:star:
In a world of fake castles and anthropomorphic rodents, an epic battle begins when an unemployed father’s sanity is challenged by a chance encounter with two underage girls on holiday.
Sometimes, you come across a movie that forces you to scratch your head in sheer confusion and, quite calmly exclaim…”WHAT THE F**K?” “Escape from Tomorrow” is that movie. In the Special Features on the DVD, the director of the movie, Randy Moore, says that this film is based on his own experiences of going to Disneyland as a boy and then going back, many years later, with his own family. I’ve been to Disneyland myself, many different times so I’m curious if Mr. Moore fell into an alternate reality where the theme park was run by robots and demons because my experiences, thank God, were nothing like the ones portrayed in this movie.
As the story begins, we are introduced to Jim (Roy Abramsohn), who is at the resort with his wife Emily (Elena Schuber) and two children, Sara (Katelynn Rodriguez) and Elliot (Jack Dalton). It is their last full day there and Jim has just been informed by his boss, via phone, that he’s been let go. Instead of upsetting his family, Jim decides that this last day will be their best. As they make their way around the park, Jim begins to see strange visions. Looking at seemingly innocent puppets which are there to entertain the kids, he starts to see demonic black eyes and devilish grins which starts to freak him out.
He composes himself, not wanting to scare his family, or anybody else for that matter and they continue embarking the many different rides. Along the way, Jim sees two teenage French girls, they are happily singing songs in French and laughing and holding hands as they go. He quickly becomes infatuated with them, following them around the park. They are obviously well aware that he is ensuing them and they seem to be enjoying it. Emily and Elliot head back to the hotel to take an afternoon nap while Jim takes Sara with him. He quickly loses her and in his panic-stricken state, he is kidnapped and later wakes up in a holding facility.
The man in charge is able to see into his thoughts and after Jim manages to escape, the man’s head comes off in a freak accident and we then realize he’s a robot who informs Jim with his dying words, that he was only trying to help. Jim has a bizarre affair with a sexy older woman who later we find out, is the one who kidnapped Sara. They eventually make it back to their hotel room where Jim, after putting Sara to bed, starts coughing up fur balls in the bathroom and ultimately succumbs to cat flu. His body is taken away the next day where we see the exact same Jim arriving at the resort with a sexy hot wife and then the movie ends.
In a strange, chaotic way, I get the message here. Disneyland is considered the happiest place on earth but no place is exempt from bad things, it’s just the way of the world. Sometimes, children get lost, sometimes, people lose their jobs, sometimes, people cheat on their spouses but come on, there are other ways to try and make that point. I felt like I was watching a movie that was made by filmmakers on acid. If that was the case, then I would have recommended watching the movie drunk, with a bunch of friends. But since that isn’t the case, I’d only recommend this movie if you want to spend 90 minutes scratching your head. Demons and Robots and Fairies oh my! Indeed.
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