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By Robert Scucci
| Published
Watching psychological horror films is always a hit-or-miss experience for me because genre conventions often limit storytelling in painfully obvious ways. After watching hundreds of movies that clearly feature an untrustworthy protagonist with a troubled past that leads to questionable behavior today, I come back again and again, in search of movies like The Girl Who Goes Away. Although this film begins to question what is real versus what is imagined by its lead, it becomes abundantly clear that sometimes you need to take things at face value despite the buildup that would make you think otherwise.
That is, The Girl Who Goes Away establishes its premise and makes you question its chain of events, but only before bringing everything back full circle with a third-act payoff that doesn’t feel like a complete copout.
The Girl Who Goes Away
The Girl Who Goes Away lays all its cards on the table in its opening sequence, set in 1998, when a man and his boy are driving down a dark country road. After seeing a woman covered in blood and brandishing a knife, the father stops to see how he could be of help, urging his son to keep the door locked. When a little girl bangs on the car window, the boy lets her in, discovering that she is a missing girl named Christina Bowden (portrayed by Victoria Semenenko in this sequence) who escaped from the addiction of serial killer Elizabeth Caulfield (Kaye Tuckerman).
Today, Christina (Lexi Johnson) has grown up and works as an elementary school teacher. Realizing that she wouldn’t have had a fighting chance of reaching adulthood without someone taking her in after her escape, Christina adopts Lisa Spencer (Willow McCarthy), a troubled teenager who reminds her of herself in an attempt to make peace with her. own violent past. While Christina lives a normal life to the best of her ability, her world is rocked when Officer Jamie Nwosou (Chukwudi Iwuji) tracks her down to let her know that Elizabeth Caulfield has escaped from prison, and appears disheartened to finish what he thus began. many years ago.
The Safe House And The Body Counts
The titular girl who escaped goes into hiding under Jamie’s supervision, but wants to keep up appearances so no one worries about her well-being. Constantly looking over her shoulder, Christina becomes paranoid as her past comes back to haunt her, but not without experiencing blackout periods where she wakes up with blood and dirt on her hands, making you question her innocence on more than one occasion. Although there was never a doubt in my mind about Christina’s innocence, it is hard to ignore the fact that death seems to follow her wherever she goes, as if hiding some deep, dark secret, buried she doesn’t want to be. exposed.
Surprise Turn Of Events
The aforementioned run of The Girl Who Goes Away It sounds like the rest of her run time would lead to something as despicable as Christina being the murderer for the most part and blaming Elizabeth for the crimes she actually committed as a child. Without spoiling the plot for you, I can assure you that you will experience a twist ending that is outside of what you would expect in your average. psychological horror film.
Is Christina troubled to the point of being an unreliable witness in several cases? Absolutely.
But is she deliberately hiding incriminating evidence to the point where she is justified in considering her a person of prime interest in the recent killings surrounding her?
That’s where things get nonsensical in the narrative.
I found myself changing my mind about a dozen times while watching The Girl Who Goes Away because he does something different to his contemporaries in that we don’t see the events unfolding from Christina’s skeptical point of view only; there is a level of objectivity coming from the supporting characters that is vague yet telling as the mystery is pieced together, and the authorities try to find Elizabeth Caulfield.
Turns And Turns Plenty
Are we dealing with a psychotic serial killer who used her youth and innocence to lock up her supposed captor who is now out for revenge? Or are we dealing with a deeply traumatized and troubled woman whose memory of her own past becomes heartbreaking when she learns that her life is in danger after overwhelming her childhood for years?
If you want these questions answered, you can stream The Girl Who Goes Away free on Tubi.
