Girl in The Box is a 2016 thriller directed by Stephen Kemp and starring Addison Timlin, Zane Holtz and Zelda Williams.
This movie is based on a true story. It begins with a couple,Cameron(Holtz) and Janice(Williams) Hooker who give a young girl, Colleen(Timlin) a lift in their car. Little does she know that they are not the nice couple that they claim to be. The husband pulls a gun on her and she is taken to their home. The husband tells her that she must do what he says or she will get hurt. He plans to keep her in the basement. Janice tells him not to have sex with her and he promises not to. He makes a box for her to live in. He comes up with a slavery contract and makes her sign it . He tells her that he is in a company who have slaves and that they will kill her if she tries to escape.
They move to a more remote location and Janice has a baby. Colleen looks after her. The years pass and Colleen is called K and she does everything that she is told. She sees other people but she thinks that she will be killed if she tries to escape so she stays. Janice is jealous of K and she thinks that Cameron wants to have sex with her. Colleen realises that she has been with them for years. She lives in a box under their bed. Cameron decides that he does want to have sex with K. He tells Janice that she had better accept it and so Janice and K become friends. Cameron tells K that she can have a visit home so they both go to see Colleen's family. She doesn't tell them anything and she acts as if everything is okay, believing that her family will be hurt if she tells anyone.
Janice decides to leave. K is left alone with Cameron and he treats her badly. Janice arrives one day when he is not home and gets her out of there. She tells her that all of Cameron's talk about the company was not real and that she was free to leave any time. Colleen is devastated. Janice takes her to a bus station and gets her a ticket home. She calls Cameron and tells him. He breaks down. The movie ends with news that Cameron received 104 years in prison. Janice got immunity in return for testifying against her husband. Colleen went home and lived her life.
This movie was strange. The fact that it is based on a true story makes it even stranger. Who decides to put a woman in a box and keep her as a slave? Very weird. The movie is entertaining and it is fascinating to see what actually happened to Colleen. I suppose I did find it hard to understand why she didn't leave but then if you are in a certain situation, it is not easy to leave. She thought that her life was in danger, which seems very naive to me, but people can get taken in by stuff like that. The cast was good and I would recommend this if you like true crime movies. I will give it a 6/10.
Thanks for the review.
ReplyDeleteStories like this are almost unbelievable but it happens more than most people think. People held hostage get what is referred to as "Stockholm syndrome", where they begin to empathise with their captors and sometimes even join them.
If memory serves me correctly about 10% of hostages get it, and the percent goes up in relation to the amount of time they've been captive. A good example here in the USA is Elizabeth Smart.
It is weird that two people would just up and decide they want a slave and actually follow through with it. Loonies everywhere I guess.
I'll check this one out.