Escape from Tomorrow (2013)

"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."

As someone who has never set foot inside a Disney theme park or watched any Disney cartoons in his life, I have no idea what the conspiracy theory fuss is about "Escape from Tomorrow". All I know is that Disney has made a couple of classic feature length cartoons to keep little kids quiet, and a few mediocre G-rated "family" movies for everyone else. I do remember a scandal about part of a castle on some VHS artwork looking like a dildo, back in the day, but I couldn't tell you the name of that movie without looking it up, or why it would even matter to anyone. Disney is nothing to me, never has been, and never will be. In fact, the only time I was ever in Orlando, Florida, I went to Universal Studios, Busch Gardens, Seaworld, and Gatorland instead.

Why am I telling you this? Well, it's because "Escape from Tomorrow" is set in a conflated, fantasy version of Disneyland and Disney World, and huge parts of the footage were filmed in both without Disney's consent. Thus, the novelty factor of this movie is for people who've never been to them and wonder what they look like inside. Although you could learn just as much by browsing YouTube videos, this is supposed to be better because it's in black and white, is all so subversive, and is likely to get sued, even though it isn't. No, I don't get that last part either.

There's also a lot of faux intellectual bullshit being spread about "Escape from Tomorrow" suggesting that it's like the works of David Lynch, but I didn't notice any similarities to "The Elephant Man", "Dune", "Blue Velvet" or "Wild at Heart". Some of the scenes were clearly filmed using greenscreens, but the overall effect isn't distracting. Is that what David Lynch does? Maybe they are talking about a different David Lynch who goes round theme parks with a handycam. Having said that, "Escape from Tomorrow" isn't a bad movie, but it's far from being a great one either.

SPOILERS!

"Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy?"

The crux of the story is that a henpecked, middle-aged man named Jim (Roy Abramsohn) is looking for a bit of the other on the final day of his vacation. Fired from his job, emasculated by his wife Emily (Elena Schuber), and with his mid-life crisis kicking in, he uses his kids (Jack Dalton and Katelynn Rodriguez) as a cover to clumsily stalk two teenage French girls who attract him by being so high on life (or whatever illegal substance it is that makes them unable to stop laughing). As clichéd and unoriginal as this rather neat borrowing from European-style dramas may be, this is the only bit of "Escape from Tomorrow" that's really good. The acting is decent, the stereotypical effects of a mid-life crisis are portrayed perfectly, and it's all quite believable.

A second "story arc" begins after Jim pervs on a nurse (Amy Lucas) who puts a bandaid on his daughter Sara's scraped knee, and then has an affair with a fairly attractive woman (Alison Lees-Taylor) of his own age instead of the Lolitas who, deep down, Jim knows that he doesn't stand a chance with anyway. Again, this is acceptable storytelling and nothing to strain your brain over. Maybe hooking-up with a stranger in a Disney park for a bit of kinky afternoon delight is far-fetched, but I'm sure stranger things have happened.

Later, although this is my interpretation rather than what is actually shown to happen, the two French girls (Danielle Safady and Annet Mahendru) and their boyfriends realise that Jim is a bit of a sad/creepy pervert, and send the plainer girl with braces on her teeth over to boldly spit in his face and end his little game. Everything else can be written off as Jim's fantasies, daydreams, his mind wandering, his "fever dreams" as he dies from flu, or whatever else you want to call it. Because, if you accept anything else as Jim's reality, the rest of the movie falls apart afterwards.

The trouble is that, for God knows what reason, writer/director Randy Moore decided to completely bollocks-up everything (after the "intermission" at the 61 minute mark) with a totally incongrous scene set inside a mini version of the Epcot dome, wherein it's revealed that Jim is some kind of "sleeper agent" who is being used by the Siemens company to monitor the effects which exposure to the Disney park at a young age would have on his adult life, and in particular, his imagination. So it's all a big experiment being run by the technologically advanced powers-that-be behind the scenes a la "The Cabin in the Woods"? Some might say that this is "intentional misdirection" or playing with the rules of filmmaking, but I call it a gyp! What a pile of horseshit!

"It's a giant testicle!" ...on his head!

The story would have played out better if Jim had been tasered by park security for being a creepy stalker, and he then had to explain to his wife how he lost track of their daughter. The events which follow, including how he works out that his daughter has been kidnapped by the woman who he had an affair with, would then have a more satisfying flow to them and a solvable mystery rather than creating a load of headscratching for the hard of understanding. Unfortunately, I'm sure somewhere out there, there's an original European movie with precisely that plot (I just can't remember the name of it right now, but trust me, I will!), and Randy Moore didn't want to get sued by those filmmakers for plagiarism instead of being non-sued by the Disney corporation who couldn't give a damn about him. Scandal will sell a movie, but only if it's the right kind of scandal, eh?

There's more hogwash at the end in the form of Jim coughing up hairballs because he has "cat flu" (WTF?), and a group of "men in black"—or rather "men in overalls"—who take Jim's dead body away, implant his son Elliot with false happy memories of the Buzz Lightyear ride which he never went on instead of the sadness he probably doesn't even feel over the death of his father (if Jim even was his father), and clean everything up as if nothing ever happened: because nothing bad ever happens at Disney. Oh, it's all so "meta" and pseudo-philosophical that it makes you want to puke!

After two days of thinking about the epilogue and wasting my time by writing out a ten page ecphrasis of the movie to see if I'd missed something which would tie it together better, I can now happily explain it as nothing more than "a tragic reminder of the real life ambitions which the evil Disney corporation stole from one man". Jim isn't reborn, it isn't the afterlife. It's just a flashback to the "real" Jim in the part of his imagination which he never used, i.e. it's what we saw earlier in the mini Siemens minidome, hence why the Epcot dome is shown again just before the epilogue scene happens.

Yup, that's the big intellectual message of the movie and, give or take insulting the Disney Princesses/cosplay girls for being hookers for Japanese businessmen, and saying that the turkey legs (which are sold in the theme parks, not just Disney!) are really made of emu, that's all "Escape from Tomorrow" has got: Disney's brainwashing will stop you being what you are meant to be.

So will making or watching overhyped, shitty independent horror movies. Jog on.

Cassadaga (2011)

"A deaf girl attempts to contact her sister during a séance, only to connect with the ghost of a murdered woman."

Over a year ago, my friend John Slowdeath was promoting "Cassadaga" on his blog as if it was going to be the best horror movie ever. I was, of course, quite suspicious at the time. Owing to the fact that I'd never heard anything about it before, and haven't seen a DVD of it for sale anywhere since, I'm still not entirely sure what all the fuss was about.

As you know, things move pretty slowly around these here parts when it comes to movie reviews. I watch at least three horror movies a day, but, since I have a life, writing about newer movies isn't one of my priorities. I'd rather watch and review old horror movies from the '70s than anything modern anyway, so it has taken me until now to start playing catch-up again.

The weirdest thing I discovered about "Cassadaga" is that there still doesn't appear to be a US Region 1 release of it on DVD. At least, that's my understanding based on my searches through Amazon for an affiliate link. Instead, it's only available as a Region 2 DVD which is no problem except for the extortionate price. Thanks to eBay, that's hardly an impediment either. You can guess which option I chose.

Is "Cassadaga" even worth $11.99 plus shipping though? Not really.

Although not exactly the same story, if you've ever seen "The Gift" (2000), you'd be forgiven for thinking that "Cassadaga" was a slightly reworked remake. Both movies are set in the South, both involve a kidnapper/serial killer, and, obviously, the psychic/haunting angle is almost identical. Comparing the two movies beyond that would be like comparing apples to oranges, but, superficially, they are just two versions of the same thing done by different filmmakers.

I know that there's nothing new under the sun when it comes to horror movie plots so I'm not going to make a big song and dance about it. The differences in "Cassadaga" were enough to keep me entertained all the way to the end, but I still wasn't really satiated by it.

The best thing about "Cassadaga" was Lily as played by Kelen Coleman. I honestly don't remember the last time I saw a deaf character in a horror movie and so she was something different. There's a mute character in "Mute Witness" (1994), of course, and numerous blind characters have been the victims of thrillers from "Wait Until Dark" (1967) through to "Blind Terror" ((1971) and right up to "Blink" (1994). I'm sure there are more which I can't remember, but deaf characters are still quite a rarity. As ever, if you can think of any, let me know in the comments section below.

I can't say that Kelen Coleman was very realistic in the role, but I think the plot hole was nicely avoided by her hearing loss being fairly recent and due to illness rather than from birth. I'm sure her voice would still have changed though, and I wasn't convinced that she couldn't hear anything. To be honest, I didn't really care that much as I was too busy admiring her long limbs and trying to work out if she was actually pretty or not.

"Cassadaga" spent a little bit too much time on characterisation and tended to focus more on Lily's love life with Mike (Kevin Alejandro) than it did on the horror elements, but I didn't mind that. The characters weren't the most interesting so they needed all the help they could get. I would have liked to have seen more of the serial killer, "Geppetto", doing his thing, but that's just my own sick preference. What was shown of his marionettes was still gory and more than enough to get the point across.

My second favourite character was, oddly, the cop played by Lucius Baston. He actually seemed like a nice guy and less dumb than cops usually are in horror movies. I won't say any more, but one of the most overused tropes just had to ruin everything there. I was very annoyed.

I was even more annoyed by the "Scooby Doo"-style reveal of the killer's identity since, not only was it predictable, there wasn't enough made of that character to even care. The "red herring" suspect was far more interesting.

At times, "Cassadaga" was a little bit confusing. It also lost its pace after about 40 minutes and then floundered for another hour as it swapped the focus of the plot way too many times. Combining a ghost story with a serial killer thriller was a nice idea, but it didn't really work in this case. Justice was served too quickly and far too neatly just to make way for yet another overly sentimental scene before the ending fell completely flat.

The few jump scares did nothing for me, and the epilogue with a final shock was completely unnecessary unless there is going to be a sequel. As much as I wouldn't mind seeing more of Kelen Coleman in movies, I really don't want to see a sequel to "Cassadaga" if at all possible.