A Party Gone Wrong

The storyline was entertaining - I watched until the end. I wanted the main characters to survive (which I knew they would, but still). I've seen many many worse movies in my time - and this is definitely nowhere near the bottom so I don't know where all the low reviews are coming from. There were a few things that didn't make sense - the white friend must have known that the girls would be missed. Plus the mother delaying calling the police - I think most parents would be calling them straight away - perhaps she was wary of them being a person of colour though. I enjoyed seeing black main characters in a lifetime movie - hope to see more in the future. Usually they just play the friend, which is better than nothing, but we need to start seeing them in leading roles too.

The acting is this movie is nonexistent. The script was mediocre, at best, and lack depth. The audio in this film was despicable. I had to watch with captions to "hear" what they were saying. For such an important topic, organ harvesting, this movie doesn't do well shedding light on this grim topic.

There were multiple film styles in "A Party Gone Wrong" (a.k.a., "Trapped Daughter") with the horror genre sustained most completely. Two young women are made captive and locked in a freezer compartment in a warehouse. There is also a thriller element that focuses on a desperate mother seeking to find her daughter. Then, at the very end, it is revealed that the film is attempting to raise consciousness about organ harvesting and human trafficking. The different components of the film never meshed. The most interesting character was Mrs. Tracey Bishop, a talented choreographer working in a new arts center. When Mrs. Bishop's daughter April does not arrive home after a party, she begins her search. That strand of the drama turned into a race against the clock and a horror scene in the cornfield, prior to the mother's discovery that April had been placed in an icebox. The performers tried their best to rise above the shallow material they were given, especially the static scenes during the "big chill." In those moments, April and her friend Natalie bonded after a falling-out over a time Natalie spent a few hours in a hot tub with April's boyfriend. The notes on the screen about human trafficking at the end of the film would have been positioned more effectively at the beginning, so that the audience would be prepared for the sadistic Dr. Sylvia, her demented assistants, and the unpleasant surgical scenes that follow. The message is an important one. But the method of delivery in the film needed rethinking.

Five minutes into the movie, a friend plied the main character with spiked drinks, and got her into a pretend cab in which she was abducted as apart of a scheme. What drew me to this film was the idea that a regular woman had a fun night and gets into an actual cab/ride share and the driver ends up being crazy. It's more realistic and dynamic of a plot because you would typically only find out motives of the abductor and if the abductee survives at the end. And it makes you root for her thinking of the horror of a normal woman being abducted by a third party ride share app driver and how could this happen. But this is just a dramatic mess that's still predictable. We know who our attackers are, we know why this is happening to the victim, and we don't feel bad. She kept drinking stuff that she knows was spiked. Her friend told her it's ginger ale "with other things." But this movie DOES remind me of that Tamla case where a pretty and popular black woman gets drugged by her female white "friends" at a party despite her reluctantly attending and then being murdered by the women's white male partners.

The acting in the freezer was sooooo bad. No idea what was being said the whining while trying to talk was a no. So difficult to understand what you are trying to say. Speaking clearly. Especially when you're trying to whisper is Important.

For a film with a limited budget, it was entertaining. Especially enjoyed the performance of the evil doctor - either she was really evil or she was a very good actress (or both)!

With all Lifetime movies, the plot tends to be as predictable as the sunrise. No surprise there. But given that, I enjoyed the movie. It's based on a true story for the most part. Character development and story was lacking just a bit. Not sure what the mom/boyfriend storyline was all about. It just kind of came and went. But overall the acting was good. Especially April (played by. Shellie Sterling) and the Uber driver, Mike (played by Emerson niemchick). The coolest, creepiest yet likeable psychopath you would want to meet. I had a love/hate relationship with this character. Emerson was the strongest actor in this drama. His anger at the escape of one of the girls was believable and tense. You feared for her if he ever caught up with her. Aprils emotional display of being in a freezer and potentially being killed was very poignant, well balanced and not overly played. I wish the writer would have flushed out more of the back story between Brittany, Mike and Mike's assumed brother, Johnny(?) and why they ended up being the people they are. Whatever trauma was in their past that made them candidates for the psyche ward would have added weight to their character and actions. Weakest moment: The nurse who was going to perform the operation. Just not believable. Her acting felt forced. Good movie over all. I never looked at my watch.