"My Daughter Was Stolen" featured a carefully crafted screenplay with inventive twists and turns. The superficial appearance of the happy family of Jeff and Alisha Barnes is undercut when we learn that Jeff was a philanderer. He missed his five-year-old daughter's birthday party because he had a tryst planned with his psychiatrist friend. Miraculously, the evil Kayla finds a most improbable way to escape from the fire and return to torment Alisha. The hopelessly inept police are incapable of making a simple arrest.
One of the most interesting characters in the film is the feisty teenage daughter Jesse. The resourceful youngster discovers the truth about how she was kidnapped by Kayla, impersonating Mr. Moptop. Subsequently, she stands up to her nasty step-sister Jude, who had tried to frame her for stealing jewelry. Presumably suffering from her traumatic experience, Jesse always finds a way to lend a helping hand in bringing Kayla to justice.
As the villain of the piece, Kayla was a genuine piece of work. The aspiring actress flubbed an audition for a tv commercial, then blamed Alisha for all of her woes. She also had a hair-trigger temper, which led her to kill her husband Mickey and his paramour, then keeping their decomposing bodies as mementos. Another casualty of Kayla's wrath was Lucas Powers, the unsuspecting actor who played Mr. Moptop at little Jesse's birthday party. Lucas was more collateral damage due to the evil Kayla.
The filmmakers walked a delicate tightrope in maintaining suspense in the genre of a thriller, while interlarding a sly element of satire. In the end, many of the scenes worked with the insertion of a touch of dark humor. At the same time, the genuine love of a mother for her daughter resonated throughout the film, even in the deepest, darkest moments of despair for the resilient Alisha Barnes.
One of the most interesting characters in the film is the feisty teenage daughter Jesse. The resourceful youngster discovers the truth about how she was kidnapped by Kayla, impersonating Mr. Moptop. Subsequently, she stands up to her nasty step-sister Jude, who had tried to frame her for stealing jewelry. Presumably suffering from her traumatic experience, Jesse always finds a way to lend a helping hand in bringing Kayla to justice.
As the villain of the piece, Kayla was a genuine piece of work. The aspiring actress flubbed an audition for a tv commercial, then blamed Alisha for all of her woes. She also had a hair-trigger temper, which led her to kill her husband Mickey and his paramour, then keeping their decomposing bodies as mementos. Another casualty of Kayla's wrath was Lucas Powers, the unsuspecting actor who played Mr. Moptop at little Jesse's birthday party. Lucas was more collateral damage due to the evil Kayla.
The filmmakers walked a delicate tightrope in maintaining suspense in the genre of a thriller, while interlarding a sly element of satire. In the end, many of the scenes worked with the insertion of a touch of dark humor. At the same time, the genuine love of a mother for her daughter resonated throughout the film, even in the deepest, darkest moments of despair for the resilient Alisha Barnes.