Is The Girl In The Basement Based On A True Story?
Girl in the Basement is a movie that is based on real events and portrays the horrifying story of a young girl named Sara. Sara was a lively young girl who really wanted to be 18 years old so that she could escape from her controlling father named Don.
This is a rundown of all that we have discovered up to this point.
Abstract of the film Girl in the Basement
The movie “Girl in the Basement” is based on the harrowing true story of Elisabeth Fritzl, a pretty girl whose father kept her hostage for more than 25 years. The movie had its debut in the “Ripped From the Headlines” series that airs on Lifetime.
Girl in the Basement, as with many other recent releases from Lifetime, presents the true tragedy that befell Elisabeth Fritzl while simultaneously adding, eliminating, and modifying important portions of her experience.
With the continuation of the Lifetime network’s series “Ripped from the headlines,” an important benchmark has been accomplished. It has done a fantastic job of capturing the essence of what real-life tales are like.
Girl in the Basement is a terrifying film, despite its flaws and its deficiencies, and the true incident is much more tragic than what is depicted in the film. You will be utterly shaken to your very core by the horrifying and terrible truths that are contained in the original story.
What is the plot of this film? (Spoiler Alert)
Lifetime’s Girl in the Basement is an original movie that follows a young woman named Sara (Stefanie Scott) who lives in a typical American suburb and whose father, Don, keeps her locked in the basement of the house her family lives in (Judd Nelson).
Don tells his wife Irene (Joely Fisher), who is also his partner, that Sara has escaped, but this is not the case. In reality, someone is holding her hostage. For the following two decades, he would continue to threaten her and sexually assault her.
As a direct result of her father’s sexual advances, Sara will eventually give birth to multiple children after she becomes pregnant. Don and Irene, her parents, will be taking care of her youngest child from this point forward.
In spite of the fact that her mother, Irene, thinks that her daughter, Sara, would have preferred for her grandchildren to be raised by their grandparents, Sara chose to move her family to a different part of the state.
When Sara finally has a chance to get away, the rest of the world finds out about her ordeal, and her family is forced to face the facts regarding what has transpired and what Don has been up to behind their backs all these years.
What do you think is the craziest part of the whole thing? According to what actually took place in Elisabeth Fritzl’s life, the events depicted on Lifetime involving Sara and her story don’t deviate all that much from the truth.
Is Girl in the Basement based on a genuine story?
Yes! The true story of Elisabeth Fritzl, an Austrian adolescent girl who was held captive by her father, Josef Fritzl, from 1984 until 2008, served as the basis for the film Girl in the Basement. The film was released in 2008.
On August 28, 1984, Josef led Elisabeth to the basement of their home and applied an ether-soaked cloth to her face. When she passed out, Josef removed the cloth from her face. According to Oxygen, her father, Josef, chained her up and locked her in the basement jail after he had confined her there.
Elisabeth was subsequently coerced by Josef into writing a letter to her mother, Rosemarie, in which she explained that she had escaped her birthplace of Amstetten, Austria and that she did not wish to be found under any circumstances.
Elisabeth finally gave birth to her first child in 1988, after being harassed and sexually assaulted on a daily basis for the previous 24 years. Elisabeth went on to have five more children after that; their names are Stefan, Lisa, Monika, Alexander, and Michael. Felix was the youngest of the six.
At some point, Josef emerged from the cellar with a number of the youngsters and informed Rosemarie that Elisabeth intended to send them. Josef explained the situation to his wife by saying that Elisabeth required help in order to raise the children.
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The other three were brought up by Fritzl and his wife, Rosemarie, while the first three remained in prison with their mother. In spite of the fact that Michael passed away just three days after he was born.
Rosemarie put her faith in him, and when they found out the children had been abandoned, they took them in and raised them as their own. How unsettling it is to learn that the children’s own father is actually their own grandfather.
As the narrative progresses, it becomes increasingly unsettling.
On April 19, 2008, when Elisabeth was exiting the basement cell, her eldest daughter, Krestin, began to feel ill and passed out. Kristin was Elisabeth’s firstborn child. It was possibly the first time she had returned to that dungeon-like prison after her daughter had been transported to the hospital in an emergency situation.
The medical staff at the hospital contacted the authorities and shared their specific concerns with them. As a direct consequence of this, the police took note. After that, Elisabeth was escorted to the local police station a few weeks later to be questioned by an officer.
After Elisabeth had finished telling them about her harrowing experience, which lasted for a number of hours, his father, Don, was taken into custody and ultimately sentenced to prison on April 26.
Only a little over a year after his arrest, Josef entered a guilty plea to the accusations of murder for his recklessness in association with Michael’s loss. He also pled guilty to crimes relating to Elisabeth’s captivity, including incest, rape, coercion, and false imprisonment.
Josef did not feel any remorse or regret for his actions, and as a result, he was found guilty and sentenced to life imprisonment in Garsten Abbey, which is where he is currently serving his sentence. After some time, Josef disclosed to everyone that he had burned Michael’s body in an incinerator after he had been dead for three days. Michael was the child who had been hospitalized.
Elisabeth Fritzl – The actual girl in the basement
Josef Fritzl and Rosemarie Fritzl had Elisabeth Fritzl in 1966 in Austria. She had three brothers and three sisters, making her the youngest of six children in the family. In 1977, when she was 11 years old, her father started assaulting her physically and emotionally.
Because of the way her father treated the family, Elisabeth had the constant want to flee from their home. After finishing her education when she was 15 years old, she immediately began training to become a waitress.
In 1983, she evaded capture by fleeing the house, where she had been living, and hiding out with a friend in Vienna. Within a period of twenty days, the police were able to locate her and return her to her parents.
In the end, Elisabeth went back to her evening class on a part-time basis and finished it in order to improve her chances of finding work in a nearby city. She was counting down the days until she turned 18 so that she could run away once more.
Why did their house have a basement that looked like a prison?
During the time of the Cold War, it was usual practice to construct nuclear bunkers in the basement of a home; hence, Josef did not have any trouble obtaining clearance for his project.
In point of fact, Josef was awarded a subsidy in the amount of 2,000 pounds by the regional government to assist with the costs of construction. A series of doors had to have their locks broken in order for him to get entry to the cellar where he planned to hold Elisabeth as a captive.
How did she manage to spend 24 years of her life in the basement?
Elisabeth was forced to spend the next twenty-four years of her life in a living hell since the suffering she endured was never going to cease and, moreover, the traumatic experiences she went through were unexplainable. Elisabeth’s life appeared to be moving forward for everyone else, but it was stuck in a rut and was fraught with painful experiences for her.
On a regular basis, Josef would hit her with his fists and kick her. He used to have Elisabeth act out sexually explicit and violent scenes from movies for him. As a direct consequence of this, Elisabeth has experienced not only physical pain but also emotional anguish. She’d spent the first five years of her life by herself.
At least three thousand times over the course of 25 years, he physically abused her, which ultimately led to the birth of seven children. The children of Elisabeth Fritzl had no choice but to observe the physical and emotional torture that their mother endured as they grew older.
There were occasions when Elisabeth had no choice but to use her bare hands to catch rodents. She later recalled in her writings that summer was her least favorite season because of the intense sweating that occurred at that time of year.
Her father, Josef Fritzl, would chain her up with iron shackles and confine her to the bedside, where she could only move a half meter at most. After that, he fastened the chain around her waist in order to allow her more freedom of movement.
After a few months, he decided to cut the chain because it was interfering with his ability to participate in sexual activities. During these activities, he was involved. She was subjected to years of Josef’s sexual abuse, and ever since she was released in April of 2008, he has raped her multiple times a day.
The film rendition
The true story of Elisabeth Fritzl, who piqued the curiosity of reviewers, served as the primary source of inspiration for the sexually explicit crime drama film “Girl in the Basement.” The main character of the movie is a young woman named Sara, who is portrayed on screen by Stefanie Scott.
Don, her father, played by Judd Nelson, abducted his daughter Sara and held her captive in their basement.
The true case of Elisabeth Fritzl was more distressing than the film adaption, Girl in the Basement
Elisabeth has been exposed to numerous traumatic experiences over the course of her life, and as a result, psychologists have recommended that she participate in ongoing psychotherapy. After then, both Elisabeth’s identity and her name were changed.
The ages of all of her children range from 17 to 35 at the present time. A handful of her children had a difficult time recovering because they are prone to panic attacks and have experienced a great deal of anxiety in the past.
In order for them to return to their ordinary lifestyles, they were compelled to adhere to a regimented eating plan, engage in consistent physical activity, and take mood-altering medications.
According to the reputable news outlet known as “The Independent,” Elisabeth and her mother, Rosemarie, first had a difficult connection with one another, but as time went on, their relationship became more amicable, and they grew closer to one.
