Sartaj Singh
High schooler Brittany stumbles home to Maple Street after a night of underage partying, only to be attacked and rendered unconscious by an unknown assailant. She wakes up the next morning in her own bed, bewildered to find her parents acting as if nothing out of the ordinary happened. As strange and unnerving memories from the previous night begin to surface, Brittany becomes increasingly suspicious. Starting her own investigation into the incidents of the blurry night, she starts to dig into her family’s secrets. Her discovery threatens to unravel everything she thought she knew about her parents and herself. The Lifetime’s ‘A Family Nightmare: Secrets on Maple Street’ spins a mystifying and unsettling tale of deception and betrayal.
A Family Nightmare Narrates a Story of Assault and Gaslighting
The movie is a part of Lifetime’s ‘Secrets on Maple Street’ film series that narrates dark stories centered around the neighborhood of Maple Street, which hides a web of deceit below the surface. ‘A Family Nightmare: Secrets on Maple Street’ is a fictional tale that may have taken inspiration from real-life phenomena and other films regarding its mind-bending premise.
Deliberately making someone think that their understanding of reality is compromised through manipulation is termed gaslighting and is something Brittany experiences when no one acknowledges what happened to her. In real-life cases, as well as in movies, perpetrators use gaslighting tactics to make their victims question their memories and perceptions of reality. This psychological manipulation can create a disorienting and surreal perception for the victim and, as a result, creates the mind-bending feeling that we experience from the point of view of the protagonist.
Parallels in Films and True Crime
In the 2014 film, ‘Before I Go to Sleep,’ Christine suffers from amnesia and wakes up every day with no memory of her past. Her husband, Ben, manipulates her into doubting her existing memories and experiences to suit his own ends. As she learns more about her life and the people around her, her perception of reality is severely altered, resulting in a gripping and intense narrative.
In its mystery setup, the Lifetime film is reminiscent of the ‘The Girl on the Train.’ The movie revolves around Rachel Watson (Emily Blunt) and her life after divorce. Every day, while she commutes to work on a train, Rachel spots her ex-husband’s house, where he lives with his new wife and child. To cope with her increasing loneliness, she begins to follow the life of a seemingly happy couple who she spots in one of the buildings near her home.
Making up a fairytale relationship about them in her mind, Rachel starts developing a positive outlook. However, when she sees something in their home that shatters her fantasy, she is overcome with rage. The next day, she wakes up with no memory of the night before, sporting bruises and a terrible hangover. Like Brittany, Rachel has to piece together what happened the previous night and uncover shocking truths about the people she thought she knew.
The unfortunate real-life cases that generally take place in a similar vein to Brittany’s involve flunitrazepam or the date rape drug. It is generally slipped into unsuspecting women’s drinks in bars or at parties, like the one she was returning from. Its effects often leave the victims in a lucid state and unable to recall the events of the previous day. If a hapless girl were drugged and gaslit about her perceived assault the night before, like Brittany, she would have to report the incident for an investigation to arrive at the truth. ‘A Family Nightmare: Secrets on Maple Street’ draws parallels with the alarming real-life cases of assault as well as the gaslighting of victims that often leads to enigmatic narratives in film.
Read More: Lifetime’s Sister Wife Murder: Is the Movie Based on a True Story?
