I'm sure Catherine Oxenberg's real life experience of trying to free her daughter from a horrific sex cult was a dramatic, emotionally harrowing experience. You will find none of that experience here. The film lacks any urgency or sense of terror. It offers practically no insight into just how horrific this cult was supposed to be. The documentary that followed the film offered more insight in just an hour! The film also did not effectively convey timeframe. In real life Catherine Oxenberg herself was in the cult for 2 years and then her daughter was in it for 6. The movie made it seem as if it all happened in a year or so. There was a lot of talking about what was happening but the movie never really showed anything and didn't delve deeply into the subject matter. As a result, the whole movie just seems superficial and doesn't make the viewer have a clear or deep understanding of the leaders motivations and why and how the women were so completely won over by the cult and so devoted to it.
As for the acting...well! Andrea Roth looks and sounds NOTHING like Catherine Oxenberg! I thought she had an Australian accent at some points and she seemed to have some kind of filler Botox situation going on, because her expression NEVER changed throughout the movie! I guess this type of movie is already difficult to make believable because of the famous real life people involved such as Catherine Oxenberg and her husband Casper Van Dien. But, seeing unconvincing actors portray them makes for a jarring, weird experience. I kept wishing Catherine Oxenberg, an actress in her own right, would have portrayed herself. I guess that was something she didn't feel like reliving, but nothing really dramatic or traumatic actually happens onscreen anyway. Joan and Melissa Rivers, Patty Duke, and a few others have played themselves in movies about traumatic things that happened in there life.
In the end, this movie was not dramatic enough to be captivating, and not campy and lurid enough to be the so bad its good Lifetime movie you want. Skip the movie and watch the documentary instead.
