It's Tampa 1984. 17 year old Lisa McVey lives with her grandmother who pimps her out to her boyfriend. Her mother is a horrible drunk. She works nights at a donut shop. While riding her bicycle home, she is kidnapped and raped over the weekend. With cunning and a lie about her dying father, her kidnapper eventually releases her. At first, nobody believes her. The cops suspect that she's lying and they're pre-occupied with a serial killer on the loose. Police detective Larry Pinkerton (David James Elliott) is the one who finally realizes that she's telling the truth.
I was expecting something much less from Lifetime. The kidnapping and rape is brutal. The disbelief is even more harrowing. In many ways, those are the climatic scenes. After that, the movie is pretty standard. The acting is great. The young actress is compelling. I really only dislike the hazy glowing lighting and TV movie style. It needs better production to give it a darker sensibility. It can't really escape its TV movie genetics. The first half is tense and the second half is a good wrap up of a cop show. This is based on the true story of serial killer Bobby Joe Long and survivor Lisa McVey.
I was expecting something much less from Lifetime. The kidnapping and rape is brutal. The disbelief is even more harrowing. In many ways, those are the climatic scenes. After that, the movie is pretty standard. The acting is great. The young actress is compelling. I really only dislike the hazy glowing lighting and TV movie style. It needs better production to give it a darker sensibility. It can't really escape its TV movie genetics. The first half is tense and the second half is a good wrap up of a cop show. This is based on the true story of serial killer Bobby Joe Long and survivor Lisa McVey.