Every Mother's Worst Fear

Every Mother's Worst Fear

As if the existence of entire fan pages dedicated to the intricate details of Labyrinth and Dragonheart weren't enough, here's Every Mother's Worst Fear, an alarmist piece of exploitation that attempts to stir up more reasons to lose sleep over the implications of the Internet. Aging Charlie's Angels star Cheryl Ladd stars as the titular mother whose daughter, played by real-life offspring Jordan Ladd, makes some dangerous connections after visiting a highly exclusive chat room. Lured away by a silver-tongued online lothario, the younger Ladd disappears, soon finding herself passed on to creepy Ted McGinley and realizing every mother's worst fear: that she will be caught up in an underage Internet porn ring led by one of the supporting players on Married With Children. Aside from its casting, this standard TV movie is made fascinating by its hilarious technophobia: The Internet is portrayed as a series of tools, from chat rooms to e-mail, used primarily for the creation and dissemination of kiddie porn, and everyone the least bit connected to computers is either complicit in this or otherwise horribly maladjusted. Substitute "Internet" with "angel dust," and Every Mother's Worst Fear could come from 1979. That curiosity aside, it has nothing to recommend it.

 
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