Aahana Swrup
‘Compliance’ is a crime thriller film revolving around a manipulative phone call that orchestrates a horrifying crime in the backroom of a fast food restaurant. Sandra, a manager at ChickWich, receives a call from police officer Daniels, who accuses one of her teenage employees, Becky, of stealing from a customer. Afterward, the caller instructs the older woman to bring Becky to the backroom, where he talks the manager through strip-searching her employee. Even though the search leads nowhere, Daniels compels Sandra to hold Becky under her supervision.
Becky is then put through increasingly exploitative situations under the supposed officer’s instructions. Despite the uncomfortable nature of the premise, the 2012 Craig Zobel film charts a nuanced depiction of Becky’s narrative as she’s backed into an impossible corner. Even though the story’s central crime seems unbelievable due to its sheer chilling subject matter, ‘Compliance’ actually holds surprising roots in real life.
Compliance is Based on a Real Phone Call Hoax Incident
‘Compliance’ charts a story of a scam caller pretending to be a police officer who dupes a fast-food manager and her then-fiance into stripping, humiliating, and abusing a young employee. It explores the psychological aspects of the situation, highlighting the bitter truth about mindless obedience to exploitative authority figures. The film is actually a true-to-reality cinematic adaptation of a real crime that took place in 2004 amidst a series of similar hoaxes involving unlawful strip searches via phone calls that first started around 1994. Reportedly, Craig Zobel, who wrote and directed the film, employed the 2004 incident in particular as the basis for his story.
On April 9, 2004, a McDonald’s branch in Mount Washington, Kentucky, received a phone call from an individual claiming to be Officer Scott. The caller talked to the assistant manager, Donna Jean Summers, and gave her the description of a young female employee, asserting that the latter was a suspect in the theft of a purse. As a result, 18-year-old Louise Ogborn fell victim to the instance. Despite Ogborn’s insistence that she hadn’t stolen anything, Summers complied with the caller’s instructions and took the teenager to the restaurant’s office. Behind locked doors, she conducted a strip search.
Afterward, Ogborn only had an apron to cover herself with, while Summers took away her clothing to stash them in her car as the caller instructed. Later, the assistant manager insisted that she was only complying with “Officer Scott” because she was under the impression that he was a cop. Furthermore, he told her that the employee was involved in dealing drugs and that her house was currently under police search. As these events unraveled, several of Ogborn’s co-workers were aware of her predicament. Yet, no one reached out for external help. Eventually, Summers had to return to the counter.
Thus, when the caller asked Ogborn to call in her husband for help, her then-fiance, Walter Wes Nix Jr., entered the scene. Once Nix began taking instructions from the caller—whom he believed to be a detective—Ogborn’s horrific experience grew tenfold. While in the office with the teenager, Nix, under the caller’s bidding, pulled away the young employee’s apron and coerced her to dance, do jumping jacks, and perform sexual acts. Reportedly, he threatened Ogborn with physical violence and even physically abused her at times. The security camera in the office recorded it all.
Eventually, after he left, Summers tried to recruit another person, a 58-year-old maintenance man, Thomas Simms, to keep watch on Ogborn. However, Simms refused to play along, which finally led to the reveal of the caller’s deception. In the aftermath, Nix was convicted of sexually abusing Ogborn and received a five-year sentence. Summers broke off her engagement with the man and has reportedly not been in contact with him since the dreadful night. Moreover, the assistant manager herself got fired from McDonald’s and received a year of probation on the charges of unlawful restrainment.
On the other hand, Ogborn was left deeply traumatized by the incident. She sued McDonald’s for failing to protect her and settled out-of-court. Meanwhile, the authorities arrested David Richard Stewart, a Florida resident, in connection with the incident and several other scam calls like the one that unraveled in Kentucky in 2004. Nevertheless, despite suspicion, he was acquitted of the charges of soliciting sodomy and sexual abuse as well as impersonating a police officer. As per reports, such cases of strip search scam calls ceased to exist following Stewart’s initial arrest.
Craig Zobel Equipped Extensive Research in Dramatizing the True Crime Story
In ‘Compliance,’ Craig Zobel renames the involved individuals and changes up certain details in translating the real-life 2004 Mount Washington case to the screen. This allows the film to have a certain level of separation from the real victims involved in the crime. Furthermore, it allows the filmmaker to streamline the story into a cohesive narrative in line with the tale’s themes. Initially, Zobel was interested in exploring the nature of the Milgram experiment. The 1960s experiment, conducted by Yale psychologist Stanley Milgram, was a series of social psychology experiments that measured people’s willingness to obey authority figures even at the cost of their own morals.
After reading up on this experiment, Zobel came across the 2004 Mount Washington case revolving around Donna Summers and Louise Ogborn. Therefore, as he decided to turn their true story into a film, he dedicated himself to researching the real-life case. Consequently, his film remains based on an extensive dive into the actual crime, with the filmmaker employing court records and reports as research material. For the same reason, the on-screen narrative remains incredibly close to real-life, showcasing the reality of a horrifying ordeal. Thus, even though a few details have been changed, Zobel’s work remains ultimately authentic to reality.
Read More: Louise Ogborn: Where is Strip Search Hoax Survivor Now?
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