Do You Know the Muffin Man?

1989

Crime / Drama / Mystery

3
Rotten Tomatoes Critics - Rotten 44%
Rotten Tomatoes Audience - Spilled 44%
IMDb Rating 5.6/10 10 473 473

sexual abuse pedophile child molester daycare

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Plot summary

Roger Dollison, a police officer, and his wife, Kendra, are living the American dream. They have two children, Teddy and Sandy, a lovely home, and a dog named Rex. What they know and how they live as a family is irreparably changed one day when it is discovered that a classmate of Teddy's is the apparent victim of sexual abuse and molestation at the respected neighborhood daycare center. Like all other parents, the Dollisons are tormented — "we should have known, we should have seen" — but their devastation is complete when Teddy tells his own story, one he promised his abusers he would never tell.

Director

Gilbert Cates Photo
Gilbert Cates

Top cast

David Wells Photo
David Wells as Dr. Alex Wells
John Shea Photo
John Shea as Roger Dollison
Beans Morocco Photo
Beans Morocco as Marty
Stephen Dorff Photo
Stephen Dorff as Sandy Dollison
720p.WEB 1080p.WEB
866.84 MB
1280*720
English 2.0
NR
us  
24 fps
1 hr 34 min
Seeds 5
1.57 GB
1920*1080
English 2.0
NR
us  
24 fps
1 hr 34 min
Seeds 7

Movie Reviews

Reviewed by cjcalv 1 / 10

Completely irresponsible filmmaking trying to cash in on the mass hysteria of the times.

Back in the 80's, a wave of fear spread through North America with the belief that underground satanic cults were infiltrating all parts of society, including day-care centers. A rash of charges were brought against day-care workers all over the U. S., as well as Canada and other parts of the world on suspicion of sexually abusing children as part of organized satanic rituals. Despite children reporting fantastical and in some cases physically impossible occurrences, there were trials and many people did go to prison. Those who weren't found guilty, had their lives ruined. The satanic panic was all made possible by overzealous prosecutors, therapists, mental health workers, law enforcement, religious fundamentalists, and fearful parents. The media accepted it without any skepticism. However, there was little or no evidence ever found in any cases. No blood, no dead babies, no nothing. It was all mass hysteria. The idea of satanic ritual abuse was a hoax. Children were asked leading and suggestive questions, and often interviewed dozens of times. Children who said nothing happened, we're not believed. They were only believed after giving investigators the answers they wanted to hear. It was a modern day witch hunt.Sadly this film is just one more example of how the media played a role in the satanic panic. When people abandon reason in favor of emotion and superstition, it can have terrible consequences. This movie creates a narrative that plays into the fears of the time and passes the story off as being based on facts. Besides wrongful convictions, one of the biggest tragedies of the satanic ritual abuse panic is that so many children in these cases may now as adults still believe that they were victims of SRA. How traumatic must that be? Finally, while police and prosecutors were chasing and charging people in imaginary satanic cults with horrific crimes, real cases of child abuse, often perpetrated by family members, went unpunished. I guess it's easier for people to accept that bad things happen in the world because of "the Devil", than to have to face and try to solve complex societal problems like poverty, income inequality, social justice, racism, and sexism.
Reviewed by BreanneB 1 / 10

Horrendous!

Reviewed by Ankhoryt 1 / 10

I only finished the movie because meanwhile, I was writing this review....

Ugh. Yes, it's exactly like the McMartin mess, or the horrific arrests in Wenatchee, Washington. In the movie, the mother keeps aggressively questioning her little boy, over and over and over, until he finally tells her what she obviously wants to hear. The court investigators and "therapists" repeat the pattern. The questioning itself is sexually creepy, a relentlessy repeated assault in its own way.The moviemakers throw in a doctor talking about physical evidence of abuse, maybe to justify the film's point of view: that two- to four-year-olds never make "things like this" up. Well, they will if every adult they know is asking them to. The way this piece endorses such discredited interrogation techniques makes watching it an exercise in frustration for anyone who knows what it takes to get a successful prosecution in real life. (They also add a special arrest incident towards the end to "prove" their case -- no parallel to this fictional incident ever occurred in real life. Can't say more here without turning this into a spoiler, but you'll know it when you see it.)Yes, children are abused, sometimes by paid care providers. But to watch a movie which affirms the ludicrous, hysterical accusations against so many totally innocent people, to watch re-creations of the trials that ruined the lives of countless children as well as the lives of the accused -- I didn't think I'd last until the end. It's just too sad, and made more so by the writing team's seeming endorsement of the abusive, paranoid, obsessional questioning techniques that started -- what can we call it? The bonfire of the sanities? No one I know has ever been accused of child abuse, thank heaven, but my 12-times-over-great grandmother was accused of witchcraft and killed for it. Mobs filled with what they think is holy anger are just as dangerous now as three hundred years ago. Sensational drivel like this -- "These accusations of Satanic abuse are cropping up all over the country, there must be something there!" "So tell the jury that!" -- just eggs them on. And whoever thought it was a good idea to have kids under ten, some of them under five, play these roles? It's traumatic to watch them delivering their lines; how much more traumatic was it to act these parts? The moviemakers' commitment to fight child abuse apparently doesn't apply to themselves. And what were the child-actors' parents THINKING? "Melinda" (uncredited, at least in the version on the A&E Network in 2005, but I think it was Cassy Friel) and "Teddy" (Brian Bonsall) were terrific. Professionals or not, though, they were too young to be exposed to this material, much less to be paid to act it out. Despite ruthlessly exploiting these real-life children, "Do You Know The Muffin Man" got an Emmy nomination for directing -- which just goes to show how crazed things were, back in 1989.
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