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.
