successful, and uses sex as a tool of power over guys aware of herself. She may be slightly more mature than her 16/17 years, disregards school friendships, stupid and selfish girls useful just to get through class hours with boyfriends more foolish than noisy. She hides a past of violence, shares a slightly hinted but far superior conflictual relationship with her mother than should be normal for a girl, and loves Amy with that adolescent love that only friendship can give.

You're watching "Verissimo," and she's the perfect victim.

Amy is the exact opposite of her only friend: daddy's princess, affectionate mother, closed off, shy, doesn't take care of her appearance, displays a childish sensitivity in every single frame, out of the school's loops, and, for god's sake, a virgin and immaculate. Heaven forbid.

You're watching "Verissimo" the way we want to show it to you. We'll violate your angel, and we'll shove it stably between the pubic hairs of the demon. We'll make you See it. Look, virgin blood. Satisfy your hunger for horror, give us audience. We need the audience for our party, we'll chew it up as if we were in the Andes. We need an audience and a herd of sacrificial lambs. And we need you, IDIOT. Burn your soul in front of our services.


For a long part of the film, the two characters are introduced to us, presented, we become attached to their stories, almost forget we're watching a film, and we engage in a reality show about two girls. The road is straight, enjoy the view.

At the first right turn, an "useless" friend suggests Megan a new chat contact, a nice guy with a charming photo.
Megan contacts him, and suddenly you remember you're watching a film, and you also understand there won't be possessions, there will be no unsolved mysteries. It's already clear: the one chatting with a broken webcam is not an interesting guy. He's someone who knows what he wants, who quickly understands if Megan can be interesting and especially "easy." "Easy" prey...

It's "Verissimo" as you risk seeing it in ten years. It's stalker, it's violence, it's horror.

To cut it short, Megan gets on well with this "chat guy," and after a couple of missed appointments, she goes to a third and disappears.
Pause from the "reality" and a series of news reports where we discover Amy went to the police to inform investigators of the fact that Megan was in contact with a "Josh" met in chat and that the last time she was heard she was just about to go out with him.

Microphones stifle Amy's sad face, and in response, they receive the silence of a person asking herself, "where am I? What am I doing here?"

Josh, who contacts her, tracks her down, and Amy disappears.
News reports show us where Amy was taken, and then bomb! They found a camcorder near where Amy was abducted!

It's "Verissimo" as perhaps you deserve, it's time for dessert, put on your bib, and here we choke you with cream, filthy scum.

Foreshadowed five minutes before by two photographs that I don't dream at night because I'm a bad person, the last twenty minutes of Amy imprinted on mini DV tape and recorded firsthand by Josh begin. Three or four minutes are dedicated to an Amy tied to a table by a hand while being raped. Then Josh places the hand we hadn't seen on the table. Nice blood soup. He has a hand stained with blood, and behind her, the teeth drooling of a former virgin being raped. I don't care how I write this piece, I'm starting to be ashamed of the topics covered, sorry.

Cut

Amy, in her cell, made out some cellar. She screams, begs for mercy, says she won't tell anyone anything. The camcorder opens the door, Josh makes her eat from a bowl, her hands tied behind her back. Still desperate Amy. Josh pulls her out, says he'll show her Megan, a Breaking Bad-style barrel opens and Megan's decomposing body inside. Amy screams and shouts and runs away (and damn it... ENOUGH).

Cut

Camera on the ground, a shovel digging, Megan's barrel on the side
"Help" screams Amy. ...From where?
"I'll do anything you want" ...My god... NO
"I won't tell anyone" comes from the barrel where Megan is decomposing. And Amy desperately tries to figure out how to hang onto life.
"I LOVE YOU"...
I don't know how I did it. I don't know how I managed to keep going, don't know how I got through to write up to here, and I'm having trouble going on.

Josh will bury the barrel, and that's the end of the film.

In the field of fictional cinema, I've NEVER seen anything this cruel, I don't know how many films have been able to grab my balls so hard and move me so intensely.
Now, please, don't act like idiots, and try to understand on your own how that "moving me" should be interpreted.

An hour ago, I started this review because I wanted to talk about this film, to say that if you wanted criticism towards a certain use of mass media, you have a royal flush in your hand. I wanted to make it clear that it's an example of a film that does things well that, all things considered, could also not be done. I wanted to explain why it's a film that no one should watch and explain that it's a film that's right in its own way, in the most brutal and fierce way possible. I believe I failed to say anything about all this, I thought to finally expiate this damn vision by vomiting a few written lines on it the best I could, and I found myself trapped in a maze of words and feelings that instead of letting the film "pass" over made it come back to me.
I'm angry, furious, I hate Megan is Missing, and I hate a masterpiece. And at the same time, I love Megan is Missing, and I love a film that perhaps would have been better if no one had ever shot.
It is not something you love or hate; you don't decide for it, it decides for you.
It’s dangerous, it hurts terribly, and the only people who deserve to see it are people so ignorant that I don't want to talk to them.

I wanted to talk about the directorial aspect, but I think we've already gone too long, to sum it up: a found footage that works.
In the review, I also wanted to include Immanuel Casto, "the pornography of feelings, cathodic dramas for morons," and link what I consider his best song, I'll put it below.
I also wanted to talk about Minzolini's TG Uno, the six minutes of politics against 24 minutes of news.
I wanted to say that for 5 years I didn’t watch a news program until Mentana opened TG7 (and after 4 days of watching it, I was in love with Mentana, now I even have him as a friend on Facebook).
I wanted to say many things well, I hope I've said just as many not too badly. What I had inside has, however, left between the lines of this page to bring back the anger and horror that the film, if you are even remotely normal, inevitably leaves you with.

I thank Madcat (I hope it was him who talked to me about it, if not, I apologize to the user I forgot: "come pull my ears, so I can properly apologize and you tell me what you think of the film because I'm curious") and at the same time send him to hell strongly: I thought I had a strong stomach, but I had to rethink.

I've already said it, but I'll repeat it: this film hurts. And I don’t say it with the spirit of someone trying to find a catchy definition; it's simply a fact.
If you want to get close to it, I have warned you.