Escape from Tomorrow – Honey, did that seem normal to you?

Runtime: 90 minutes
Release Date: April 29, 2014
Rating: NR
Director: Randy Moore


Jim, his wife Emily, their son Elliott, and their daughter Sara, are on their last day in Orlando. While taking a phone call on the balcony of their hotel room, Jim discovers that he just lost his job. Rather than tell his wife what happened, he decides to keep it a secret to avoid ruining their last day. The family heads off to have some fun together.


While on the monorail, Jim sees two young girls get on with them. The girls pretty much make out without actually kiss, give him enticing glances, and generally act like huge sluts. Emily notices, rolls her eyes, and gives him a gentle smack before realizing that her son keeps staring at them too. Though the family plans to spend most of the day in the parks, Elliott gets sick after Jim takes him on a roller coaster. Emily agrees to let him take Sara to the Magic Kingdom while she takes Elliott back to the room and they can meet up later.


While on one of the rides, Jim gets distracted and loses sight of Sara. He later finds her outside the ride, sitting on the ground, and crying over a scraped knee. A man in a motorized wheelchair accidentally hit her and knocked her down. Jim snaps at the man before taking her to the medical center. This gives him the chance to stare down the nurse's shirt and halfheartedly listen as she talks to him about the cat flu sweeping through the parks.


It's kind of hard to explain this movie, so let's just say that a lot of weird crap happens. Jim keeps seeing the same two girls from the beginning making out around the park, acting like they might make out, or run off with two guys. At one point, the two girls ask him to run away with them but they turn him down. He also has far too much to drink and throws up, which embarrasses his wife, and he sees rich businessmen fondling the Disney princesses.


Escape from Tomorrow caught my eye when I saw the cover. How can you resist a cover like that? Unfortunately, the movie really failed to deliver. This turned out to be one of the most confusing movies I've watched in recent months. As I watched the film, I kept thinking that there would be some wild and crazy twist at the end. I thought maybe it was all a figment of his imagination, that it would turn out that it was all a dream, and I had about a dozen other theories. Turns out that the ending makes about as much sense as the rest of the movie.


I can point out that Emily is easily one of the most annoying characters I've seen in awhile. The director wants to show that the two aren't happy but he goes a little too far. At one point, Jim attempts to kiss her while riding a ride with their kids in front of them. She acts like he tried to rape her and she had to fight him off. She then yells at him for not putting sunscreen on their daughter, for daring to take their son on a (gasp) roller coaster, and snaps because he bought her a souvenir from the park. It got to the point where we all rolled our eyes as soon as she opened her mouth.


Setting a horror movie in a park like Disney World and the way the director and actors did it, i.e. filming late at night, keeping things low key, and doing it without the permission of Disney, took some balls. It had a great premise, but this movie just lost me.