Escapee

Released by: Anchor Bay Entertainment
Released on: April 16, 2103.
Director: Campion Murphy
Cast: Dominic Purcell, Christine Evangelista
Year: 2011
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The Movie:

Who let the dogs out?

Dominic Purcell (from the risible STRAW DOGS remake) is a convicted killer being moved from a previous secure location to a new psychiatric facility. While the idiotic authorities are transporting this menace, a group of female students are touring the psycho house. In the film's single dumbest moment the girls are allowed to remain in a room that Jaxon (Purcell) has to travel through during the transfer BUT INSTEAD of moving the girls to a safer room, the powers that be tell the girls to look at the wall and not make eye contact while he passes through. Now what are the chances that one of these female nitwits will violate that prime directive? And that our boy will develop an unhealthy obsession? And that he'll do something about it later? Something... bad?

You guessed right!

Our lucky bimbo is Abby (Christine Evangelista). After escaping her little scrape at the mental home, she returns to her apartment for a night of hanging out with her roommate and friends. Everything's cool, right?

Hell no - plotting 101 dictates that the killer escape (hence the clever film title) and go on one of the most boring and lame stalk and kill missions ever filmed. While I love a slasher - even a dumb one - it has to have at least some panache. This has zilch. It's HALLOWEEN II: THE LAME VERSION and the dialog is just verbal garbage with the girls speaking in Internet 'OMG' and 'LOL' style cliches. Every kill is either lamely shot or cribbed from a better movie. Seriously, how can people complain about movies like JASON X when crap like this is around? And if you can't guess the twist at the end head out for a CAT scan and check for a brain injury.

Films like ESCAPEE pose a problem in that there just isn't anything interesting about them. They just sort of sit there on the screen like the visual equivalent of a dead fish. Unpleasant and best forgotten - but not memorably rotten either. This will obviously not make anyone's best of list but it won't make a so-bad-you-remember-it three months from now either list. MR. HUSH of the month maybe?

Audio/Video/Extras:

ESCAPEE looks fine. It has that slightly unnatural look that many recent DTV productions have but that has nothing to do with the quality of the MPEG-4 AVC 1080p 1.78:1 transfer. That's a function of the lighting and digital cameras used. Detail, black levels and definition are generally strong - though the film's purposely low-lit photography makes it fairly drab visually.

Audio is a very good DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track in English. Dialog balance and effects are excellent with subtle use of surround channels. This is a nice mix - too bad the dialog is so awful.

Extras are limited to a 15 minute making of documentary that intimates that this is based on some sort of true story (nonsense), a trailer that's a yawn and a lame photo gallery of ten stills.

The Final Word:

Dull as dishwater, as interesting as a visit to the DMV and as derivative as a generic cola ESCAPEE is best escaped by not watching.

Click on the images below for full sized Blu-ray screen caps!