Before internet stalking or catfishing was a thing it was actually easier to get someone’s information and use it against them. Why you ask? There was a time when people were free with information since they didn’t think that scenarios that were seen in movies such as Lisa would ever happen in real life. It feels odd to think that there was a time when people weren’t so afraid or paranoid of everything, but while Lisa does take a lot of liberties, as many movies do, there was a period of time in America when finding whatever information one needed about someone was far easier in some ways and didn’t require passwords and an online profile to use so that one could go hunt a person down. If you’re unfamiliar with the movie it’s not hard to find, but it’s easy to assume that many people will be rightly disturbed by the story since not only is the titular character rather horrible to her single mother, but she toys with a man she knows hardly anything about, and in doing so nearly causes the death herself and her mother. This is definitely one of those moments when people might actually wonder if having kids is really worth it if they’re going to grow up to be like this.
The story goes that Lisa wants to start dating because she thinks she’s old enough and her friend is allowed to date. But her mother, who had Lisa far too early, doesn’t want her daughter making the same mistakes that she did, and thereby forbids her from dating. Anyone with daughters that have reached a certain age might be able to understand that this doesn’t go over too well. In any case, when Lisa bumps into a man that could be a model due to his looks, she’s instantly smitten but doesn’t know that she just bumped into the Candlelight Killer, so named because of the fact that he tortures and kills his victims by candlelight. Hey, it was the early 90s, just go with it. Anyway, Lisa writes down the man’s license plate and proceeds to get all the information that she can get on him, which is downright creepy since this is something that stalkers do, and something that people might have talked about in hushed whispers but would never think was such a huge problem or a risk to those that engaged in such behavior. What came next was even worse however since after getting more information about the individual, Lisa began to talk to the man over the phone, building herself up and egging him on as catfishing was either born during this movie or at least furthered in a small way.
What’s really bad about taking the advice of her friend and trying to set up her mom with this guy is that she still didn’t know what he was all about, which meant that she was setting up her mom to be slaughtered. It doesn’t make matters any better when she and her mother have a girl’s night out at the killer’s restaurant, which he owns, and the killer then gets hold of her mother’s credit card and tracks her down using her information. Does anyone see how disturbing this actually is, and how it might have had at least little to do with why people are so paranoid about their personal information these days? It’s a stretch no doubt, but this is likely one reason why some folks are hesitant to give out their information unless a business or individual has proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that they’re legit and don’t intend any harm. Of course, these days people are sometimes worried more about losing their credit rating than their life. At any rate, when the killer calls Lisa he tells her that he knows her name is Katherine and that he knows where she lives. That wouldn’t be creepy or anything, would it? Once Lisa returns home she finds that the killer has already incapacitated her mother and as she’s treated in the same manner it almost looks like it’s lights out for mother and daughter, but at some point Katherine comes to and pushes the killer out of a window, killing him in the process. One can just imagine the kind of trouble Lisa would be in after this if she confessed.
Movies like this are almost prophetic in a way since they give a situation that, when seen now, would be insanely difficult to pull off unless a person knows how to make it work. With the level of security that so many people have these days concerning their identity and personal information, it’s almost impossible to perform this kind of thing. But back then, one could get away with almost anything if they were smart enough.
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