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. She also appeared in TV shows Girlboss, I'm Sorry and an episode of Criminal Minds.An old photo of Robert Berchtold and Jan Broberg featured in Abducted in Plain Sight. She's appeared in films Maniac, Iron Man 3 and Haunt according to the Internet Movie Database. The documentary was originally released in 2017. They refused to work completely with the FBI to prove Berchtold guilty, allowed Berchtold sleep in Broberg's bed and even didn't think he had abducted Broberg the second time when she went missing, again. Robert and Mary Ann Broberg allowed the problematic man unprecedented access to their three daughters before and after Broberg's kidnapping. He claimed the aliens told the pair they must have a child before Broberg turned 16.īeside the obviously terrifying tactics used by Berchtold and horrifying experience for Broberg, the most bewildering aspects of the documentary surround Broberg's parents, who refused to see the wrong their neighbor had been doing. He told the young girl the pair had been abducted by aliens to explain the sexual abuse he inflicted on her. In the documentary, Broberg, now 40, explains the abuse inflicted on her by Berchtold, from physical abuse to mental incarceration. The film tells the abduction story of Jan Broberg, who was kidnapped twice by a family friend. The book was released in 2004, and was subject to a lawsuit by Berchtold, according to Rolling Stone.Ībducted In Plain Sight movie poster. Broberg and her mother, Mary Ann, released the book Stolen Innocence: The Jan Broberg Story about Broberg's two abductions and the mental abuse which caused her to believe delusions her captor had forced onto her in both kidnappings. The story has been told before in novel form. But unlike many abduction stories, Broberg's story of abuse did not end when she found her way back to her family. She viewed him as a close, authority figure, the documentary explained. Berchtold was close to Broberg, whose family had moved into the neighborhood two years prior to her first abduction. Twelve-year-old Jan Broberg was abducted after school by her neighbor Robert Berchtold, who took her away from her family for five weeks. Abducted In Plain Sight is not an original Netflix production, but fits the platform well with twists and questions of how one girl could be kidnapped twice by the same family friend. A new title in the true crime genre has appeared on Netflix, and the story is as crazy, if not more, than Netflix's past successes.
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