Believe Me: The Abduction of Lisa McVey is a Lifetime Original Biopic starring Katie Douglas, David James Elliott, and Rossif Sutherland. It premiered on the network on September 30, 2018.
Based on a True Story, the film recounts the experiences of seventeen-year-old Lisa McVey (Douglas), who was abducted by the infamous Tampa serial killer Bobby Joe Long (Sutherland) on November 3, 1984. After suffering 26 grueling hours in captivity, McVey is eventually spared by Long and set free, but when she desperately tries telling the police (and her own family) about the ordeal, nobody believes her. The only people who do trust her are her sister Lorrie and Detective Larry Pinkerton (Elliott), who soon realizes that her captor is the mysterious killer that he had been hunting for the last six months.
The film provides examples of:
- Abusive Parents: Lisa was raised in a broken home: her mother was neglectful, her grandmother was just as bad, and she would regularly get sexually assaulted by her grandma's awful boyfriend. The only family members who truly love her are her sister Lorrie, her uncle Jim, and her aunt Carol.
- Arc Words: "Believe me", it's right in the title. Lisa struggles to convince anyone, even her family, that she was abducted and raped. Pinkerton is the first person to fully believe her story, and from there, they get on track to hunting down the perpetrator.
- Armor-Piercing Question: As she leaves Diane's house for good, Lisa asks her grandmother, "Why didn't you protect me [from Morris]?" Frozen with guilt, Diane doesn't respond.
- Artistic License – History: The real Morris Elwood beat up Lisa after she came home from the abduction. In the film, he nearly beats her but is stopped by Diane.
- Bland-Name Product: In Real Life, Lisa worked at a Krispy Kreme. To avoid using the branded store, the film places her in a fictional establishment simply called "The Donut Shop".
- Book Ends: At the beginning, we see Lisa write down a suicide note, as she intends to take her own life that evening. At the end, she comes across that same note while packing her things, and promptly throws it away.
- Call-Forward: When they part ways, Lisa playfully tells Larry that he hasn't seen the last of her. Indeed, the two remained good friends well into her adulthood.
- Cassandra Truth: From the police to her own family, nobody is willing to hear Lisa out when she claims that she was kidnapped. Her mother and grandmother think that she's lying, while the cops assume she's just some runaway who stayed out too late. The only people who believe Lisa from the start are her sister and Larry.
- Dramatic Irony: Detective Russell has a hard time believing Lisa's story, and would rather focus on the serial killer investigation. What she doesn't realize yet is that Lisa's captor is the serial killer.
- Driven to Suicide: Damaged by years of abuse from her family, Lisa prepares to end her own life, but she is kidnapped by Long on the night she was going to kill herself. The traumatic experience ultimately rekindles her will to live.
- Earn Your Happy Ending: After dealing with a copious amount of trauma, Lisa finally earns her happiness at the end. Both Morris and Bobby Joe are arrested, she permanently cuts ties with her mom and grandma, and spends the rest of her teen years living happily with her uncle, aunt, and sister.
- Flashback: Several flashbacks give insight into Lisa's past, with both good and bad memories present. We see more of the strained relationship between her and her mother Betty, and how she came to live with her grandmother Diane.
- Hallucinations: Lisa is so traumatized by the incident that she starts hallucinating Bobby Joe attacking her at night.
- Internal Reveal: Pinkerton eventually learns that Morris had been sexually abusing Lisa for years. He apprehends him in the very next scene.
- Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: Bobby Joe choosing to spare Lisa's life out of sympathy ultimately leads to his downfall, as she is able to help the police track him down and end his murderous rampage.Bobby Joe Long: (To the police) The only reason you caught me is 'cause I let her go.
- Photographic Memory: Lisa is able to memorize as many details as she can during her capture: the type of car that Long drove, the amount of stairs in his apartment, the sneakers in his bathroom, etc. Through her astoundingly-detailed descriptions, Pinkerton is able to piece together that Lisa's captor is the killer that they've been tracking for months.
- Real-Person Cameo: The real Lisa McVey Noland makes a special cameo appearance during the "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: Detective Pinkerton is (initially) the only one on the force who believes Lisa's story, and he assures her that her captor will be brought to justice once and for all.
- Red Filter of Doom: Red lighting is used to represent Lisa's hallucinations of Bobby. When she snaps out of it, the lighting returns to normal.
- Stepford Smiler: Lisa is all smiles around her boss and customers, but underneath, she's dealing with a lot of trauma and near-suicidal depression.
- Trauma Conga Line: Lisa grows up in an abusive household, is molested in her own home while her grandmother looks the other way, nearly commits suicide from the trauma, is kidnapped and raped by a sadistic serial killer, and when she attempts to tell her family what happened, they refuse to believe her. In short, Lisa goes through absolute hell before anyone is able to help her, though things start to look up once she meets Detective Pinkerton.
- "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue: At the end, the film explains what became of Lisa after the incident: she started a new life with her loving aunt and uncle, and would grow up to become a deputy sergeant specializing in sex crimes. Meanwhile, Bobby Joe Long was put on death row, eventually getting executed in 2019 (one year after the film's premiere).
- "Thank you for believing me."
