Those voices supposedly belonged to aliens who told Jan she needed to conceive a child with a chosen male partner before she turned 16, otherwise bad things would happen to her parents and two younger sisters as well as, potentially, to the entire world. Instead he gave her what he told her were allergy pills, but were actually sedatives, put her in his motor home with her feet and hands tied down, and pumped the sound of voices through a speaker as she drifted in and out of consciousness. The fascination with Jan was not disturbing enough to stop the relationship from continuing to develop, until one day in 1974, when Berchtold told Mary Ann he was taking Jan horseback riding and never brought her home.
“His fascination with Jan,” she says matter-of-factly, “was a little disturbing.” (Berchtold’s brother, Joe, is much more blunt: “My brother was a pervert.”) According to Jan’s mom, Mary Ann, they were somewhat aware of that right from the beginning. It’s obvious there’s something extremely wrong here. In that recording, Berchtold describes kissing Jan and how he loves her more than “any other woman,” despite the fact that she is still a young girl. But within the first five minutes, the documentary raises hackles by playing an audio recording of Berchtold, who became like a second father to Jan after their respective families of five - both members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints in Pocatello, Idaho - became close. I won’t reveal all those major details, simply because audiences unfamiliar with the story should get to experience at least some of its shock and awe firsthand.
#Abduction in plain sight movie#
She just needs to allow her traumatized, guilt-ridden sources to explain the events that unfolded in their lives back in the 1970s, explanations that she structures in a nonchronological fashion so that our perspective on what really happened changes once the movie goes back in time a bit and adds more details. Borgman understands that she doesn’t need to do anything flashy.
#Abduction in plain sight series#
It consists almost entirely of talking-head interviews with key figures - all five members of the Broberg family, the brother of Robert Berchtold, an FBI agent frustrated by the way the Brobergs handle their business - and a series of sepia-toned reenactments designed to add more of a dynamic visual element to the narrative. There is nothing particularly revolutionary about the manner in which Borgman films the documentary. That “have sex to save the world” threat, as freaking weird and upsetting as it is, is maybe the fifth or sixth most outrageous thing in a documentary that involves adultery, pedophilia, aliens, the Mormon church, and parents so willfully blind to what’s going on with their own child that they make the unseen moms and dads in the Peanuts cartoons look like helicopter parents. There are enough lingering questions, as well as some cultural context that the documentary doesn’t explore, to justify digging more deeply into the bizarre story of how Jan Broberg was brainwashed into having sex with Robert Berchtold, a man nearly 30 years her senior, in order to save the world and her family members. You will definitely feel nauseous while watching it, is what I’m saying.Īs directed and produced by Skye Borgman, Abducted in Plain Sight unfolds in a tight 90 minutes, but if enough people watch it, I can easily imagine Netflix deciding to commission its own four-part docuseries based on the same case. It ticks off every box associated with contemporary, engrossing works of true crime: It features an innocent, sympathetic victim (as in most true crime shows and movies, she happens to be female) it demonstrates how easy it is for people to be totally duped it sparks feelings of disbelief and outrage and it contains enough mind-boggling twists to induce motion sickness. Indeed, it is impossible to watch Abducted in Plain Sight without being amazed and also wanting to punch a few things. I’m 10 minutes into Abducted in Plain Sight and not only am I ready to punch a few things but I am genuinely amazed that anyone survived their childhoods in the 70s /GpyVFB7DNi- ~ shannon ~ January 26, 2019 In the two weeks since it arrived on the world’s go-to bingeable content platform, it has started to generate buzz online, usually in the form of incredulous posts like this one on Twitter. But it didn’t debut on Netflix until earlier this month. The documentary about an Idaho preteen who was raped, abused, and kidnapped by a family friend right in front of her parents’ eyes, initially made the rounds on the film festival circuit in 2017 and was available to stream on various platforms last year. Now square it, multiply it by 50, and maybe you’ll have a sense of how nutso Abducted in Plain Sight is. Think of the wildest story you’ve ever heard. An old photo of Robert Berchtold and Jan Broberg featured in Abducted in Plain Sight.
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