Inspired by real events. The search for a missing nine-year-old girl exposes a dark world of lost and emotionally unstable teenage girls who are responsible for the girl’s disappearance and eventual murder.

My Name is ‘A’ by anonymous (2012) follows four teenage girls each experiencing their own living nightmare that pushes them into seeking alarming coping mechanisms. Inspired by true events, the movie is loosely based on a 2009 murder committed by Alyssa Bustamante, who at 15-years-old, was sentenced to serving a life sentence for killing her 9-year-old neighbor, Elizabeth Olten. Directed by Shane Ryan who became interested in making the movie after reading news articles about the sordid true-crime story, Ryan took a budget of reportedly just $300 and produced an art-house flick both shocking and gripping for its dark subjects and characters.

The recording begins on October 10th, 2009 with a day in the life of Alyssa (Katie Marsh) and her friend, dubbed “The Sidekick” (Demi Baumann) – the two teens discuss boys and other gossips about their middle school while sometimes hanging out with and picking on Alyssa’s young brother for fun. The two characters also practice self-cutting together and gleefully dip their small fingers into their wrists to taste their own blood, all the while recording themselves. We also meet a girl dubbed “The Performer” (Teona Dolnikova) a depressed teen plagued by low self-esteem and who also cuts herself but dreams of becoming a pop star. And finally, we meet another teen girl, dubbed “The Angst” (Alex Damiano), who wreaks havoc on her body by being bulimic as a result of living alone with her father who uses her body against her will. The lives of these teens seem as disconnected from each other as the teens seem disconnected from the world or any community, forced to form their own identities and deal with their emotions without effective parents or adults around to guide them. Left to their own sick devices, these four disjointed teens come together in one final act of unprovoked violence — to murder the 9-year-old neighbor of Alyssa.

My Name is ‘A’ by anonymous is undoubtedly a polarizing film; it leaves questions at the audience’s feet long after the film ends, as we are left to interpret which identities even existed and the motivations behind carrying out such an act. Is it for attention and validation, touching on the influence of social media shaping young identities? Could it be the obscenely horrible parenting – either absent or abusive – that is to blame for the killing? Or could it truly be for fun? The view of young innocence juxtaposed with violence and teenage rage is captured in the ongoing recordings on their handheld cameras, offering bluntly delivered lines that are full of very explicit language, sexual content, and disturbing conversations about violent plans. The film captures the things young adults say when no one is watching, except for their camera phones, and the conversations between these teens are so seemingly authentic that I am still not even sure that this film is a retelling of a true-life story, or if this is the actual footage itself that the real Alyssa reportedly created. In doing his research on the incident and creating the script, writer/director Shane Ryan went through a bevy of titles for this feature, originally meaning to release the film anonymously but instead titling it My Name is ‘A’ by anonymous, as the test screenings for this movie were unsurprisingly mixed due to things like anorexia and incest being addressed before the film even gets to the impending murder we know is also coming.

It’s an interesting character study of identity and how not having the proper audience during that process can arrest that development in very disturbing ways. Ryan makes good use of an atmospheric music score throughout the film, and only misses a beat by having a full-on interlude sung by The Performer, the artistic/singer side to Alyssa (or who might actually exist as a real character). To me, this interlude is more random than effective and breaks the flow of the movie, which despite the beauty in this scene, dips into boring and self-indulgent artsy-ness, especially with the already slow-boil pacing in the rest of the film. The one character that never failed to fight through these bouts was The Angst character, played by Alex Damiano, who in one particularly horrifying and dark scene had my mind begging my fingers to fast-forward but whose performance was so compelling, and coupled with the found footage style of this film, I simply could not help but watch; it felt downright voyeuristic.

Please know you are in for a candid, emotional feature, as moving as it is disturbing to watch at times if you watch My Name is ‘A’ by anonymous. You will be right to not feel okay afterward and to question the things you witnessed, as this is definitely not just a movie to be enjoyed or watched off-handedly. It is not horror, but it is a tough watch, and I suspect this is the kind of movie that viewers will think is either really good or really bad. I am leaning towards ‘really good’ based on the performances and the fact that the narrative allows for audience interpretation with the possible psychological twist that Ryan ends this film on – god knows I love a twist ending! This is certainly not your mother’s teen movie – long gone are the days where teens simply had to face the monsters outside of themselves, they now also have to face the sometimes even more destructive demons housed within. We all know teens go through a lot now more than ever, and while I wouldn’t tell people to go watch this movie, at the same time, it is a film that high schools might want to use as a tool to start some conversations. If you have the emotional availability to face true teen angst, then catch Shane Ryan’s My Name is ‘A’ by anonymous, available via DVD and VOD.