Girl In The Basement (2021) (Review)

Girl in the Basement (2021) I won’t dwell on this TV movie, I think.I t’s a harrowing experience to discover what it was like for the young woman who was kidnapped and repeatedly raped by her own father, who bore her several children. Two truly horrifying cases came to light in Austria in the same year. I believe it was in 2006. I remember that shortly before, probably the year before, my mother said to me: “Ahhh… Austrians are really good people. There’s never any fuss with them!!!” One should never speak too quickly. I had read Natascha Kampusch’s book. Then I saw the film “3096 Tage – Natascha Kampusch (2013)” which means 3096 days. Both are masterpieces.I’ll repost my review of the film here: “I’ve just read all the comments in German. The positive comments have all my respect, the negative comments have all my disdain and rejection. Natascha Kampusch went through hell. The fact that her story is being exploited to the bitter end is solely her fault. I think it’s the least she could have had to be compensated a little. Because her life will never be normal again.I had read her book. Yes, I liked it a lot. But not because it’s voyeuristic, but because it’s touching and well-written. And it sheds light on those things that people can’t even imagine in their worst nightmares. Natascha K has all my total admiration. Even if the book is different, I still find it interesting to see the changes, to be able to make comparisons. Several points of view are always more interesting than one. This film makes you want to vomit… and it’s atrocious what happens in it. But it gets a 5-star rating from me, because, my goodness, it really happened. And it’s important to turn the worst into art.The actors and especially the actresses are excellent. Especially Natascha as a little girl and teenager. “This film is just as good. There’s no denying it’s a masterpiece that dared…Quite simply! Indeed, it takes courage to take on these roles of victims, more or less naïve (like the mother who never realized anything) and executioner. This feature-length film enabled me to find out a lot more about this story, as I’d known nothing more than the newspaper articles. Some memories come back to me: it seems to me that in 1999, some people, probably a family, were found in one or more cellars, and it was thought that they would be the last. The thought that there may still be people locked up right now terrorizes and depresses me to no end. My thoughts are with them and I hope they can all get out. Girl in the Basement is one of the “Ripped from the Headlines” feature films from Lifetime, an American cable channel which is part of Lifetime Entertainment Services. In fact, here’s the technical side: The case was featured in the 2008 documentary, The Longest Night: Secrets of the Austrian Cellar and the 2010 documentary, Monster: The Josef Fritzl Story. The 2009 book, The Crimes of Josef Fritzl: Uncovering the Truth, by Stefanie Marsh and Bojan Pancevski, covers the case. The 2009 true crime book, Secrets in the Cellar by John Glatt, details the case. Author Emma Donoghue was inspired by the crimes, and her novel inspired a film adaptation of the same name. In 2021, Lifetime released a film inspired by the Fritzl case entitled Girl in the Basement as part of Lifetime’s “Ripped from the Headlines” features. The film is directed by Elisabeth Röhm and stars Stefanie Scott, Judd Nelson and Joely Fisher.

My Rating