FAMILY VANISHED: DTMWaGL #7
FAMILY VANISHED: DTMWaGL #7
Hello friends! Oh boy. Oh gosh. This one is a doozy. This is a Lifetime movie with two things on its mind: class warfare, and an uncontrollable horniness that just absolutely vibrates off the screen. (Content warnings for violence and threats of sexual assault, and lots of guns.
If this looks good to you, you deserve to be robbed.
It’s a beautiful day in suburban California, and you are a horrible home invader. Well, you are three of them, waking up in a giant ugly gated house. Two people named Mike and Carol wake up wearing black latex gloves, and then they smooch and put new gloves on. Just like how I wake up! Mike goes down the hall to wake up Marcia, Carol’s teen (?) daughter, who tells him to piss off and then changes her own gloves. She takes a moment to knock over one of the many trophies on the shelf and then goes downstairs to update pretend-Facebook with a message that she just loves Hawaii so much, she’s staying another week. Uh buh whaa? She’s not in Hawaii at all! Oh there’s some doings a-transpiring!
A mom, dad, and teen daughter are driven home from the airport, after a trip to deliver a painting that the mom’s gallery sold to a client in Hawaii. Their personalities are established as follows: Lisa the mom is nice, Brian the dad has asthma, April the daughter hates her parents. I hope you enjoyed this character development of the Styles family, because it’s pretty much all we get.
When they arrive home, they notice the alarm on their awful house is not set, and then they notice that there are people in their house and one of them is aiming a gun at them. “Who are you people?” asks Brian. “Who are you?” asks Mike. This is the height of rudeness. Imagine! Also, he totally knows who they are, because he’s like, “hey Brian what’s up,” and Brian says, “how do you know my name!” even though they are in your house, Brian, oh my god. Brian tells them to take whatever they want, but the invaders tell them that they know they’re broke, because they found all their passwords written in a notebook. Is this a thing people do? Are April’s passwords in there too? Does she have a, what do the kids call it, a finsta? Has Marcia seen April’s finsta? The next question is, why are they wearing the Styleses’ clothes? Carol will field that one, it’s because their rich people lives are hollow and all the crap they have in their house is ugly and worthless. Okay. That’s not, that’s not wrong, but it does not answer the question. Marcia hops in to tell April that her trophies are stupid, and that everyone at school probably hates her for being stuck up. I’m not sure April has said a single word since they got back? Mike hasn’t said anything in a while, so he says some gross stuff to Lisa about how she’s hotter than he expected. Still not sure where my sympathies lie, maybe with Marcia??
The doorbell rings! It’s the neighbor who picked up the mail while they were in Hawaii! Brian answers the door while Mike pokes a knife in his back. Ha ha oh hi Peter, everything is fine here, I’m not being threatened and emasculated at all! When Peter leaves, Brian again tells the invaders to leave, and then April makes a break for it! Unfortunately, April doesn’t know how her own yard works and she ends up backed up to a wrought iron fence, and Marcia drags her back in by her hair, and the whole sequence is truly very horny. Carol tells Mike to tie the speedster up, and he says, “it’ll be my pleasure” (gross) and then calls her “Bruce Jenner” (fuck OFF, Mike, GOD).
I mean. I mean,,,,, I mean. It’s. I mean. This, is a choice.
Okay so we’ve hit the horniness, back to the class warfare. When Carol shows Lisa a news story about the painting she sold (???), Brian mutters that he’s surprised she can read, and is rewarded with a slap to the back of the head. Then he whines to his wife about how it’s her fault this is happening, because it was in the news, and the scum of the earth is waiting to take advantage of people like them. Okay, well, you’re broke, so. Mike asks Carol if they’ll be this miserable when they’re rich. They’re broke!!!! This has been established. Anyway, Carol wants the money the painting sold for. Lisa tries to explain that that isn’t how it works, the money belongs to the gallery, not to Lisa, she just gets a commission. Carol bullies her into calling the bank to withdraw the money from the gallery account in cash, and the banker is like, “????? It’s??? $675,000??? I guess we can give you half of it before the hold on the check is released but we do not have that much cash??????” so this is considered a success. Lisa’s pulling her weight here, Brian, what are you doing?
While Mike goes into the kitchen to complain that there’s no food in this house, which they broke into and whose owners have been in Hawaii for a week, Brian and Lisa whisper about fighting back in some vague and nebulous way. They think out loud that their coworkers and friends will notice that they’re not there tomorrow, but that’s why Marcia updated their social media for them and also texted all their coworkers. They’re still in Hawaii, as far as anyone knows! Except their neighbor Peter! Anyway, then we do some more class warfare, where Mike snottily asks Brian if he doesn’t want him in his house because he thinks he’s better than him. There are lots of reasons to not want Mike in your house but yes actually Brian does think he’s better than him, because people like him think the system is RIGGED, so they can just TAKE WHATEVER, and also they’re probably DRUG ADDICTS. Carol is very offended by the suggestion that she does drugs or is in any way morally inferior to this jerk whose house she broke into and repeatedly waved a gun at. Listen: you’re all terrible. None of us is free from sin. Anyway then Mike dumps a glass of water on Brian’s head and tells him to open the safe he saw in their gigantic walk-in closet. California was in a drought in 2018, Mike.
On the way upstairs to open the biometric safe, Brian starts to have an asthma attack, because the two facts about him are that he’s secretly broke, and that he has asthma. But whoopsy doodle, when Mike leans in to see what the wheezy deal is, Brian kicks him and gets away long enough to start to call 911. That doesn’t work, and Mike troops Brian up to the extremely hot attic, where he can think about what he’s done. Even though he has asthma! Brian: he has asthma. Back downstairs, the bank manager calls to tell Lisa they got the cash ordered, and she can stop by to pick it up tomorrow, and also we take a rocketship back to the horny planet, so that Marcia can make herself some food, pretend to feed it to April and then make April lick the empty plate.
Like, the people making this had to know it was horny? Right??????
It’s Lisa’s turn to unlock the closet safe now, and Mike cuts her bindings off her wrists so she can reach the fingerprint reader. Ope, what’s this in the safe, it’s a handgun! Lisa points the gun at Mike, but obviously Mike is bigger than Lisa and also less of a pampered coward, so he immediately grabs the gun away from her and knocks her onto the floor. He then uses his big ol hunting knife to push her dress up (ew no) and tells her that if she screams, he’ll cut her throat (NO), but this assault is interrupted by Carol, who tells Mike to get off her and shoos him out of the closet. Carol: she doesn’t do drugs and she doesn’t condone rape. Carol is the moral compass of this movie, maybe? Is that where my sympathies lie?
Mike and Marcia rummage around the house for things they plan to steal, and Mike yells at Marcia for grabbing a tribal mask, because that’s not something they can sell. Marcia says she likes the mask, and that her mom doesn’t care what she takes. For a second, I think that this is going to be one of those things where she puts the mask on and becomes a different person, but that’s not what this movie is. Anyway, Carol brings Lisa back downstairs and tells Mike to tie her back up. She also takes Mike aside and tells him not to screw this up, and he says that he was just trying to break Lisa’s spirit. Like you do to horses! Carol decides this is fine, and they kiss, and it’s gross. There is no moral compass to this movie, maybe? Lisa breaks up the smooching by pleading with them to bring Brian his inhaler, or at least some water. Mike agrees to check on him, and Carol and Marcia take the opportunity to bully Lisa for fun. Carol takes her wedding and engagement rings off her finger and brandishes them at Marcia, saying, “this is how rich people show their love!” “What a waste of money,” sneers Marcia. Just like, assume that all her dialogue is sneered. Lisa sasses back that Carol will never have the love of a man she can trust, and Carol tells her that it’s too bad that she could have had everything, but her lousy asthmatic husband wasted it all, and really it’s a good thing we broke into your house and terrorized you, it’s a wakeup call for you. You know? Maybe she’s onto something? Send roving troupes of marauders into McMansion subdivisions, as a pilot program, see how it goes?
In the attic, Mike unties Brian and aims the gun from the safe at him, saying that he figured him for a second amendment type. I didn’t, but what do I know about guns. He brings Brian downstairs and Marcia says he looks thirsty, like a thirsty dog (???), and they decide to make Brian bark like a dog before they let him drink water, and then they make him drink water out of a bowl. This movie! Is so horny! But it needs to have a talk about boundaries and safe words! The whole ordeal leaves him wheezing and he is finally allowed to use his inhaler (Brian has asthma).
It’s nighttime! The have-nots order the haves to go upstairs, but Lisa makes an escape attempt before they can get to bed. Carol drags her upstairs and announces, “Lisa’s been a bad little girl so there have to be some consequences!” I hope it’s nothing off Lisa’s no list. God, this movie. Anyway, they’re making Brian strip in a bathtub for some reason? His body is very realistically doughy, and Mike makes fun of him for having a normal person’s torso, then holds his head under the water for a few seconds, and I’m unclear why, but I’m pretty sure someone is getting off on it.
Then they all gather in the master bedroom so that Carol can read a bedtime story to them, and guess what: it’s Lisa’s diary, because if there’s one thing grown women do, it’s keep written diaries! We’ve all seen Gone Girl. But Lisa has a secret in her diary! Her secret is that one time she slept with their neighbor Peter, the guy who picked up the mail. Brian definitely did not know about this, whoopsy. This is a lesson about how no one should trust anyone, and there are no happy endings, now let’s get you tied up for bed!
Marcia hogties April on her bedroom floor (not safe!!!!), and Lisa and Brian are tied up and left on the floor of the walk-in closet. Lisa tells Brian that the Peter thing happened one time, and it was the worst mistake of her life. Also, at the time, they were fighting a lot and Brian had told her he wanted a divorce. So. They’re sad together but Brian is still committed to saving his family somehow.
Good morning! Carol attaches a little camera and earpiece to Lisa to send her to the bank. On the way there, they have a little chat about how Mike will murder Brian and April if Lisa asks for help at the bank and Lisa is like, “oh my god I KNOW you have told me this SEVERAL times, I GET IT.” Day 2 of being held hostage is not going great for her so far. Lisa meets with the bank manager to get her stacks and stacks of cash, and when he leaves the room to get a receipt Mike and Carol get antsy. “If you’re not outside in five minutes your family dies!” Carol barks into Lisa’s ear, like, chill OUT Carol, this is relatively little work to do to obtain over $300,000, maybe kick back, have a breakfast burrito or something. Lisa sneakily grabs a letter opener from the pen cup on the desk, and then she sees a cop car pull up to the bank. Carol flips her shit and tells Mike to shoot Brian and April, and Lisa sweatily asks the banker if he called the cops. Sure he did, to help her! Would she like an escort home, with her hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash? No, she would not, thanks, ha ha, let’s go, I’m not being forced to do this, it’s fine, have a nice day!! Carol revokes her earlier kill order, but like: unnecessarily short-tempered there, Carol.
When Carol and Lisa get home with the cash, Peter the neighborfucker notices them pull in and stares at the car for a strikingly long time, and then calls the house. They decide to ignore the phone call in favor of carrying out the next part of the plan: putting the Styleses, blindfolded, in a van, driving them around, and dropping them off somewhere, to give their captors a head start I guess. Peter sees an unfamiliar Sprinter van pull out of their driveway and decides to follow them. I don’t know, maybe he just, always does this?
“Heyyyy just calling to check on you, make sure you’re not being held hostage, ha ha”
They end up in a scrubby desert somewhere, and Mike and Carol order the three captives out of the van, leaving Marcia to keep a lookout. They’re going to take a little walk, and Mike has a shovel, and I’m sure it’s fine. After wandering around for a while, Carol tells the three of them to get on their knees, and Mike starts digging a hole. Again, I’m sure it’s fine! Lisa decides that this is the moment to tell Brian that this is all his fault, and he reminds her that she’s the one who cheated on him, okay. Oh but it turns out she was just trying to distract Mike and Carol from her efforts to use the letter opener to get out of her ties, and there’s a flurry of activity when Marcia notices that Peter has pulled up behind her and starts honking the van’s horn, Mike takes off after Peter, and Lisa springs up, grabs the shovel, and whangs Carol in the head with it. Mike chases Peter down and shoots him dead, while the unbound Styleses run through the scrub. It takes them like twenty seconds to hit a road, and they immediately flag down a car whose driver agrees to drive them into town. I’m sure Mike’s plan was great though.
They meet with a couple cops, who tell them that they found Peter’s body, and also that they can’t go home just yet because their house is a crime scene. They are also kind of jerks about the stolen gun thing, and also they’re jerks because they’re cops.
When Brian, Lisa, and April are finally allowed to go home, they stand in the doorway while April says she doesn’t feel safe here anymore. If you think like that, the terrorists win! says Brian. Great dadding here. April goes up to her room to have some feelings, and Brian bitches about how the cops ransacked their house as badly as the robbers did (and they don’t have to compensate you for this either, ACAB). Brian and Lisa console each other because the death of their neighbor has really brought them closer together.
Cop time! They just think it’s really interesting that Brian was about to declare bankruptcy because they are $500k in debt (!!!!), and Lisa’s commission of $100k wasn’t going to fix that, and it seems possible that the home invasion story was a cover to get the money, which would mostly get them out of debt. Seems like declaring bankruptcy would be easier than this?
This part of the movie was boring to look at, so here’s Shankly helping me take pictures of my television
Brian and Lisa are at home, and April heads out to a friend’s house and tells her parents that she loves them. The home invasion was really good for her! Lisa notices that someone has just logged onto her pretend-Facebook page, and wonders if it’s the robbers checking on them. Ope, hold that thought, the cops are here to ask some questions! Specifically they would like to know why they didn’t mention “the affair” between Peter and Lisa, because they have read the diary. Lisa says she doesn’t see how that’s relevant and the cops are like, boy I dunno, this guy cucked your husband and then was killed with his gun? Brian and Lisa tell them to get out, they’ll bring their lawyer to the station tomorrow. When they’re alone again, Brian declares that they have to make this right themselves, since obviously they can’t count on the broken justice system, and do you understand what he means when says “make this right”? Do you? Lisa??? Do you?????? She does. They look up the town that their pretend-Facebook was just accessed from, and they have a cafe that serves apple pie, and Brian remembers that at one point Marcia complained about eating apple pie on the road, and based on this incredibly thin gruel they head to this town an hour away.
At the cafe, they ask a waitress if she recognizes the home invaders’ sketches in the newspaper, and the waitress says no, with the “you weirdos” implied. But! Almost immediately, they see a person who is definitely Marcia in a wig and April’s shirt picking up a takeout order. They get in their Volvo, follow her to a cute little house, and then pull baseball bats out of the trunk to sneak around the premises. Marcia drops the food off and then snottily tells Mike and Carol, “I’ll be out by the tree.” She just wants to hang out with the tree, listening to music and failing to notice Lisa and Brian sneaking around. Mike and Carol think they hear a noise, and Mike pokes around while Carol goes outside. Mike is wearing camo pants tucked into boots and he looks like a real doofus. He looks like even more of a doofus when Lisa and Brian spring onto him and beat the shit out of him with their bats.
It just really tickles me that Marcia is tooling around on a cruiser bike
Oh also April came home, found her parents AWOL, saw the cafe’s website on the laptop, and decided to also go there. This is a family of decisive whimsy.
When Carol goes back inside, she sees Lisa tying up an unconscious Brian and attacks her, but Brian’s here too and he’s got two guns. “What are you going to do, kill us?” asks Carol. “Grab your precious stuff and get out.” Brian says it isn’t about that, and orders her onto her knees. This sounds like it’s horny but it isn’t. Lisa grabs her ring off Carol’s finger while screaming at her that she’s a white trash bitch and hitting her in the hands with a bat. Brian laughs and laughs. It’s honestly fucked up in a way you don’t usually get out of a Lifetime movie.
Marcia comes into the scene long enough for April, who’s here now, to hit her with a baseball bat. This whole thing brought the family together! Mike wakes up as April ties Marcia up, and he asks Brian if he has any aspirin. His face is all bloody and gross, because he has been beaten with a bat. Brian, who has been sliding further and further into a southern accent in what I can’t help reading as a classist trope, tells him to bark for it. The barking thing again! Still horny, especially because as he’s barking he’s telling Lisa that it’s a shame they never got to “make it.” Brian eventually tires of having his wife and daughter threatened, and pistol-whips Mike. Lisa hits Carol again for good measure, and the three Styleses gather their baseball bats and head out. A good day’s work!
Some indeterminate amount of time later, the whole family is back at the police department, and the cops are telling them their positive ID will allow them to press murder and kidnapping and etc charges against the robbers, who are actually named RYKER, ALEXIA, AND ZORA OH MY GOD. Turns out an anonymous tip led them to where they were hiding, the cops had already been there but thought it was just a regular normal drug thing, whoopsy doodle! Also, weird thing, but the robbers said that actually they held us hostage and beat us up. Ha ha, how silly! We could never, we are rich! Or, we are hugely in debt, but in a rich person way!
Ha ha ha our violent crimes will be excused because we live in a big house!
The Styleses go home, and April says that things will never be the same, and Brian says no, they’ll be better, and then, uh, the end? They’re still half a million dollars in debt, and their house is still awful, but yeah. Also? What family vanished? No family vanished? “Family Vanished” isn’t even recognizable as a phrase in English? This movie is a lie! I have spent almost four thousand words lying to you! I’m sorry, goodbye!