![[Brooklyn Horror Review] DAUGHTER](https://www.nightmarishconjurings.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Daughter-1.jpg)

Did you hear that story about that girl who gets kidnapped and her captor is, like, a total psycho-slash-wannabe cult leader? You’ve definitely heard at least one of these stories. In fact, the beginning of the film DAUGHTER says that the movie is based on several true stories.
Written and directed by Corey Deshon, DAUGHTER is the harrowing tale of a young woman who is kidnapped and forced to play house with her captors. Her primary abductor is called “Father.” When she’s chained up in the garage, Father assures her that no one will hurt her as long as she cooperates. He tells her that her name is “Daughter,” although she will sometimes be called “Sister.” Father’s partner is called “Mother.” There’s a pre-teen boy in the house too— “Brother.”
Daughter is eventually granted the privilege of integrating with the rest of the family in the house. She shares a bedroom with Brother, she helps Mother cook and clean, and she and Brother are taught lessons about the world by Father—lessons like how the outside air is toxic and that’s why they can’t go outside.
Daughter learns early on that she’s the latest in a series of “daughters.” As the days and weeks go by, she earns the family’s trust and starts to work out an escape plan.
The plot of the film is interesting and horrifying enough on its own. The cast brings it to the next level. Vivien Ngô takes center stage as the protagonist, Daughter, oscillating from sheer terror, to a façade of calm compliance, and to subtle and calculating. Ngô also expertly phases in her character’s increasing compassion and concern for Brother, of whom she starts to feel genuinely protective. Brother is played by Ian Alexander, who perfectly captures the psychology of a kid raised in total isolation and under an iron fist, and who is now being introduced to concepts and ideas that are in direct opposition to what he’s been taught his entire life.

In her role as Mother, Elyse Dinh simultaneously makes you want to scream in anger at her and weep in anger for her. Dinh’s quietly intense performance keeps us in suspense as we realize that Mother’s complicity in Father’s actions is not as simple and straightforward as we might hope. Mother is both perpetrator and victim, doing her best to keep the tenuous peace while also painfully aware that at any moment, her head could be on the chopping block. Despite her character’s actions and inactions, Dinh elicits both empathy and sympathy from the audience, especially as we see more of her interactions with Daughter.
Finally, there’s Father, played by Casper Van Dien. From the start, Father is a clear-cut antagonist. As a serial abductor and killer, there can be no other label ascribed to him. But this character is particularly frightening because he’s not a weapon-wielding, basement-dungeon archetype; he’s a malignantly narcissistic abuser who commits violent acts but asserts control over his “family” more through the threat of violence. He’s megalomaniacal to the point that he constructs a vivid and false reality for the child in his care, but doesn’t seem to have an endgame for him, or for Mother and Daughter. Van Dien is terrifying in this role. He delivers almost all of his dialogue in a calm and rational-sounding way, even when what he’s saying is either an outright lie or a laughably nonsensical fantasy. We don’t laugh, though. Van Dien’s portrayal of Father is far from a cartoonish villain. It’s more akin to a case study of psychopathic cult leaders.
In addition to the script and the cast, the cinematography is noteworthy. The film was shot in such a way that the picture itself was softer (like analog film), giving it a vintage look. Beyond aesthetics, this seemed like a deliberate choice to disorient the audience: we don’t know what year this film is supposed to take place in. There are some clues, but they’re few and far between. It underscores that the house the “family” is living in is isolated not just in geography, but in terms of its social proximity to other people, or rather, lack thereof. The “family” exists within a carefully constructed timeline, or even universe, that is separate from the outside world.
With the plethora of true crime stories about abduction, brainwashing, and victims becoming accomplices, DAUGHTER feels like more than a horror film. It’s horrifying, for sure, but it also almost feels like a training guide for possible ways to escape captivity. It’s a film that would resonate with true crime aficionados, as well as fans of films like Martha, Marcy, May, Marlene, and Room.
DAUGHTER played at the 2022 Brooklyn Horror Film Festival.
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