Panic Button
Directed by: Chris CrowStarring: Scarlett Alice Johnson, Jack Gordon, Elen Rhys, Michael Jibson Synopsis: Four young people win the competition of a lifetime; Jo, Max, Gwen and Dave are heading off on an all-expenses-paid trip to New York, courtest of the social network site, “All2gether.com”. As they board their private jet, they are asked to relinquish their mobile phones and take part in the in-flight entertainment – a new, online experience. Once airborne the game begins, and it soon becomes evident through a series of twisted and sickening tasks, that the passengers’ mystery host knows far more than they ever dared imagine, but are they all as innocent as they seem? Trapped at 30,000 ft in the air and with everything at stake, the four find themselves set on a horrific course, forcing them to play for their lives... Review:Chris Crow’s first feature is an interesting melding of two horror subgenres. On the one hand you have the” viral death-match”: people being forced/coerced to kill each other and broadcast online. On top of this is the Locked Room, where our protagonists must figure a way out of their single location. So there are shades of Big Brother meets Battle Royale meets Fermat’s Room! As if this weren’t enough to consider, he also adds a deadline and has most of the film play out in real-time. Our entry-point to the film is Jo, a young single mother who dotes on her young daughter, and feels conflicted about being apart from her for the first time. Straight away, Crow and screenwriter Frazer Lee show part of their hand, for no sooner is Jo being whisked off to the airport, than her mother is killed by a masked gunman and her daughter’s fate is unknown. At the airport we meet the other three winners of the competition – Max, Dave and Gwen. Gwen is pretty quiet, while Dave is a boisterous oik. Max meanwhile remains an enigma – it’s mentioned that this is the first time they’ve seen his face as he doesn’t have any photos on his web-page. 
Once the flight is underway, and the foursome have gotten accustomed to the champagne and swanky surroundings, the “game” begins. Hosting the game is “Alligator”, an animated alligator that appears on the touch-screens, and talks like the voice from a cinema’s automated telephone booking service.A simple round of questions based on their profile pages and online habits seems innocent enough, but the questions get more and more intrusive and it’s soon apparent that all four people, even our supposed protagonist Jo, are pretty damaged people. Alligator has been scouring the internet – profile information, browsing and downloading history, answers to online questionnaires - to take a very close look at all of their private lives. Alligator is able to make the quartet very uncomfortable with the information it throws at each of them, none of which paints any of them in a particularly good light. The other thing about the internet is that we feel safe within a level of anonymity, hiding behind cute sounding User Names and avatars, and sometimes that anonymity allows us – some of us - to indulge the darker aspects of our personality. Not only will Panic Button’s themes and the various “crimes” committed by our four winners resonate with many viewers as they have a “ripped from the headlines” feel to them, but they will also make the audience reflect on what sort of information might be available about themselves. Panic Button highlights the fact that most of us would consider what we look at, read, write, interact with online is a private affair and no one else’s business. The foursome on the plane’s reaction to their online exposure is exactly how most of us would react. 
The roles of the four “winners” are well played and for the most part kept quite realistic. I wasn’t too keen about them at the start of the film, where some of them have to take part in some info-dump, but once their facade starts to slip, they become more naturalistic. The best acted scene is when each of them is asked to talk to Alligator in private – the look and demeanor of each of them, slumped in their chairs, is excellent.
The cinematography and editing puts the audience in the midst of the action, on the plane – which is important, considering what is at stake towards the end of the film. You could imagine, considering the twin influences of Big Brother and Facebook, that it might have been tempting to present the story via web-cams and closed-circuit tv footage, which would have distanced the audience from the action. The film trusts it’s audience, parsing out information only when necessary and even allowing the audience to be kept in the dark when it needs to raise the tension. Not only that, but the plot manages to pull off a number of good twists and turns, even upping the stakes beyond immediate survival. Verdict: Panic Button is one of those rare films which gives you a lot to think about in the midst of the tension and mayhem that takes place. Recommended. 8 out of 10 (MikeOutWest) New! CommentsHave your say about this! Leave me a comment in the box below. |
