Escape from Tomorrow

Filmmaker Randy Moore's low-budget horror fantasy about a man going insane at Disney World was filmed inside the enormous amusement parks in Florida and California—without permission from Disney. The story revolves around a park-hopping family of four headed up by Everyman father, Jim (Roy Abramsohn), who begins to go bonkers after receiving a phone call from his boss informing him that he's been fired. Deciding not to tell his family and ruin their fun, Jim is nevertheless testy with his nagging wife (Elena Schuber) and kids (Jack Dalton, Katelynn Rodriguez)—particularly when the Buzz Lightyear ride shuts down just as they're preparing to board. Obviously distressed and disoriented, Jim ogles two flirty teenage French girls and drunkenly imagines himself in bed with a middle-aged fairytale princess (Alison Lees-Taylor). He views animatronic figures as the personification of evil, pretends to shoot himself with a Frontierland rifle, and believes that he's been tasered in the groin and brainwashed in a secret laboratory underneath Epcot's Spaceship Earth sphere. So how did Moore and his crew get away with this stunt? Cinematographer Lucas Lee Graham used an innocuous Canon 5D Mark II camera to slip the House of Mouse this sinister, surreal mickey. Unfortunately, it all comes across more as gimmick than cogent commentary on Disney fantasy during hard times. Optional, at best. [Note: DVD/Blu-ray extras include two audio commentaries (one by writer-director Randy Moore and cinematographer Lucas Lee Graham; the other by costars Roy Abramsohn and Elena Schuber in character), a “making-of” featurette (15 min.), a poster gallery, and trailers. Bottom line: a fine extras package for an unsatisfying, oddball film.] (S. Granger)