Serving as cautionary tales and low-effort sources of thrill are two of the most evident purposes you can immediately associate with Lifetime films. Now, Girl in the Video does slack off a bit in its attempt to be a convincingly thrilling experience. But it’s something the film more than makes up for by cautioning the audience about an alarmingly relevant danger. It’s hopeful in its conclusion, but it does leave you ill at ease.
Spoilers Ahead
What Happens In The Film?
For a singer-mother of two teens who’s still not opened herself up to the possibility of ever finding love or romance again, Mo’s doing pretty well. At least she’s got that friendly rapport going with her kids, and that too without compromising with the parental guidance part of it all. Even though the date Jen set up for her goes exactly as bad as she’d expected, she comes home to a son and a daughter who adore her and want her to be happy more than anything. Krissy’s your regular bubbly 15-year-old. She’s rather emotionally intelligent for her age, and perhaps that’s why she feels safe nurturing the crush she has on this boy she’s been talking to. Toby has a few years on her, and the chance of partying with the seniors is not too shabby. Mo’s clear declaration that Krissy is not old enough to be in the company of a bunch of impulsive teenagers without supervision is something that she saw coming. Yet that inevitable compulsion to revolt against what feels like unfair control makes Krissy walk out secretly. Unfortunately, Toby doesn’t exist, and the masked man dragging her into the van isn’t a 17-year-old teen.
Why Was Krissy Kidnapped?
Lieutenant Brennan isn’t the usual victim-blaming, lazy cop that you’re used to seeing in films like this. She treats Mo’s plight as a single mother with a missing daughter with as much empathy and concern as she’s supposed to. It is all thanks to her tireless investigation that a terrifying video of Krissy being abused at the hands of a masked man came up. And after FBI agent Fry came into the picture, the investigation proceeded even smoother, and they figured out the motive behind the kidnapping in no time. The kidnapper was charging in cryptocurrency for exclusive videos of Krissy’s torment. Mo might’ve been a worldly woman, but just knowing that people would pay to relish a person’s pain was something she couldn’t stomach. But more importantly, it was her own daughter in the video, and every scream she heard must’ve felt like her agonized heart was being stabbed over and over.
What Did They Find Out About The Kidnapper?
Krissy is not just unbelievably resilient, but she’s also able to let her emotional nuances help her out in the dire situation she’s found herself in. It’s through her shrewd poking and prodding that we get to know more about the man who’s psychotic enough to torture a little girl. More than the money he gets from these obscene videos, it’s the sadistic kick he gets out of doing this to Krissy that motivates him to go worse with each installment. Admittedly, he doesn’t have a good relationship with his ex-wife and his daughter Molly, who’s just a few years older than Krissy. No surprises there! The same sexist mindset that ruined his marriage has now taken a much worse shape. Molly rejects him, and he lashes out at Krissy. And while Krissy does her best to chip away at his shell so she can manipulate him into going a little bit easy on her, Brennan and Fry keep clutching at straws. All they’ve gathered from the little clues scattered throughout the videos is the fact that the man might be a construction worker. But Krissy finds a way to distract him for long enough to reveal his first name on the live stream.
How Do They Catch The Kidnapper?
It’s when Girl in the Video nears its conclusion that it starts to talk about what really went on behind the catfishing and subsequent kidnapping. It’s rather refreshing that, despite being not much more than a run-of-the-mill thriller, Girl in the Video is careful about the message it sends out. The film sees Krissy and her family from an empathetic perspective. For once, there’s no moral policing regarding a 15-year-old behaving her age. And just how deep and intricate the whole scheme was only serves to show that there was no way Krissy could’ve known what she was walking into. What the film cautions against is trusting a stranger to the point where your safety itself is in question. Krissy was just a teen with a crush on a cute guy she met online. But she was anything but naive. The predator had gone out of his way to lure the teenager. He’d bought a deceased kid’s social media account and created over 20 fake profiles just to make “Toby” come off convincing. There was no way for Krissy to know what she was walking into. Her only mistake was sneaking out, hoping to have a good time with a bunch of other teenagers, something most people are guilty of doing at some point in their rebellious years.
Jack Sweeney, the ghoulish man with all the power over the little girl he’s holding captive in his basement, has saved the worst for last. Even though he never really comes out and says it, just the fact that he’s comfortable enough to reveal his real identity to Krissy is testament to what he’s planned for the last exclusive stream. Even though Mo’s gone as far as to assault Agent Fry out of sheer frustration and agony, the enforcers of the law are actually doing their best for a change. The trouble is, Jack’s defenses are pretty tight, and it will take a miracle for a tangible piece of evidence to show up. Thankfully, the miracle comes through someone who loves Krissy dearly. Robbie wasn’t aware that his sister had a penchant for secretly playing games on his laptop. And now, when he sees her suspicious chat with “Molly,” he runs straight to the cops and gives them the most workable clue they could’ve hoped for.
Girl in the Video‘s ending throws a wrench in Jack Sweeney’s near-perfect plan. While the computer-nerd side of him has helped him maintain complete anonymity in this whole ordeal, he did leave one loose end behind. The text messages on the game platform weren’t encrypted, and it took the cops no time to find the real Molly’s address. There was, understandably, no love lost between Jack and his family. And despite having a rather lucrative business on the dark web, Jack had no one protecting him. Luckily, he was at work when Brennan broke in to rescue the terrified little girl. She pulls Krissy into a hug as though she were her own daughter. If Robbie hadn’t found that one life-saving clue, Krissy would’ve never felt the sunlight on her skin again. And I guess it’s that very terrifying prospect, coupled with the pain anyone with a heart would feel at the sight of Mo, that’s turned the cops more empathetic than they can usually afford to be in that profession. It only goes to show that if a personal loss is taken more as a defeat of the system and society, the road to avoiding that very tragedy gets far easier to walk.
