I Got a Bad Case of the Zoomies

 

Not surprisingly, the first film to debut during the COVID-19 lockdown specifically addressing the issue was a horror movie. Historically, the genre has always been first in any cinematic race of social commentary, and today's technology makes it even easier for a style that thrives on low budget to succeed. 

Host didn't do much for me, mostly because I thought the same story had been told better in the Unfriended series. Also, its success meant we'd get more of this style. 

Eek.

Quick Plot: A batch of late twentysomething pals meet up for their regular Zoom parties, this time to celebrate the birthday of the awful Evan. Almost all seven of our main characters are pretty terrible, but Evan, as we will soon see, is both toxic AND stupid. 

The somewhat less awful Ollie has surprised his pals with a dose of molly carefully delivered by no-contact FedEx. Here's where we learn that indeed, they're all the worst.

It's 2023 (in this case, a fictional 2022 where COVID has mutated to even deadlier strains the country is under strict police state law) but as far as I know, we stopped pushing drugs on people with the '90s D.A.R.E. program. One of the gang (patent lawyer Ben, a newer member of the jerk club) doesn't like to do drugs. WHICH IS FINE. So what do his boyfriend and the five other pals do? 

I'm supposed to LIKE these people? Please understand, I have nothing against drugs. I have a LOT against people who FORCE their friends into taking them when they clearly explain that they're uncomfortable doing so. 

Because I don't hate these characters enough, they proceed to play Never Have I Ever (again, FINE) but pause for Ollie and his girlfriend to go have sex (HOW OLD ARE THESE PEOPLE?) and for Evan to flip out when his girlfriend Jen reveals a sexual escapade from high school that he didn't know about. This was apparently 15 years ago, 10 years before she knew him, but he is AGHAST at the fact that she once slept with two different guys in one day. 

Run, Jen. Run.

Too late. They argue, Evan flails his arms out in such a way that Jen flies back and smashes her head on a hard desk. Everybody on Zoom happened to be looking away at the time (either having sex or arguing because THESE PEOPLE ARE AWFUL) so no one quite knows what happened, but since Jen isn't breathing, the natural response is for Evan to get the hell out of there.

I feel like there are other options here.

Granted, before you, like every sane human being, scream "CALL AN AMBULANCE", I will remind you that this is a slightly more dystopian present than the one we're in now. It's muddy, but I'll accept Safer At Home's reality that hospitals are overwhelmed and anything non-COVID-related might not be acknowledged. Plus, did I mention these idiots are all high on molly?

So, Evan runs, perfectly stable selfie stick guiding us the whole way. Ollie heads out to help, and everyone else worriedly watches from their couches. There's a twist ending that most functioning adults on or off molly will guess, particularly if you've seen director Will Wenick's Follow Me. 

Like most of the internet, I hated this movie. Zoom-based thrillers only work if your cast can pull it off, and this one...doesn't. They're hampered by dialogue that rotates between bland and painful, and a narrative that hurts the brain of any thinking adult. The ending would be offensive if it wasn't, well, so stupid. 

I guess that's my way of being nice to this movie?

High Points

Hey, as with Host, I respect the idea of using video calls to craft a narrative, and Safer At Home at least has some fresh ideas in centering on a manhunt in a darker timeline (if only, you know, it worked)

Low Points

As if this film needed another reason to make you groan, it's bookended by real news footage of Donald Trump giving press conferences about the pandemic he mishandled. Nobody needs that. 

Lessons Learned

Safer At Home succeeds in one very specific arena: it teaches anyone who lasts its 85 minute runtime that drugs will indeed impair your brain activity.

Rent/Bury/Buy

I can't think of anyone I know that I would have their life improved by watching Safer At Home. I'll leave it at that. 

Pretty Little Vloggers

The last time I watched a movie about hot young 20somethings who find themselves in a horror movie set in Moscow, I ended up with beyond dreadful, still infuriating The Darkest Hour. Still, my rule of covering every horror movie starring a Pretty Little Liars alumni is not limited to the ladies, so with Keegan Allen (aka Toby, THE WORST) headlining No Escape, I clicked my Hulu button and dove in.

Quick Plot: Cole is celebrating 10 years as a social media influencer (which I would think would make him something of a senior citizen in that world) by heading to Moscow with his hip pals. A night partying goes awry when some very tough-looking Muscovites make threatening moves on Cole's girlfriend Erin. Guns are drawn, threats in different languages made, but Cole's fan/Russian escort Alexei is able to diffuse the situation cleanly enough. 

The next day, Cole finds out his big anniversary vlog will be an elaborate escape room (not shocking considering writer/director Will Wernick is the same guy behind the OTHER, non-theatrical horror movie about escape rooms called Escape Room). He's disappointed at first, but his pals assure him this will be well-worth the trip.

Now is the time during this review where I instruct you to take out your Saw bingo card, because who boy do we have some references to check. Cole awakens in a room with a sleeping body and instructions to carve into his guts to remove a key that will help free his friends who are all trapped in various torture devies (that really do feel like they were purchased at a discount from Lionsgate's last yard sale). 

The escape room aspect goes away rather quickly as the action shifts to a more straightforward "trapped in an abandoned Russian prison with homicidal dark web vloggers who have seen the Hostel series way too many times" slasher. It's bloody. It's mean. And yes, there's a twist. 

No Escape is one of those movies that I by no means didn't like, but that I'll have an incredibly difficult time remembering that I ever sat down and spent 90 minutes with it. Yes, it feels incredibly beholden to a number of 21st century horror films already mentioned here, and nothing it does is particularly better than any of them. 

But hey: a perfectly slick and mediocre horror movie is still something I enjoy watching, and you know what? I had fun with this. It's basically what I expected, very little more, and sometimes, that's more than satisfying for a lazy Sunday afternoon.

High Points

As much as Cole is painted as your pretty typical pretty boy millennial, he makes an incredibly important and selfless choice when the going gets tough that helps to earn some audience investment into his fate

Low Points

Compared to something like #Horror or the very underrated Spree, No Escape's attempts to weave its social media graphics into the greater film style feels fairly lazy

Lessons Learned

There's really one overwhelming lesson to take from No Escape, but to explain it would be a spoiler. You can probably figure it out as the film nears its conclusion, but No Escape's moral is so blinding (and when you think back on the film, should have been VERY CLEAR to a lot of its characters) that I simply didn't learn anything else!

Rent/Bury/Buy

There are better horror movies about escape rooms (and I mean the shockingly delightful Escape Room) and attractive ugly Americans being served bloody lessons overseas, but No Escape isn't the worst unremarkable horror movie to pass the time. It's dumb, but did you expect much more?