Talhotblond

Back in 2007, it was global headline news when 47-year-old Thomas Montgomery murdered his younger co-worker Brian Barrett because of a girl that neither of them had met, but only communicated with over the Internet. Under the online pseudonym "marinesniper," Montgomery posed as an 18-year-old marine named Tommy. He embarked on a torrid cyber-romance with teenager Jessica (the "talhotblond" of the film's title), but Brian ("beefcake") came between them. For many years, director Barbara Schroeder was a reporter for the Los Angeles TV station Fox 11. And in this film, her debut, Schroeder stays close to the style of true crime reports she made for the station. Interviews with those involved, including Montgomery himself, and experts (psychologists, prosecutors, and detectives) alternate with photographs and reconstructions of online conversations between talhotblond, marinesniper, and beefcake. There is one important difference, however, between this film and standard true-crime reportage: no attempt is made to maintain the voice-over's customary distance from the subject matter, because the commentary is ostensibly spoken by the deceased. This "deceit" allows for the remarkable opening lines of the film, "You can say anything you want online. And that's why I'm dead, executed at the age of 22." This is the starting point for a tale of online identity manipulation and the addictive properties of love and lies.