By Corey Vikser
Staff Writer
“Escape from Tomorrow” is a highly ambitious indie project, a surrealist horror film about a man going mentally insane at Disneyworld. The hard work of director Randy Moore payed off, creating a beautiful, horrifying experience that leaves unsettling imagery in your mind for days to come.
Moore turns the happy, loving atmosphere of the Florida Disney Park into a hellhole dystopia employing techniques like subtle uses of inventive CGI and black & white photography to force viewers to look at the park in a whole new light. Where the film falls, however, is in its pacing.
The film follows Jim (Roy Abramsohn) a middle-aged man on his last day of a Disney World vacation with his wife (Elena Schuber) and two children Sara (Katelynn Rodriguez) & Elliot (Jack Dalton), when he receives a call revealing he’s been fired from his job. Wanting to enjoy their last day, he decides to keep it a secret from the family.
As they begin to roam the park, Jim becomes delusional after having severe hallucinations on the rides. He is then entranced by two underage French girls and begins to stalk them throughout the park as horrific events unfold around the family.
The film was secretly shot at Florida and California Disney Parks without authorization from Disney. Consumer Canon cameras were used to film scenes, blending in with park attendees. The cast had to use scripts stored on their iPhone and the crew was disguised as tourists throughout the duration of the shoot to remain under radar.
The way the director made the legendary Disney park into a surrealistic nightmare is incredible. With no outside help, they transformed recognizable elements from the park into terrifying, brand new versions such as depicting Disney princesses as secret prostitutes and the inside of Spaceship Earth being a secret detention facility.
Director Randy Moore does a brilliant job with the atmosphere, clearly homaging films of the 1950’s with the opening titles and use of black & white. He also terrifically changes the mood subtly, notably a sequence in It’s a Small World where the happy ride turns into an evil nightmare right before our protagonists’ eyes, ending with him envisioning his son turn into a black-eyed demon.
The pacing is the film’s biggest problem, as the film’s more shocking moments come and go opposed to proper buildup, causing it to revert to an upbeat tone when it’s evidently out of place. Along with the tonal inconsistency, unnecessary repetitive scenes of rides and random park wandering pad out the running time. This is the worst with the middle of the film, which doesn’t truly go anywhere. Towards the final 25 minutes the film re-adjusts its pace and unrelentlessly shocks with brutal, terrifying and unforgettable images that compliment the inventive story twists.
Lead actor Roy Abramsohn does an impressive job as lead character Jim, maintaining a calm disposition amongst tourists and Disney employees making the film even creepier as when disturbing occurrences happen around him, no one seems to notice further making the film feel like a living nightmare.
Elena Schuber does a mediocre job as his wife, sometimes over-acting and seeming very out-of-place. Luckily she never has enough screentime for this to become a huge problem.
Cinematographer Lucas Lee Graham achieves quite a feat with his work on the film, using black-and-white photography to portray Disney as a monochromatic landscape which gives the nighttime finale a wickedly beautiful aura. The meticulously planned shots and careful camera work makes the low-budget experimental piece appear to have much higher production values.
The original score composed by Abel Korzeniowski infuses the film’s fantastic cinematography with an epic sound that makes the film seem large-scale and grandiose. The best example is the opening scene’s use of the track ‘Gates of Tomorrow’ over images of a wagon ride, starting like a classic Disney orchestral theme but slowly building into malevolent, blaring horns as flash-forwards of the film occur hinting at a more horrific experience.
“Escape from Tomorrow” is a unique, dark and twisted horror story that’s ambition is well rewarded. Viewers with fond memories of Disney be warned, the experience will ruin the childhoods of many who are unprepared. – The film is unrated and currently in limited release & available on Video On Demand simultaneously.
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