After watching this predictable, made-for-TV film about technophobia and the internet I was puzzled about what message the movie intended to impart to its audience. Is the internet a bad ersatz form of communication, replacing familial bonds or is it a gateway to a better world? Do high-flying career women and divorces go hand in hand? Do children need their mothers at all times? What is the role of the father? This movie throws all these questions in the air as a hidden agenda, and refuses to answer any. Many questions are left unanswered: how will the daughter cope after her ordeal? Will the mother get her top job back? Will the family unit be reunited? By refusing to adopt any position, this movie is a failed exercise in sociological analysis - yes, that was not its intention, but why raise these issues and then abandon them?
18 Reviews
Gets the point across I suppose
shecky844 May 2005
Warning: Spoilers
The story behind this movie is one that is sadly all too common in today's society, young people being preyed upon on the internet. It does an overall good job of showing just how dangerous the internet can be for youngsters but lacks something when it comes to reality in other ways.
I found myself laughing more than once due to various scenes just being out right silly, if you know anything about computers you will likely find yourself shaking your head more than a few times during the course of this movie. The performances by the actors are pretty good, but some of the situations said acting takes place in are again, laughable and unbelievable. They could have done much better had they focused less on dramatics and focused more on what would likely happen in such an event. A word to parents, educate your children about the dangers of the internet and supervise them online, this will prevent such problems from happening to your child and your family.
For those curious, here were my main problems with this movie:
***SPOILERS*** OK, so mommy tracks her little girl down to the bad guy's warehouse where she is being held captive, and of course, it's right at the moment her daughter is about to be murdered by mr. bad guy. Her daughter breaks out a window and begins screaming for help, and who happens to be driving down that lonely alley at that moment? MOMMY! We get a finale that I suppose was supposed to be filled with tension but wasn't because since everything else up to this point had been predictable and unrealistic, you just knew mommy and daughter would escape just fine.
Before this exciting ending we have scenes of mommy getting away with stuff that no civilian would be allowed to do when it comes to police work/being involved with the police. Sorry, I don't care how much of a powerful woman you are or how much you want to find your child, there are rules; had the director/writers thought of this it would have made the movie much better, I would have been approving of their accuracy instead of rolling my eyes.
I found myself laughing more than once due to various scenes just being out right silly, if you know anything about computers you will likely find yourself shaking your head more than a few times during the course of this movie. The performances by the actors are pretty good, but some of the situations said acting takes place in are again, laughable and unbelievable. They could have done much better had they focused less on dramatics and focused more on what would likely happen in such an event. A word to parents, educate your children about the dangers of the internet and supervise them online, this will prevent such problems from happening to your child and your family.
For those curious, here were my main problems with this movie:
***SPOILERS*** OK, so mommy tracks her little girl down to the bad guy's warehouse where she is being held captive, and of course, it's right at the moment her daughter is about to be murdered by mr. bad guy. Her daughter breaks out a window and begins screaming for help, and who happens to be driving down that lonely alley at that moment? MOMMY! We get a finale that I suppose was supposed to be filled with tension but wasn't because since everything else up to this point had been predictable and unrealistic, you just knew mommy and daughter would escape just fine.
Before this exciting ending we have scenes of mommy getting away with stuff that no civilian would be allowed to do when it comes to police work/being involved with the police. Sorry, I don't care how much of a powerful woman you are or how much you want to find your child, there are rules; had the director/writers thought of this it would have made the movie much better, I would have been approving of their accuracy instead of rolling my eyes.
Not a bad tele-movie
jamiecostelo5814 January 2005
Jordan Ladd proved a worthy actress in this enlightening made-for-TV drama, which sends a message that all teenagers should adhere; never trust internet chat-rooms.
It's a film that many parents might actually understand - the child, who is perhaps naive and a little too trusting, spending hours and hours on end on their computer, and one or both of the parents working full time and are never at home to check on what's going on. Every Mother's Worst Fear points this out quite thoroughly.
Admittedly, the story is a little clichéd, but you can't help but sympathise with Connie Hoagland (Cheryl Ladd) as she desperately tries to locate her daughter. It does work that a real-life mother and daughter were cast for such what is really a cat-and-mouse movie. It does point out that the internet is not always a good thing. 5/10
It's a film that many parents might actually understand - the child, who is perhaps naive and a little too trusting, spending hours and hours on end on their computer, and one or both of the parents working full time and are never at home to check on what's going on. Every Mother's Worst Fear points this out quite thoroughly.
Admittedly, the story is a little clichéd, but you can't help but sympathise with Connie Hoagland (Cheryl Ladd) as she desperately tries to locate her daughter. It does work that a real-life mother and daughter were cast for such what is really a cat-and-mouse movie. It does point out that the internet is not always a good thing. 5/10
One of the worst made for TV movies I've ever seen!
ArtistGrl19 July 2003
God this was just horrible! everything about it... the acting, the script, the characters... I just couldn't decide what was more laughable, the unbelievably dumb 16 year old, (yes some teens are innocent and gullible, but not to that level!!), the internet-geek who "never goes out of his house" and voluntarily gives a hell of a laptop to some woman he never met before, or the mom who didn't know anything about computers, but learned 'it all' in a couple of, umm, minutes? Not to mention Ted McGinley AKA Jefferson Darcy as the big bad scary hacker guy...
Other than that you just gotta love movies about comps and "the net" made by people who know absolutely nothing about it (except for various textbook quotes)... There were so many holes and misinformation in this movie I couldn't even begin writing about it...
But in any case, to all worried computer-illiterate parents: unless your teenage daughter suffers from major brain damage, you don't have anything to worry about... but if she does, disconnect the internet and let her watch TV instead... cheers :)
Other than that you just gotta love movies about comps and "the net" made by people who know absolutely nothing about it (except for various textbook quotes)... There were so many holes and misinformation in this movie I couldn't even begin writing about it...
But in any case, to all worried computer-illiterate parents: unless your teenage daughter suffers from major brain damage, you don't have anything to worry about... but if she does, disconnect the internet and let her watch TV instead... cheers :)
A chronicle of the times, sure...
rmax3048237 September 2002
Warning: Spoilers
Spoilers. Every paranoid fantasy must have several things going for it. It must be a conspiracy -- none of this lone gunman business. It must be ubiquitous; there but for the grace of God go I or my baby. It must be aimed at innocent people, not sophisticated cynical types. They must have a kernel of truth. A few high-visibility cases on TV would help. It must be subtle, so that in the absence of evidence the belief can persist. Son of Sam had a very rich social life. A letter inserted into his mailbox backwards by the carrier conveyed a different message than one with the address facing forward. And the evil must be unmitigated, the conspirators dehumanized. Those are some of the prerequisites for a successful case of mass hysteria. Over the course of our history the scheme has worked fine for witches, Masons, Catholics, Communists, and Satanists, in that chronological order. We've been working lately on "New World Order" forces but so far that particular looniness has been confined to a fluoride-in-the-water maniac fringe. And so has the Chat Room Conspiracy aimed at our young people, designed to seduce them. This movie presents what is definitely a worst-case scenario. A beautiful, busty gullible 16-year-old meets a conspiracy of two evil men in a teen chat room. (One almost feels that anybody over the age of 20 who can sit through more than ten minutes in a teen chat room deserves some kind of reward.) One of the two conspirators entices her to leave home and fly from Illinois to Pittsburgh, where he evidently deflowers her, probably roughly, in a shabby house with the blinds drawn, and refuses to let her phone her parents. Now, however, he is stuck with a weepy underage girl and doesn't know what to do with her. The other conspirator, an older man, slimy and evil, does know what to do. He arranges a transfer, takes her to another hideaway, makes videotapes of her in the nude after drugging her with raspberry tea, and more or less puts her on an internet auction block resembling eBay. (Minimum bid, 10K.) Well, I'll tell you, things go from bad to worse. Mom is just worried sick. And with the help of a neighborhood computer geek (he wears glasses and his hair is messy) flies all over the place trying to track her daughter down. The FBI would like to help, but they class her as a runaway and can't treat it as a kidnapping. In the end, Mom locates daughter in one of those dreary almost-empty warehouses in a seedy section of Baltimore. By this time, the movie has turned into a slasher flick. The conspirator is running around giggling maniacally and waving a knife in the air until he is finally -- at the very last moment -- dispatched by the local police. The acting is all you'd expect from TV personages and novices. It was written by a committee of English majors whose grades must have averaged around C plus. And yet -- for all that -- I can't figure out why this particular craziness didn't become more popular. It had a great deal going for it. How many parents monitor what their kids are doing in chat rooms? And home computers are now all over the place, available to most people in the population, regardless of age or income. The movie was released in 1998. Four years have passed and not very much has happened. Movies like this should have given that sort of mass hysteria a good kick in the pants to get it started, but it simply didn't fly. And that's despite one or two highly publicized instances of older men being lured into arranging meetings with underage girls who turned out in the end to be overaged police officers. I would guess that it didn't become enough of a problem in the real world because kids may be vastly more sophisticated about these things than adults might like to believe. A sixteen-year-old may not be able to identify Italy on a world map but might have a built in phoniness detector when it comes to chatting on line. They can be pretty kewl. But no such logic or set of physical arrangements have stopped episodes of mass hysteria in the past. (It wasn't that long ago we had all those missing children on milk cartons.) It's possible that that anxiety is out there, though, simmering and looking for a cause, just as it was before all those preschools turned out to be nothing more than preschools, just waiting, so to speak, for some charismatic figure to step out in front of the band and cash in on it. We're about due for another wave. They seem to come and go like medieval plagues.
Some sociological notes
rmax30482319 August 2004
One of the reasons that I'm curious about the failure of every mother's worst fear to reach the take-off stage and consume us is that I am a sociologist and, it seems to me, the time has come for another wave of fear to sweep the country. And yet, confoundingly, it hasn't happened. Low-carb diets, yes -- but not internet predators? Why not?
Both the artifacts and the sentiments are there, as this movie shows vividly. Artifacts: a mysterious gray box that Cheryl Ladd's daughter hovers over, about which Ladd knows nothing. Atmosphere: a child of 14, just finishing her growth spurt, subject to whims and a desire for independence that Ladd has never had to cope with. Put the two together and you should have the family equivalent of a UFO flap.
It isn't that attempts haven't been made to kick start the craze. This movie is an example. And lately, the last month or two, public service ads have been appearing on television advising us that one in five children receive unwanted sexual solicitations over the internet. The announcement gives the viewer a website on which to report such solicitations. The website is www.cybertip.com. If you hate your neighbor or your landlored, give cybertip.com a hit. They make it easy to squeal on people you don't like.
It's a real site and a potentially useful one too. The statistics reported, including the "one in five children" who are solicited on the internet, are based on a single but scientifically respectable survey of more than 1,500 kids aged 10 to 17, carried out by three social scientists at the University of New Hampshire.
The problem with science is that it's become such a sacred cow that any pronouncements coming from a source that uses statistics is unassailable. You can pretty much take numbers and make them sing the tune you want them to, and you can do it without lying or falsifying the data. (Believe me, I know.)
Here's an example of what I mean. It's evidently true that about one in five kids received unwanted solicitations on the internet. Actually, 19 percent. Sounds terrible, doesn't it? But it also means that 81 percent of kids regularly using the internet did NOT receive unwanted sexual solicitations.
I won't take the report apart or examine it too closely. It's not a bad study but the terms are a little vague, an unfortunate necessity in telephone surveys. Summing it up, two thirds of the kids solicited were girls, and one third were boys. Likewise, about two thirds of the people DOING the soliciting were males, while one third were females.
If I remember, about 17 percent found the sexual approaches made them uncomfortable -- about three quarters of the "uncomfortable" kids were between 10 and 14. Most of the kids were too wise to be bothered.
You have to keep in mind too that if you're 17, you're a child in this survey, and if you're 18 you're an adult. The vast majority of sexual approaches were between young males (under 25) and more mature teenage girls. In other words an 18-year-old boy asking a 17-year-old girl a clumsily phrased question about herself would be categorized as an "unwanted sexual approach."
I'll quit at this point or I'll wind up reviewing the study without getting paid to do it. You can look it up if you're curious -- as I was -- and if a little statistics aren't bothersome.
As for applying the findings of this survey to the contents of this film, it can't be done. Of the more than 1,500 kids surveyed, few of them were asked for a personal meeting with the other person. And no meetings AT ALL took place in the course of the entire year covered by the study. Let's call it, "Every Mother's Worst Fantasy."
Both the artifacts and the sentiments are there, as this movie shows vividly. Artifacts: a mysterious gray box that Cheryl Ladd's daughter hovers over, about which Ladd knows nothing. Atmosphere: a child of 14, just finishing her growth spurt, subject to whims and a desire for independence that Ladd has never had to cope with. Put the two together and you should have the family equivalent of a UFO flap.
It isn't that attempts haven't been made to kick start the craze. This movie is an example. And lately, the last month or two, public service ads have been appearing on television advising us that one in five children receive unwanted sexual solicitations over the internet. The announcement gives the viewer a website on which to report such solicitations. The website is www.cybertip.com. If you hate your neighbor or your landlored, give cybertip.com a hit. They make it easy to squeal on people you don't like.
It's a real site and a potentially useful one too. The statistics reported, including the "one in five children" who are solicited on the internet, are based on a single but scientifically respectable survey of more than 1,500 kids aged 10 to 17, carried out by three social scientists at the University of New Hampshire.
The problem with science is that it's become such a sacred cow that any pronouncements coming from a source that uses statistics is unassailable. You can pretty much take numbers and make them sing the tune you want them to, and you can do it without lying or falsifying the data. (Believe me, I know.)
Here's an example of what I mean. It's evidently true that about one in five kids received unwanted solicitations on the internet. Actually, 19 percent. Sounds terrible, doesn't it? But it also means that 81 percent of kids regularly using the internet did NOT receive unwanted sexual solicitations.
I won't take the report apart or examine it too closely. It's not a bad study but the terms are a little vague, an unfortunate necessity in telephone surveys. Summing it up, two thirds of the kids solicited were girls, and one third were boys. Likewise, about two thirds of the people DOING the soliciting were males, while one third were females.
If I remember, about 17 percent found the sexual approaches made them uncomfortable -- about three quarters of the "uncomfortable" kids were between 10 and 14. Most of the kids were too wise to be bothered.
You have to keep in mind too that if you're 17, you're a child in this survey, and if you're 18 you're an adult. The vast majority of sexual approaches were between young males (under 25) and more mature teenage girls. In other words an 18-year-old boy asking a 17-year-old girl a clumsily phrased question about herself would be categorized as an "unwanted sexual approach."
I'll quit at this point or I'll wind up reviewing the study without getting paid to do it. You can look it up if you're curious -- as I was -- and if a little statistics aren't bothersome.
As for applying the findings of this survey to the contents of this film, it can't be done. Of the more than 1,500 kids surveyed, few of them were asked for a personal meeting with the other person. And no meetings AT ALL took place in the course of the entire year covered by the study. Let's call it, "Every Mother's Worst Fantasy."
Arghhhh my mind is melting!
MysticAlley21 January 2004
If you are a paranoid and ignorant of computers, your kids, minimum logic, and reality in general, this "movie" will sweet your mind and make you fell happy as a liter of drinks to an alcoholic. I am a computer engineer and somewhat I got trapped in front of my TV watching this thing for the computer topic. I confess I had a good time watching it, but they should tell us it is a "comedy" not a drama. I don't have the time to go with all details, and also there are a few fellas here that already gave us some hints.
Of course will be people out there that see Mickey Mouse as a pervert for exposing his tail, and no question this movie will enlighten them.
Of course will be people out there that see Mickey Mouse as a pervert for exposing his tail, and no question this movie will enlighten them.
Enjoyable made for TV film
MattyGibbs7 June 2014
This is a surprisingly well done and enjoyable if slightly dated made for TV movie. Yes you can pull the plot apart if you so wish but you can do that with any movie ever made.
A young girl goes missing and it becomes clear she has been kidnapped after meeting up with a guy she chats to over the net. It's not a far fetched scenario as there are many examples of this.
Where this film succeeds is that it keeps your interest throughout as the mother and police search for the missing girl. There are a number of tense scenes and the abuse scenes though mainly just hinted at are effective. The acting for a TV movie is pretty good with both Cheryl and Jordan Ladd putting in convincing performances.
It is no classic but compared to many TV movies this is a pretty good effort.
A young girl goes missing and it becomes clear she has been kidnapped after meeting up with a guy she chats to over the net. It's not a far fetched scenario as there are many examples of this.
Where this film succeeds is that it keeps your interest throughout as the mother and police search for the missing girl. There are a number of tense scenes and the abuse scenes though mainly just hinted at are effective. The acting for a TV movie is pretty good with both Cheryl and Jordan Ladd putting in convincing performances.
It is no classic but compared to many TV movies this is a pretty good effort.
You sick creep!
kapelusznik1820 November 2015
Warning: Spoilers
***SPOILERS*** Made in 1998 when the internet was in its infancy the movie "Every mother's worst night nightmare" was to alert the public about how easy it is to get impressionable young girls to leave home and join up with some creepy guy by getting involved with him in a chat-room who promises them the world. It's here where bored with her life 16 year old Martha Hoagland,Jordan or Jonie Ladd, ends up for sale on e-bay to the highest bidder in a number of sex tape made of her by the creepy sicko street name Scanman, Ted McGinley, who besides kidnapping also has, in torturing and killing some of his victims, murder on his mind.
With Martha missing from school and home her single parent mom Connie, Cheryl Ladd, in finding out that her daughter is a 1st class internet cyber nerd, who never leaves his house tries to get the lowdown and feel of the net. That in order to fill her in on what to do, computer wise, to find her daughter before anything bad, if being kidnapped and held hostage isn't bad enough, happens to her. It's Martha's kidnapping cyber boyfriend, who secretly works for Scanman, the boyish and innocent looking Dredw Pederson, Vincent Gale, who screws things up for his boss-Sacnman-by not following instructions and ends up paying for it with his life.
***SPOILERS*** As for Scanman he soon gets himself fully into the act, not behind his computer, by kidnapping the just rescued-by himself- Martha from Pederson and then by him corrupting of a minor uses her in a number of triple X rated home porno video he's to sell, via the internet, to his sick and eager client pedophile costumers. It's Martha's mom Connie who gets the jump on Scanman by, with the help of using the internet, finding out in where he's hiding out, in the dock district of Baltimore, and in return is attacked and held hostage by him until the police, whom she alerted, arrive. It's super cop the kindly understanding but a bit,to say the least, overweight Detective "Roger" Maris, Blu Mankuma, who in seeing Connie from a broken window on the 5th floor about to get her throat slit by Scanman who then did to only thing he could do and blasted him, for a distance of at least 50 feet, and finally put the crazy nut down and out for good.
With Martha missing from school and home her single parent mom Connie, Cheryl Ladd, in finding out that her daughter is a 1st class internet cyber nerd, who never leaves his house tries to get the lowdown and feel of the net. That in order to fill her in on what to do, computer wise, to find her daughter before anything bad, if being kidnapped and held hostage isn't bad enough, happens to her. It's Martha's kidnapping cyber boyfriend, who secretly works for Scanman, the boyish and innocent looking Dredw Pederson, Vincent Gale, who screws things up for his boss-Sacnman-by not following instructions and ends up paying for it with his life.
***SPOILERS*** As for Scanman he soon gets himself fully into the act, not behind his computer, by kidnapping the just rescued-by himself- Martha from Pederson and then by him corrupting of a minor uses her in a number of triple X rated home porno video he's to sell, via the internet, to his sick and eager client pedophile costumers. It's Martha's mom Connie who gets the jump on Scanman by, with the help of using the internet, finding out in where he's hiding out, in the dock district of Baltimore, and in return is attacked and held hostage by him until the police, whom she alerted, arrive. It's super cop the kindly understanding but a bit,to say the least, overweight Detective "Roger" Maris, Blu Mankuma, who in seeing Connie from a broken window on the 5th floor about to get her throat slit by Scanman who then did to only thing he could do and blasted him, for a distance of at least 50 feet, and finally put the crazy nut down and out for good.
Simple but powerful
moviewiz-46 June 2001
Charlie's Angel's Angel
zsenorsock13 September 2007
Not a lot of reason to watch this unless you are curious to see hotty Cheryl Ladd work with her daughter, hotty Jordan Ladd, or are interested in seeing if Ted McGinley can act against type as the brainy yet sick bad guy in this one. If anything, Cheryl showed me that sometime since "Charlie's Angels" she actually picked up a few things about acting and is pretty convincing, despite the weak script. The most unbelievable thing about this is that Jordan as Martha, would seek to find guys on the internet after her boyfriend breaks up with her. I mean, come on, take a look! She would not be lonely for long.
Interestingly the script is the last by John Robert Bensink, and deservedly so. The dialog and story just aren't very good. I checked his other credits and he seems to have been a bit of a one trick pony, doing this same theme in "Netnapped". Don't know that one, but this one definitely is a nap inducer.
Interestingly the script is the last by John Robert Bensink, and deservedly so. The dialog and story just aren't very good. I checked his other credits and he seems to have been a bit of a one trick pony, doing this same theme in "Netnapped". Don't know that one, but this one definitely is a nap inducer.
Your MOM & DAD are Your Best Friends In The Entire World !
whpratt122 January 2004
It is very easy to pick this film a part, and it is probably very easy to say that I would never get trapped like Jordan Ladd,(Martha Hoagland),"Puzzled",01, into an Internet Chat room or my daughter or son would never be that stupid to be lead away from our home by total strangers. If the mom in this picture, Cheryl Ladd,(Connie Hoagland),"Lisa",'90, had noticed the signs of withdrawal by her daughter when she practically lived in the bedroom and gave complete devotion to the Computer, Jordan would never have faced the problems she faced. She was seeking Love in all the wrong places and the break up with her boyfriend sent her over the edge. This film is reminding us there is always someone in the Internet Chat Rooms who are playing very horrible games and pretending to be someone they really are not. This film pointed out the fact that Mom & Dad's are our best friends,and should be trusted enough to tell our most deepest SECRETS! Remember, our parents were all very young ONCE, and can really help you with your deepest, darkest PROBLEMS! Let Them HELP!
good
Nancy-4020 September 1999
This is a very good movie that follows a 16 year old girl who goes to meet someone from the net and he kidnaps her and he runs a sex site on the net and he uses girls he kidnaps and puts them on the net. the girls Mother is out trying to find her and eventually does and just has to get her away from the guy. this movie is very good, it shows why you should always be careful of people on the net. Also the mother and daughter in the movie are Mother and Daughter in real life. i don't know if this is based on a true story but it could be!
EXCELLENT MOVIE
D.Tyree5 March 2000
This movie was one of good taste. It showed the dangers of completely trusting someone over the internet as well as letting parents know the possible dangers of letting their children "chat" on-line without supervision. Jordan Ladd gave an excellent job at portraying a typical teenager. I would recommend this movie to anyone. GREAT MOVIE!!
Fair
bobfromphilly2 February 1999
All time favorite
shake_it_off_mariah27 July 2005
I first seen this movie on lifetime, i read the description, and sounded like a good movie. I absolutely love this movie, it is a wonderful way to show how things really can get if you let things get out of control. This is a movie for mothers to watch and actually take in, to know what can happen to their children. I think having Jordan Ladd, playing the daughter, was a wonderful Idea, actually getting to act with her own mother playing her mom just made the movie seem more lifely. I'm very pleased outstanding movie. this is a must see. Actually being about an internet stalker, and how that he didn't actually come for her, and that she actually left to go to him was more as actually cases, wonderful diections
Worth watching especially if you have kids
pandy7 April 2001
I definitely think this movie is worth watching.. and a good one to watch with your kids to help them realize that there are dangers on the internet. While not every person on the internet is a sicky looking for prey, they ARE out there!
While some of the chat scenes left a little to be desired, I think it summed it all up quite well.
Note: this movie is based on a true story (it stated something to that effect at the beginning of the movie)
While some of the chat scenes left a little to be desired, I think it summed it all up quite well.
Note: this movie is based on a true story (it stated something to that effect at the beginning of the movie)
This movie is not shown enough if you ask me........
elizabethbennett21 January 2004
I caught this movie tonight on Lifetime and I have to comment. The internet is NOT a toy and I wish this movie were shown more often. I say that because I see kids online all the time who drop their names, locations, email addresses and IM names like people drop business cards. I know they think that this sort of stuff will not happen to them but as this movie showed, it can happen to anyone. I reinforce these realities whenever I need to and have no problem doing so. Cyberspace crawls with pedophiles, stalkers and people who have nothing else to do but play online all day. I think this movie was good and I wish it were shown more often. If any parents are reading this.......PLEASE keep the computers out of the kids rooms. Otherwise, you never know what sort of trouble can come of just "innocently" talking in a chat room to someone. The internet is not a toy and should not be treated as one. Just my two cents.
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