Lionsgate is gearing to unleash the puzzling horror film Escape the Field, about a group of strangers who wake up in a huge cornfield. They must work together, using the items they woke up with, and beat mazes to escape. But they aren’t alone, something deadly lurks amongst the rows.
Escape the Field features a cast that includes Shane West, Jordan Claire Robbins, Theo Rossi, Tahirah Sharif, Julian Feder, and Elena Juatco. First off, all but two characters are not only unlikable, they are dicks, giving viewers zero reasons to care about what happens to them. The only two likable characters are played by Theo Rossi and Jordan Claire Robbins who give decent performances. The rest, well, they lack character development and depth, but that’s not their fault. They just serve to raise the body count.
The constant trips the characters make back and forth to retrieve items they forget are a bit obnoxious. It wastes so much time that could have been dedicated to filling out the story or characters. But no. Watching people roam around in corn at night is what we get.
As for the location, the giant cornfield, it was a good choice, in fact, it’s the best decision made during the making of this movie. It’s a cheap and easy location. And if you have ever been in a field of mature corn you know the terror that it can bring. It’s claustrophobic, isolating, and panic sets in quickly when you can’t see a way out
The biggest thing that irked me is the fact that not one, not two, but four characters are stabbed in the same place in different ways, in different circumstances. Why? What’s the obsession with gut wounds? It’s a waste of an opportunity to do something unique or at least creative.
There could have been so many ways the story could have been enhanced, but instead, we watch people making stupid decisions after stupid decisions. However, the movie’s main flaw is the lack of character and story development in general. Everything is only surface deep. The movie does have decent effects and looks pretty good, but a movie needs more substance than that.
With this being director Emerson Moore and his co-writers Sean Wathen, and Joshua Dobkin’s first feature film I am willing to cut them some slack. But I hope that it is a good lesson that style should never come before substance and that every movie actually needs some substance.
To me, it seems obvious that this movie is here to pave the way for a sequel or franchise. But do we really need a sequel? Don’t we already have too many sequels to movies that don’t deserve them?
If you insist on watching Escape the Field you can do so in theaters, on Digital, or On-Demand on May 6, 2022, from Lionsgate.
