Movies have been created for over 100 years now and having an ‘original’ idea is most likely impossible, especially now, when most of the world has a video camera in their pocket. However there is nothing wrong with having taken an idea that’s been done and adding one’s own twist to it making it something new and something audience’s haven’t seen before. That is exactly what I was hoping to encounter with Emerson Moore’s Escape the Field. Instead what audiences got was something they’ve seen thousands of times, with nothing even remotely new brought to the forefront and performances that are nothing short of hollow. What should have been an incredibly fun 90 minute romp of horrors and psychotic kills ended up being the same old song and dance audience’s have seen dozens of times prior.
Six strangers consisting of Tyler (Theo Rossi), Ryan (Shane West), Sam (Jordan Claire Robbins), Cameron (Tahirah Sharif), Denise (Elena Juatco) and Ethan (Julian Feder) all stumble across one another as they wake up in the middle of a field with no idea how or why they are there. Each of them wakes up with one item in their immediate presence, and after developing an incredibly small bond of trust in one another they try to team together to, you guessed it, escape the field. However, things are not as they seem, as what is assumed to be a Predator like creature is hunting them one by one and tries to take them out with unexplainable reasons in casually gruesome ways. While throughout the entire film you’re hoping to get a Cabin in the Woods esque twist, you’re left with an underdeveloped and underdeveloped Escape Room turn, that doesn’t get fully explained or revealed.
What works in Escape the Field, if anything, is the short run time. It is just under 90 minutes and with some of the kills it at least provides some fun deaths, but that is unfortunately where the fun ends. There is not an ounce of charisma in any of the characters and no one from the cast seems to really know what they’re trying to make or what they’re trying to say. It is a shame because if the cast decided to have fun with it and wanted to create a tense anxiety ridden atmosphere in a terrifying game of cat and mouse it could’ve been fun, instead their performances were the final nail in the coffin.
Escape the Field is a mess with potential that just decides to throw everything at the wall and see what sticks. With lackluster performances and sheer uninspired story telling, there is not much to grab onto in Escape the Field. Stay for the gruesome kills if that’s your thing, otherwise don’t enter the field.