Online Abduction

aka Cyber Case

2015
Written by Caron Tschampion
Directed by Steven R. Monroe

Just when you thought it was safe to go online, Lifetime is back again for the umpteenth time to remind you that THE INTERNET WILL KILL YOU!!!! Or at least abduct your small children, as the unfortunate Fletcher family experiences thanks to their not removing their location tracking features on the social media they continuously update like a Skinner rat pushing buttons for food. Online Abduction starts out looking like teenage Isabel Fletcher is going to be the one who gets abducted, but it turns out to be her 3 year old half-brother, Tommy. Things go all Gone Girl with a serious investigation that begins to escalate as it looks less like Tommy just wandered off and more like he was snatched. But Isabel has an idea, to use the power of lax privacy settings on social media as a weapon instead of a vulnerability, and track down the abductors. Will Tommy be saved?

Online Abduction features one of my favorite thing of Lifetime movies, fake social media sites! We got fake Instagram called InstaQuik, and a warped version of Facebook called FaceChatter. Also something called Twitter. Sadly, none of the fake Twitter accounts used that I checked are actual Twitter accounts.

Isabel Fletcher (Brooke Butler) spends all her time online, despite sarcastic comments from her real estate agent mom, Jackie (Natalia Livingston), who also spends a lot of time online. Jackie recently had a son with her new husband, Matt (David Chokachi), who Isabel seems to resent now that he has his own kid to raise (despite her taking his name?) Isabel ditches them to go out and party and get drunk and meet boys like every 16 year old, bonding with skater kid Jeremy (Matthew Ziff).