Secrets in a Small Town (2019)

A woman crying in the woods and screaming for "Sarah" the title credits roll as the woman screams again. Cut to the woman, whose name is Claire and her teenage daughter.. Sarah. They have moved to a small town from Chicago and are heading to school for their first day. Sarah is a student and Claire is the new vice-principal.

(She is also widowed, the husband died of cancer) Sarah is, apparently, really good at basketball and gets recruited to play for the team. After the first day of school, the mother and daughter hang out and watch youtube videos. Including a magician pulling a tablecloth off of a table full of dishes. The coach, Ruth, tells Sarah that they all have each other backs, and the girls on the team even invite Sarah to a team bonding event after practice. Claire is being a "helicopter mom" because she is primarily worried about her daughter going to a party where boys and alcohol might be. Claire stays up late eating ice cream alone and calls her daughter before going to bed. Sarah doesn't answer, but Claire leaves a voicemail. The next morning Claire is surprised to see Sarah's bed empty. She goes to school and is even more surprised to see Sarah is not in her first-period class. Claire finds the basketball team players and asks them if they knew where her daughter is. They say she probably skipped school or something. Claire calls everyone she knows while driving around town and looking everywhere for her. She even stops a random girl on the street because she thinks it is her daughter. She then goes to the police. The cop suggests bringing in the team for questioning, but the sheriff is more concerned with his niece, Maddie, getting into college. He reluctantly agrees to interview the girls on the team. During the interviews, the girls throw Sarah under the bus and say she was wasted and drinking vodka at Maddie's House without parent supervision. They say she went outside for air and she just disappeared at 10:45pm. They all have the same story. Reggie storms into the precinct and is pissed his daughter, Maddie is being questioned. The sheriff says that Sarah probably just ran away and will be back soon. Ruth shows up and calms Reggie down, she tells the girls to go home, including her daughter.. the team captain, Kat. Taking matters into her own hands, Claire flyers the town and asks everyone she can if they have seen her daughter. The town isn't so receptive or sympathetic and even goes as far as spray painting "Witch Hunt" on Claire's garage door. The cop comes by, and the police find Sarah's shoe in the woods and then organize a search party. Helicopters and the whole town (including the basketball team) comb the woods looking for Sarah. Ruth, the basketball coach, goes deep into the woods and finds a shack. The shack has Sarah inside, she is banged up, dehydrated, and confused. Coach Ruth says she is going to get help but leaves the shed, and Kat is standing outside.. Coach Ruth realizes it was her daughter's fault. Apparently, Kat thought she killed Sarah but did a lousy job, so now they are going to lock Sarah in the shack and leave her to die. (The coach will do whatever it takes to save her daughter from getting in trouble. )The search continues. Ruth and Kat put Sarah's cellphone in a canoe and push it in the river. This diverts the search in the total opposite direction of the shack and heads down the river. (At the suggestion of the coach. ) By the river, they find Sarah's cell phone and call for divers to look in the river. Claire is distraught at the thought of her daughter drowning, and we are back to where we saw at the beginning of the movie. Claire is screaming, "Sarah. "Claire lays in Sarah's bed, crying and then sings to Sarah. Sarah lays on the floor of the shack and sings the song too. The shots intercut showing the mother and daughter singing the same song. While making tea and crying, Claire hears the doorbell. She opens the door. She finds an article clipping on their doorstep about a freshman student who committed suicide after hazing on another school's basketball team.. that Ruth coached. Clare goes to the coach Ruth and asks her point plant if she knows what happened to Sarah. Coach Ruth tells a story about serving in Iraq and how it made her a survivor. The coach tells Claire to drop it, stop looking into the basketball team, and leave her girls alone. Claire does the opposite and finds more articles online. She quits her job to focus on finding her daughter. The basketball team won't let it go, and they slash her tires and harass her at her home. She receives a hazing video to her phone of the girls forcing Sarah to chug, while the coach watches on.. Kat admits everything to Claire. The hazing, drinking, taking Sarah to the woods, and dropping her over a cliff, everything. Kat also mentions that Sarah is alive and locked in a shack. Claire rushes off to save her daughter as Coach Ruth comes home. Coach Ruth yells at her daughter for telling Claire the truth, and then she slaps across the face. Coach Ruth grabs a gun, shovel, and a tarp and goes to fix her daughter's mistakes. Claire and the cop rush to find the shack via helicopter. They find Coach Ruth burying Sarah alive in the woods. Claire pushes Coach Ruth out of the way, and Coach Ruth pulls a gun on Claire. The Cop gets out his gun and tells Coach Ruth not to move. Sarah saves the day by saying "abracadabra, " prompting Claire to pull a tarp (like the magician. ) Coach Ruth loses her balance and falls, hitting her head on a rock and presumably killing her. Kat is arrested along with her teammates. Sarah and Claire ride to the hospital in the helicopter. (thanks to lifetimeuncorked)