Twisted Serial Killer Seeks Out One Last Victim In Tense Tubi Thriller
Watching psychological horror films is always a hit-or-miss experience for me because genre conventions often limit the storytelling in painfully obvious ways. After watching hundreds of movies prominently featuring an unreliable protagonist with a troubled past that leads to dubious present-day behavior, I keep coming back, time and time again, in search of films like The Girl Who Got Away. Though this film starts making you question what’s real versus what’s imagined by its lead, it becomes quite clear that sometimes you need to take things at face-value despite the buildup that would make you think otherwise.
That is to say, The Girl Who Got Away sets up 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 total copout.
The Girl Who Got Away
The Girl Who Got Away lays all of 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. Upon seeing a woman covered in blood and brandishing a knife, the father stops to see how he could be of assistance, prompting his son to keep the door locked. When a little girl bangs on the car window, the boy lets her in, finding out that she’s a missing girl named Christina Bowden (portrayed by Victoria Semenenko in this sequence) who escaped from serial killer Elizabeth Caulfield’s (Kaye Tuckerman) captivity.
In the present day, Christina (Lexi Johnson) is grown up and working as an elementary school teacher. Realizing that she wouldn’t have had a fighting chance to make it to adulthood without somebody 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 is living 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 seems hellbent on finishing what she started so many years ago.
The Safe House And The Body Count
The titular girl who got away goes into hiding under Jamie’s supervision, but wants to keep up appearances so nobody becomes worried about her wellbeing. Constantly looking over her shoulder, Christina becomes rightfully paranoid as her past comes back to haunt her, but not without experiencing blackout episodes in which she wakes up with blood and dirt on her hands, making you question her innocence on more than one occasion. Though there was never a doubt in my mind in regard to Christina’s innocence, it’s hard to ignore the fact that death seems to follow her wherever she goes, as if she’s hiding some deep, dark, buried secret that she doesn’t want to be unearthed.
A Surprising Turn Of Events
The above mentioned rundown of The Girl Who Got Away sounds like the remainder of its runtime would result in something as contrived as Christina being the murderer all along and blaming Elizabeth for the crimes she actually committed herself as a child. Without spoiling the plot for you, I can assure you that you’ll experience a twist-ending that falls 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 instances? Absolutely.
But is she intentionally hiding incriminating evidence to the point where she’s justifiably considered to be a primary person of interest in the recent slayings that are surrounding her?
That’s where things get dicey in the narrative.
I found myself changing my mind about a dozen times while watching The Girl Who Got Away because it does something different from its contemporaries in the sense that we’re not just seeing the events play out from Christina’s questionable perspective; there’s a level of objectivity coming from the supporting characters that’s ambiguous yet telling as the mystery is pieced together, and the authorities try to track down Elizabeth Caulfield.
Twists And Turns Aplenty
GFR SCORE
Are we dealing with a psychotic serial killer who used her youth and innocence to lock up her supposed captor who’s now out for revenge? Or are we dealing with a deeply traumatized and troubled woman whose recollection of her own past becomes fractured when she learns that her life’s in danger after repressing her childhood for years?
If you want these questions answered, you can stream The Girl Who Got Away for free on Tubi.
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