Vanished in Yosemite is a 2023 Lifetime Movie of the Week Thriller film, directed by Doug Campbell and written by Campbell and Andrea Shawcross.
Los Angeles physician's assistant Jennifer (Skye Coyne) and her younger sister Katrina (Kelcie Stranahan) have gone to Yosemite National Park for a getaway. They meet Rick (Rob LaColla), a handsome photographer who Katrina immediately falls for. When Katrina disappears while on a hike with Rick, Jennifer panics, and enlists her ex Wally (Jason Tobias) to help her look for her sister. Meanwhile, Rick has taken Katrina to a remote cabin and tied her to a bed, apparently planning to use her for "fun" with a mysterious "buddy" who's slated to join him. When a video Jennifer sends out about her search goes viral, the stakes get much higher for everyone involved.
Note: This film contains a major third-act Plot Twist that necessitates a lot of the entries below having Spoiler tags.
Vanished in Yosemite contains examples of:
- Belligerent Sexual Tension: Jennifer and Wally spend most of the movie bickering Like an Old Married Couple, which Wally, who ultimately wants to get back with her, actually seems to enjoy.
- Bound and Gagged: At first Rick just ties Katrina to the bed, but after her escape attempt he adds a gag as well.
- Brainless Beauty: Katrina's most obvious trait, especially when she makes two boneheaded decisions that steer her more toward danger—leaving her water bottle with Rick, which allows him to drug it, then stopping her running while she tries to escape, even when the guy helping tells her to keep going.
- Control Freak: Katrina calls Jennifer this, but adds "in a good way".
- 11th-Hour Ranger: Melissa (played by Mackenzie Possage), a waitress at the lodge who calls Jennifer and offers her information about Rick and help in her search for Katrina. She's actually Rick's sister and his "buddy" for Hunting the Most Dangerous Game, and it's a Batman Gambit to capture Jennifer.
- Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Rick is clearly devastated when he accidentally shoots Melissa with an arrow, tearfully rushing to her aid.
- Foolish Sibling, Responsible Sibling: Katrina is the flirty, man-crazy, laid-back, but also judgment-impaired sister, while Jennifer is the more serious one, organized to the point that she has their Yosemite scheduled planned out to the exact minute. Exemplified when they go paddling in the opening scene and Jennifer has to remind Katrina to put on a life jacket.
- Halfway Plot Switch: Most of the movie is a typical Lifetime "woman in peril" Thriller, but the final half-hour suddenly shifts to a story about Hunting the Most Dangerous Game.
- Hunting the Most Dangerous Game: The opening credits sequence has a woman waking up in a Yosemite meadow, who's terrified to find herself being chased by two mysterious figures with crossbows and arrows. This comes off as some sort of Nightmare Sequence or Fantasy Sequence before the movie cuts to the much less intense introductory scenes with Jennifer and Katrina. But it's actually a Chekhov's Gun situation. Rick and his sister Melissa are avid hunters, who started hunting humans after they got bored with animals, and Rick kidnapped Katrina to be their next victim, before they decided to bring in Jennifer as well. The movie's climax has Jennifer and Katrina in the same meadow as Rick and Melissa pursue them; presumably the woman in the credits scene was one of their earlier victims.
- Incest Subtext: Rick and Melissa, as a brother and sister who engage in secret, horrific shenanigans together, are extremely close. The affection they have for one another makes it a Rewatch Bonus when they talk about one another to the sisters after you know they're siblings—Rick calling Melissa his "buddy", while Melissa tells Jennifer that Rick is "really good-looking".
- Laser-Guided Karma: Melissa, who remorselessly hunts "human animals", is killed by an arrow shot by her brother and partner Rick.
- Light Feminine and Dark Feminine: Blonde Katrina is the lighter and more friendly of the sisters, while dark-haired Jennifer is much more serious, though perhaps not exactly "dark". Meanwhile, Melissa has dark hair and, as someone who hunts humans for sport, is about as Dark Feminine as you could get.
- Ms. Fanservice: Katrina, who wears a red cocktail dress to dinner at a National Park lodge, and a bare midriff outfit to go hiking with Rick.
- Noble Male, Roguish Male: Wally (Noble) drops everything to help his ex-girlfriend Jennifer find her sister, despite the bitterness of their breakup. Rick (Roguish) lies about himself and manipulates Katrina into his clutches purely to use her for his own desires.
- No Good Deed Goes Unpunished:
- Jennifer's viral video begging for help in finding Katrina ultimately leads to her getting kicked out of the hotel at Yosemite, because various bigwigs associated with the park and the tourism business are afraid of that the bad publicity will cost the park visitors.
- The birdwatcher who helps Katrina escape gets murdered by Rick.
- Nothing Personal: Asked by Jennifer why Melissa and Rick decided to abduct her and Katrina to use as prey in a hunting exercise, Melissa tells her they just happened to be "in the wrong place at the wrong time".
- Police Are Useless: The cops place a low priority on finding Katrina, reminding Jennifer of how large the park is and how difficult it would be to mount a search.
- Psycho Lesbian: Melissa cheerfully admits that she chooses her female victims based on how attractive she finds them, even kissing Jennifer and calling her "pretty".
- Really Gets Around: By her own admission, Katrina has a "healthy sex life", and has a history of hookups with questionable men during vacations.
- Relationship-Salvaging Disaster: After he got knocked unconscious by Rick and she ended up getting hunted for sport by Rick and Melissa, Wally and Jennifer rekindle their relationship at the end of the movie.
- Scenery Porn: The whole point of setting a movie in a National Park, and there are many gorgeous shots throughout.
- Shout-Out: For the second time in his filmography (Pom Poms and Payback was the first), Doug Campbell does an homage to the scene in Family Plot where a car with sabotaged brakes speeds down a mountain road.
- Slipping a Mickey: Rick drugs Katrina's water while she stops for a bathroom break. Later he and Melissa both similarly drug Katrina and Jennifer before taking them out for the hunting episode, and Melissa admits to poisoning Jennifer's food at the lodge dinner so she couldn't go hike with Katrina and Rick.
- Soft-Spoken Sadist: Melissa keeps a friendly demeanor and a smile even as she tells Jennifer that Rick will slash her throat if she talks.
- Spiteful Spit: When Rick tries to force-feed Katrina chili, she keeps spitting it out on him.
- Very Loosely Based on a True Story: It gets an "inspired by true events" disclaimer, but it's pretty clearly fictional. However, there have been some high profile disappearances in Yosemite, and Rick has some similarities to Serial Killer Cary Stayner, a handyman at a motel near the park who operated in The '90s. The Serial Killer pair of Leonard Lake and Charles Ng, who took their victims to an isolated cabin in the Sierra Nevada Mountains before getting caught in 1985, might also have inspired the plot.
- Visual Innuendo: Katrina is impressed by the huge lens on Rick's camera.Rick: It's ridiculously big, isn't it?
- Working with the Ex: After Katrina goes missing, Jennifer calls her ex-boyfriend Wally, who lives within reasonable driving distance to Yosemite, to help her in the search.
