Escapee Blu-ray delivers great video and audio, but overall it's a mediocre Blu-ray release
A psychology student is targeted by a violent, mentally ill patient during a class field trip, and when the patient escapes the hospital, he tracks her andher friends down during a terrifying electrical storm that has them trapped in an old house.
For more about Escapee and the Escapee Blu-ray release, see the Escapee Blu-ray Review published by Martin Liebman on April 18, 2013 where this Blu-ray release scored 2.5 out of 5.
As with any modern entertainment medium -- literature, music, video games -- cinema finds itself on a weekly basis dealing with the inevitable arrival
of yet another unremarkable entry, a film that no doubt sounded good rattling around in one's mind, on the page in script form, at a studio pitch,
maybe even on the set. Unfortunately, not every idea translates well to film, not every picture is destined to be a hit, not every Tuesday sees only
top-tier releases dropped onto Blu-ray. Escapee is one of the unfortunate ones, a movie that simply doesn't work. Whether it seemed like a
good idea at the
time, whether there was a problem in the translation from creative process to end picture, whether it was simply a case of the numbers working out to
show a profit on an unlikely-to-generate-buzz movie, Escapee just fails as a finished movie. It's a repetitive, thoughtless,
copycat Slasher movie with no imagination, boring characters, an awful script, and endless predictability. It's certainly not the worst movie ever to be
pressed onto a Blu-ray disc, but it ranks right up near the top of the least creative and most artistically hollow films of these first years of the 21st
century.
I'm gonna get you.
Jaxon (Dominic Purcell) is a hardened murder going on five years off the streets following the killing of a young lady. He's being transported to a
psychiatric facility where a group of students are on tour. Rather than move the students to a secure room out of the way, they're told to face the
wall
and, at all costs, avoid eye contact with the entering inmate. All comply except Abby (Christine Evangelista), a young lady whose father long ago
passed away inside the very same walls. When Jaxon spots Abby eyeing him, he breaks free, tackles her to the ground, and whispers, "you're
mine." It rattles her but seems like an isolated incident from which she'll be able to move on. She returns home to hang out with her roommate
Lynne (Carly Chaikin) and friend Renee
(Melissa Ordway). As Renee prepares for a night on the town with her boyfriend, Abby and Lynne attempt to get some studying done. Little do they
know that they're instead in for a night of terror. Jaxon has escaped, leaving a trail of bodies in his wake as he hunts down Abby, determined to stop
at
nothing until he's found her.
Escapee muddles through one of the most linear plots ever committed to film -- mad psych ward inmate catches whiff of a pretty young girl,
escapes, and kills a number of people on his way to her -- and never once does it deviate from its path. The film rates as ridiculously predictable as it
moves from A-to-B-to-C without so much as even a hint of suspense. It's the Thriller/Horror film equivalent of structural nonchalance, a movie that
grinds through the course towards the inevitable. Sure there's a "revelation" at the end, but it's hardly of much dramatic substance and it doesn't
drastically reshape much of anything that came before it. The entire movie is a slog through a predictable wasteland of genre cliché. The film really
only serves to remind its audience of superior productions along the way as everything from Halloween II to The Shining are in some way recalled, whether intentionally on the part
of
the filmmakers or not. From the thoughtless police procedural elements to unoriginal killings (including the teens in the tent, one of whom goes to
investigate a scary noise that interrupts a lovemaking session...yawn), Escapee is one long ninety-some minute example of how
not
to construct a teen Slasher film. This one gives "generic" a bad name.
Unfortunately, the ugly doesn't end with the uncomplicated plot and recycled genre elements. Escapee highlights a number of obnoxious
characters whose purpose seems to be extending the runtime rather than contributing anything meaningful to the story. Not only is the villain a
walking wafer with no depth whatsoever, the trio of female teenage heroines epitomize the classic modern stereotype with every word they speak,
including gems such as "TMI!," "Totally!," and "Shut...up!." The empty but nevertheless lengthy exchanges amount to nothing of consequence for
the plot, unless one counts
the excess time it takes to get one of the girls into and back out of the house on her way to an outing with her boyfriend and on to the slaughter as
a
contribution. The mindless and
meaningless banter grinds the movie to a figurative halt with every syllable, leaving audiences hoping for the characters' demise if only to get the
dialogue out of the
way. Unfortunately, the villain is just as forgettable as the girls. Dominic Purcell does appear to try to bring a sense of menace and fear to his
character (he often looks like Crisp from Kindergarten Cop sans ponytail) but has so little with which to work
that his rather stiff, lumbering performance may be forgiven.
Escapee features a modern-styled, HD video-sourced high definition transfer. It's of that very clean, sterile, glossy sort, the kind that's highly
inorganic but nevertheless capable of revealing some very intricate details, which this transfer does with minimal effort. Despite some dreary, darkened
scenes for most of the film's exteriors, the brighter elements -- at the daytime outdoor beginning, inside the girls' home, at the hospital during the
school tour --
reveal very fine, very intricate textures, notably thick facial lines and environmental nuance both outdoors and in. There are quite a few overly dark
scenes where details can be reduced or nearly washed away completely, and black levels can fluctuate to a dark purplish shade. Colors are adequate,
again at their best in the brightest scenes but holding their own even under the film's numerous low-light shots. The image shows some light banding
across solid-colored skies and walls, a hallmark element of these excessively glossy, slightly lower-end HD productions. Otherwise, the transfer is about
as good as can be expected for material of this sort.
Escapee runs onto Blu-ray with a good, balanced DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 lossless soundtrack. From the start, listeners will note a nice,
smooth, naturally spaced musical presentation that plays effortlessly around the stage in good balance. It's supported by a gentle but critical low end
that remains firm but not excessive or rattly. Light environmental ambience supports the scene and helps to sonically define the location, making use
of all the speakers to create an admittedly quiet but resourceful surround experience. There are some additional quality sound elements, including
naturally falling rain and booming thunder and helicopters flying overhead to positive, natural effect. There's not much else to the track; this is mostly a
straightforward dialogue film. The spoken word comes through clearly for the most part, though it does fall into a sort of tinny, harsh, muddled tone
during the early parts of the hospital tour scene. Otherwise, it's a good, basic high definition listen that suits the movie well.
Making Of (HD, 14:37): Cast and crew discuss the "folklore" behind the story, the general plot, character specifics, the film's layered depth,
and more. The piece also features some semi-interesting raw on-set footage.
Escapee brings nothing new to the genre table. It's a hollow shell of a movie with no vision, a dull villain, and obnoxiously chatty would-be
victims. All of the characters are vacant vessels that serve no purpose other than crude plot advancement. That's not a good sign for the main
characters. The violence is tame, the main story is terribly linear, the police procedural elements and characters are dull, and the surprise at the end
adds
precious little dramatic value to an already minimalist sort of film. This is a classic no-thought film that trudges through dullsville as slowly as any film
before it. Anchor Bay's Blu-ray release of Escapee features a few throwaway supplements to go along with upper-level video and audio. Skip it.
Anchor Bay Home Entertainment has officially announced that it will release on Blu-ray director Campion Murphy's horror thriller Escapee (2011), starring Dominic Purcell, Christine Evangelista and Melissa Ordway. The release will be available for purchase online ...
