Disappearance at Clifton Hill

Picnicking with her family near their home at Niagara Falls, seven year old Abby sees a young boy, one eye gouged out, hiding in the woods. He gestures her to be quiet, but a couple drive up and drag him away, throwing him into the trunk of their car. Abby runs back to her family by the lakeside, but does not tell them what she has witnessed. Later she tells her sister, who does not believe her.

Many years later, the adult Abby returns to Niagara Falls following the death of her mother. Abby has had various problems in her adult life, and among other things is a compulsive liar. Her mother ran a motel called The Rainbow, but the business is no longer viable. Abby’s sister Laure wants to sell the motel to local businessman Charlie Lake, whose family has effectively owned the town for three generations, but Abby is reluctant to do this. She is still obsessed with the abduction of the “one-eyed boy”.

Abby unofficially moves back into the motel and starts to investigate the mystery, the local police having declined to get involved. After viewing microfiches at the local library, she finds a picture and a name, Alex Moulin. Alex was the son of a husband-and-wife magical act, the Magnificent Moulins, a huge local attraction at the time. Their act involved a live tiger. Alex Moulin disappeared around the time that Abby saw the boy in the woods, and was believed to have committed suicide by jumping over the Falls. Following his disappearance, his parents moved to the American side.

Abby meets local diving expert, conspiracy theorist and podcaster, Walter Bell, who is of the opinion that Alex did not commit suicide, as no trace of his body was ever found. Walter says that in his experience as a diver this is extremely unusual. Walter also says that Charlie Lake had a predilection for young boys, and that Alex was not the first to disappear. He believes the powerful Lake family covered up the disappearances.

In order to gain access to Charlie’s office, Abby pretends she has signed the papers authorising the sale of the motel (she has in point of fact signed them in disappearing ink). While at the office she sees a photo of the Moulins. With them is a woman who was one of the people who captured Alex at the lake. Abby finds out that the woman is called Bev Mole, and her husband Gerry (the other person at the lake) is now paraplegic. Bev worked with the Moulins as an animal trainer. She was once a regular gambler at a casino near The Rainbow Motel, but was eventually banned.

Abby obtains Bev Mole’s phone number, and pretends she is calling from the casino. She says the casino mistakenly placed a block on Bev’s account, and they’d like to welcome her back, including free accommodation at The Rainbow Motel. Bev accordingly checks in, with her wheelchair-bound husband.

When Bev goes to the casino, Abby enters her room and finds the severely handicapped Gerry shut in a closet, his wheelchair chained so he can’t escape. But before Abby can talk to him about Alex, Bev returns, angry because she believes the casino were trying to “entrap” her. Abby hides as Bev leaves with her husband.

Abby uses her sister’s passport to travel to the American side, to see the Magnificent Moulins magic show, in which Mr Moulin enters a cage and is apparently changed into a tiger. She approaches the couple after the show, produces a photo of Alex, and tells them to meet her across the street in the diner. The Moulins show up, assuming that Abby is trying to blackmail them. Mrs Moulin tells Abby their son was “weak” and when he was unable to work in their act with the tiger, she hints that they fed him to the animal. Then she laughs and says it is all a lie.

Trying to return to the Canadian side, Abby’s stolen passport is queried and she is arrested. At the police station, with her sister and brother-in-law, various lies she has told about her recent past are exposed. With no-one believing her about Alex, and no actual proof that the boy did not commit suicide, Abby’s investigations appear to have come to nothing.

However, determined to get to bottom of Alex’s disappearance, she finds out Bev Mole’s address and goes to her house, watching till Bev leaves. Inside the house, Abby finds Gerry chained up as before. He tells her that they kidnapped Alex, took numerous photos of the injuries he had sustained from the tiger (including the loss of an eye) and intended to use them to blackmail the Moulins.

Later, acting on Abby’s report, the police raid the house, rescue Gerry and arrest his wife. In the house they find the photos of Alex.

In the following months, the case receives huge media coverage. Charlie Lake is arrested, although he claims he is innocent of killing Alex; similarly, the Moulins plead innocence in the disappearance of their son. Abby has moved on and is working reception in another, more up-market, motel. A man checks in, with one eye. He is around the age Alex would have been, and bears a passing resemblance to him. Noticing a newspaper on the desk with Charlie’s picture, he tells Abby that Lake is not lying and says “he saved that boy’s life”. Abby stares after him in wonderment as he leaves the reception area to check into his room.

The film was based in part on Shin's own life; his parents formerly owned a motel in Niagara Falls, where Shin has childhood memories of witnessing what he understood at the time to be a kidnapping.[6] However, during the making of the film, he faced resistance from the Clifton Hill business improvement association, because the organization feared that the film would paint the city and the district in a negative light.[6]

The film premiered at the 2019 Toronto International Film Festival under the title Clifton Hill.[5] IFC Midnight obtained the U.S. distribution rights to the film and will release it on February 28, 2020.[7]

• Disappearance at Clifton Hill at IMDb
• Disappearance at Clifton Hill at Rotten Tomatoes
• Disappearance at Clifton Hill at Metacritic