"Daddy's Girl" Movie Review – Television Quality at Best

Runtime: 95 minutes

Rating: R

Release Date: December 23, 1996

Director: Martin Kitrosser

"Daddy's Girl" is the perfect example of a 1990s horror film that wound up going straight to video. Throughout the whole film, I was convinced that it was a television movie, but nope, this one was a straight-up produced for home video.

Don and Barbara never had children of their own, but they did manage to adopt a twelve-year-old girl named Jody. No one finds it odd that Jody seems particularly enamored of her new daddy or that she goes to great lengths to spend every free moment with him. Don and Barbara are too busy arguing and fighting to worry too much about their new daughter. Barbara became the breadwinner of the family after Don started working on a new toy, and no one knows when he'll ever get back on his feet again.

Jody quickly makes it clear that she dislikes anyone who has a problem with her daddy. As she has trouble fitting in at a new school, the principal suggests that she go away to boarding school. When she learns that she might end up away from her father, she pushes her principal off a chair and breaks her neck. She later targets her own grandmother, shoving her down the stairs. Unfortunately, the woman survives, which just makes Jody even angrier.

There are a few clever moments in "Daddy's Girl," but those moments are few and far between. Jody plants a tape recorder at the bottom of the stairs and plays a recording that makes her grandmother think she seriously hurt herself. When the woman actually tries to find her and help her, Jody pushes her down the stairs. When Jody is bad, the film actually gets a little interesting. The problem is that no one can expect this little red headed girl to carry the whole film on her back. The parents spend too much time on their own problems and denying the fact that they live with a psycho, and when anyone finally notices a problem, Jody kills them.

The film tries to wrap everything up at the end in a nice little package, but it's too much. By the time it explains what happened to Jody, i.e. her history before she wound up with her new family, no one will really care.