Stream It Or Skip It: ‘The Girl Locked Upstairs: The Tanya Kach Story’ on Lifetime, a Solid Interpretation of an Unsettling True Crime Story

Executive produced by kidnapping survivor Elizabeth Smart, this biographical crime drama is based on the shocking true story of Tanya Kach. Lifetime’s The Girl Locked Upstairs: The Tanya Kach Story depicts how the vulnerable titular teen was preyed upon and then held captive by a much older man, and how she survived a decade of captivity, brainwashing, and abuse.

THE GIRL LOCKED UPSTAIRS: THE TANYA KACH STORY: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: The Girl Locked Upstairs: The Tanya Kach Story revolves 14-year-old Tanya Kach (Jordyn Ashley Olson) and the warped, abusive relationship she develops with her school’s 30+ year-old security guard Tom Hose (Robert Baker). Living with disconnected foster parents and unable to even get in touch with her birth mom (Jessie Fraser), Tanya arrives at her new school desperate for support and connection. But when her attempts to make friends or take refuge from her isolating home life are constantly rebuffed, Tom is the only person left for Tanya to turn to for companionship and stability.

Promising her safety and love, Tom grooms Tanya into coming to him at her lowest, luring her to his home (where he still lives with his parents) and convincing her to stay locked in his room whenever he’s not there, for her own good. He tells her to stop going to school and holds her captive in his home, threatening to take both her life and his own if she dares to leave him. Tom further manipulates Tanya by convincing her that everyone, including her mom, has given up looking for her and moved on, and that he is the only person in the world who cares about her.

Over the 10 years of her captivity, Tom routinely sexually abuses Tanya while also infantilizing and talking down to her. He attempts to hide her from his parents downstairs until she is of age, which means keeping her in his room and sometimes his small closet in order to avoid detection, forcing her to wait until he’s around and willing to help for her to use the toilet or bathe. As the years go by and Tanya gains brief moments of access to the outside world, she interacts with kind locals like shop owner Tony (Dalias Blake) and his wife Ange (Shiraine Haas), who help her see that there is good, community, and joy in the world outside of Tom’s grasp.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: It’s reminiscent of other Lifetime crime dramas based on real-life kidnapping and abuse stories like Cleveland Abduction and Abducted: The Mary Stauffer Story.

Performance Worth Watching: Jordyn Ashley Olson is given some really unsettling and sensitive material to work with, and she manages to really succeed in playing Tanya. Olson imbues the role with a layered and believable vulnerability that gets you invested in Tanya’s story and rooting for her ultimate happiness.

Memorable Dialogue: Early on, when Tanya opens up to Tom about her troubled home life and past sexual abuse, she says “I just want someone to care.” It just sums up her whole headspace for the duration of the film in a heartbreaking way, as Tom continues to keep her under his thumb by using Tanya’s own loneliness, innocence, and wish for human connection against her.

Sex and Skin: There are several moments of implied intercourse, beginning with Tom mentioning taking Tanya’s virginity and then later getting multiple moments where the bed is creaking before we see Tom leaving the bed. In every scenario, everyone’s clothes stay on and you don’t see anything really graphic beyond kissing, although the suggestion of sexual activity and abuse with a minor is still pretty unsettling even without any overt sex and skin.

Our Take: Even with Lifetime steering clear of depicting intense violence, explicit sexual content, or excessively strong language, The Girl Locked Upstairs: The Tanya Kach Story is still a pretty unsettling movie. That’s partly because you know a lot of this happened in some form in real life, but also because the implication of what went down is sometimes even scarier than just showing it as we’re all left to our own imaginations about the horrors a man like Tom might be capable of.

Tom is inherently unlikable and awful, which the movie does a great job of conveying from the get-go, but even knowing that, his moments of grooming, affection, and violence can be hard to watch. Even so, Robert Baker does fairly well committing to the role in all its evils, while Jordyn Ashley Olson definitely stands out portraying the nuanced struggles and yearnings of Tanya.

My one big gripe with the movie was perhaps the pacing, which felt uneven as Tanya was rushed through starting a new school, being picked on and even physically accosted by classmates, and getting kissed by To all within the first 10 minutes. However, once everything is set up, we settle into the monotonous and repetitive (so much so that some shots seem to be recycled at times but it seems to be intentional) life of Tanya’s captivity over the next 10 years. Overall, The Girl Locked Upstairs: The Tanya Kach Story is a compelling watch with an uplifting ending that celebrates survivors of abuse and the good samaritans that help them succeed and smile again.

Our Call: STREAM IT! While the dark and upsetting nature of this movie means that it’s not for everyone, The Girl Locked Upstairs: The Tanya Kach Story is ultimately a solid drama that reminds us that abuse can look like many things, and that survivors’ stories need to be told.

Stream The Girl Locked Upstairs: The Tanya Kach Story on Lifetime