When Derek (Michael Thomson) and Stacey (Allira Jaques) had Georgia
(Billi Baker), they were so in love - but now Georgia is six, and that
love is long gone, the two have long separated and fight over everything,
but for Georgia they at least make an effort to remain civil - and then
one day Georgia has vanished, has been abducted through the broken window
in her bedroom Derek has implored Stacey to have fixed, has even offered
to fix himself, but she had one of her stubborn days, so ... Georgia is
found only a few days later ... brutally murdered by a person or persons
unknown. This is something that shatters everybody of course, but noone as
much as Derek, who in his desperation to come to terms with what has
happened even lashes out at Stacey at Georgia's funeral and the like. He
gets so unhinged that he claims Georgia's spirit visits him daily ... It's
6 months later, and Derek's mood hasn't improved one bit, and the fact
that the police don't seem to make any progress on the case is certainly
no help, either. Then though, when he visits his brother Tommy (Christian
Radford), he rather accidently gets hold of his journal, which chronicle
some very nasty details about a few recent rapes and murders, including
... Having read Tommy's journal gives Derek some new motivation, and
suddenly he researches facts on inflicting unbearable pain without killing
and the like, then invites Tommy over for a (drugged) drink, and ... Up
front, this is not a perfect movie, it spends too much time setting up its
story without anything much really happening, portrays a typical
separation without adding much new to it, and fails to create an
atmosphere of menace early on - but it does make more than up to it when
it follows Derek down to his basement and to his victim, where beneath all
the torture inflicted, it also turns the question of assailant and victim
topsy-turvy, as Derek, who has every right to hate his victim, seems to
enjoy torturning him for the sake of inflicting pain quite a bit too much,
while the victim might be the greatest asshole of them all (and there's no
question about his guilt), but does even he deserve that treatment.
Furthermore the film shows real wit in these scenes, that are humourous
and totally horrible at the same time (so of course, you do need a strong
stomach). So yeah, Daddy's Little Girl might not be a perfect
movie, but it's a delightfully disquieting piece of genre cinema all the
same. Recommended.
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