Megan Is Missing is almost a decade old but has recently found fame through the platform after several high-profile users watched it for the first time.

The film depicts the dreadfulness of social media and internet culture, and its creator has alerted first-time viewers not to watch the movie alone in the middle of the night.

What is ‘Megan is Missing’?

Megan Is Missing is a 2011 psychological horror film.

It was written and directed by Michael Goi, who has since written and directed episodes of American Horror Story and Netflix’s Chilling Adventures of Sabrina.

The film – which is shot in a found-footage style similar to that of Paranormal Activity or The Blair Witch Project – was highly controversial at the time of its release. 

It was filmed five years before its theatrical release but struggled to find a distributor.

Megan is Missing was banned in New Zealand, where the country’s Office of Film and Literature Classification said the film’s public release would be “injurious to the public good.”

Critics also panned the film, not just for its poor acting; the majority of the cast were unprofessional or first-time actors, but also for the graphic violence enacted upon its child protagonists, its exploitative nature, and the over-sexualization of teenagers.

Is ‘ Megan Is Missing’ A True Story?

Despite its horror film trappings, Megan Is Missing was made for an educational purpose film that could allow viewers to understand the dangers to which children and young adults are exposed online.

Megan is Missing (2011) is a very run-of-the-mill horror movie for the first 4/5th of the film. 

But the last portion is so disturbing and terrifying that the movie goes viral every few years as new horror fans discover it. Most recently, in 2020, the film went viral on TikTok, with people filming their reactions to the film’s last 20 minutes. 

The trend got so big that Megan is Missing director Michael Goi made his own TikTok, explaining that while the footage in the film is not “real,” he had forensic investigators working as technical advisors to help him make it as natural as possible. 

Goi says he wanted Megan is Missing to be as scary as possible so that he would threaten real kids away from meeting strangers online.

The movie’s plot follows two teen girls’ best friends: outgoing Megan Stewart and shy Amy Herman. 14-year-old Megan meets a boy online and disappears when she meets him. 

Her best friend Amy is worried about her and reaches out to Josh, who she believes kidnapped Megan.

What Is The ‘Photo Number 1’ Warning?

After the film started going viral on TikTok, the director took the unusual step of issuing a message, where he explained the “photo number 1 warning“.

Posting his video on TikTok, Michael Goi said: “I didn’t get to give you the customary warnings that I used to give people before they watched Megan Is Missing.

“They are: do not watch the movie in the middle of the night, do not watch the movie alone, and if you see the words’ Photo Number 1′ pop up on your screen, you have about four seconds to shut off the movie, if you’re already freaking out before you start seeing things that maybe you don’t want to see.”

Why is ‘Megan Is Missing’ so Controversial?

Although filmed in 2006, the film did not find distribution until Anchor Bay Films gave it a limited cinema release in 2011.

Marketed as an educational film, Megan Is Missing was banned in New Zealand upon its release.

The film has been heavily criticized for its exploitative nature, poor acting, graphic violence inflicted upon the child protagonists, and over-sexualization of young teenagers.

Director Goi wrote the script in 10 days and shot the film over a week.

Because of the graphic content, he requested that the parents of the young cast be on set during filming so that they were fully aware of their children’s involvement in the project.