Featured Image Credit: Lifetime
Topics: True crime, Crime, Film and TV
Britt Jones
Warning: This article contains discussion of child and sexual abuse which some readers may find distressing.
Viewers have been left sick to their stomachs after watching a film which depicts some of the worst things a parent can do.
True crime armchair detectives might even find this case too much as it details the shocking reality a teenage girl had to endure for decades at the hands of her sadistic father.
Set in Austria, the 2021 film is inspired by one of the most high-profile cases the country has ever seen.
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Directed by Elisabeth Röhm, it stars Judd Nelson, Stefanie Scott, and Emma Myers, among many others.
The plot focuses on Sarah (Scott) who 'is a teen girl who is looking forward to her 18th birthday to move away from her controlling father Don (Nelson). But before she could even blow out the candles, Don imprisons her in the basement of their home'.
One viewer took to the Netflix Bangers Facebook group to say: “This is a Lifetime movie based closely on true events. It's honestly horrifying.”
The themes that are shown include abuse, violence, sexual violence and incest, making it a very difficult watch.
The worst part is that it doesn’t include the full scope of the abuse that the poor girl had to suffer or the aftermath which she will have to live with forever.
One viewer wrote: “Tried to watch this the other day made me sick.”
Another added: “I am still traumatized by this movie.”
Girl in the Basement is closely based on the real-life case of Josef Fritzl, who imprisoned his 19-year-old daughter, Elisabeth, in August 1984.
The father initially asked her to help him to install a door in their basement, after spending months creating a dungeon underneath their home.
According to The Guardian, Fritzl received planning permission and partial funding from the government to carry out his plans as it was during a time of civil unrest, where a bomb shelter would be seen as a necessity to each family.
However, what he was creating was an area where he would imprison his daughter for 24 years.
On that August day, his daughter - who had threatened to run away from home multiple times - was helping him put the last of eight doors in place, which was reinforced with concrete.
Once she was finished, she turned to leave, only to have a cloth placed over her face and her world went dark.
Fritzl's wife, Rosemarie, filed a missing person's report when she realized their daughter had disappeared, but he convinced the police and his wife that Elisabeth had left a note claiming to be staying with friends, and did not want to be found.
During her time in the windowless, soundproof cellar, Elisabeth birthed seven children through incest - three of which went to live upstairs with Fritzl, three who stayed in the basement and one who died shortly after being born.
The case came to light in 2008 after a medical emergency involving one of the children, who were teenagers at the time, meant they had to be taken to hospital.
Fritzl was later apprehended and received a life sentence after pleading guilty to his crimes in 2009.
However, he could be released soon.
Elisabeth and her children were taken into the care of Austrian social services following Fritzl’s arrest and now live under new aliases.
If you’ve been affected by any of these issues or want to speak to someone in confidence regarding the welfare of a child, the Childhelp USA National Child Abuse Hotline (1-800-4-A-CHILD (1-800-422-4453) operates 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and receives calls from throughout the United States, Canada, US Virgin Islands, Guam and Puerto Rico.
If you've been affected by any of the issues in this article, you can contact The National Sexual Assault Hotline on 800.656.HOPE (4673), available 24/7. Or you can chat online via online.rainn.org.