Girl in the Basement is loosely based on Josef Fritzl of Austria who imprisoned his 18 year old daughter Elisabeth in a basement prison for 24 years during which time she gave birth to SEVEN of his children. Three kids were raised in the basement with Elisabeth, three were raised upstairs by Josef & his wife, and one was killed by Josef a few days after his birth. I'm stating all this information because reviewer DEEDRALA said it wasn't based on a true story when in fact it most certainly is. Judd Nelson gave a chilling performance as Don, the psycho father who locks his daughter, Sara in the basement for twenty years. The movie starts with Sara sneaking out to a party with her boyfriend, her dad catches her and she's grounded for one week. Don overhears Sara telling her mom & sister that she's leaving as soon as she turns 18 so she can travel the world. We are told Don is controlling and crazy but how does he go from grounding her for sneaking out to locking her in the basement for 20 years ? The man goes from concerned dad to full on sociopath in minutes and I'm not buying it. Josef the actual monster who did this in real life showed signs long before he locked up his daughter. He served time for rape while he was married, he started raping Elisabeth when she was eleven years old, and he started building her prison three years before he locked her in there. Also in the movie Sara looks exactly the same when she leaves the bunker twenty years later, they could've at least aged her a bit. Once again LMN wanted to cash in on a tragedy but they didn't want to actually research anything.
Review of Girl in the Basement
