Panic Button

PANIC BUTTON is another low budget 'single location' thriller about a group of people trapped in one place and forced to confront some unpalatable truths about themselves. Although much is made of the plane setting, the lack of a special effects budget means that this might as well be set anywhere: a train carriage, a cellar, you name it.

The film has much in common with your usual thriller in this mould and indeed one of the cast, Jack Gordon, would go on to be in the almost identical TRUTH OR DARE (which was much better, by the way). The usual problems unfold, namely poor scripting which takes the form of unlikeable cast members you either don't care about or actively wish bad stuff to happen to.

The low budget nature of the production precludes the presence of any name actors and the best they can come up with for a lead is a former EASTENDERS actress, Scarlett Alice Johnson. None of the actors are particularly bad, but they're not great either when saddled with such underwhelming characters. I appreciate that the emphasis is on the psychological here rather than unnecessary torture porn but the running time does drag and there's not much to get excited about when all is said and done.

This is a weird one to review, I mean, there's almost no blood in it and still I wouldn't advice it to kids to watch this flick. And it's easy to say that it is in the line of Saw, watch it, somebody giving orders to 4 players on a plane. It is Chris Crow his second attempt to make a full feature and for being filmed just on a plane he did a fine job. Due being less on horror I still kept watching what was really going on and I even laughed a bit with the inside joke about Big Brother.

The acting was really good and you start to know the 4 players in the beginning and you must admit that if you were in the same game you wouldn't like to reveal yourself. Everybody has his dark secrets and this is in fact were it's all about. It made me even think about the internet, it's a fact everything you do is being watched or registered on some server.

The story itself did have some twists but the end I personally didn't like. But at the end of the day, it is a suspense full thriller with some pieces of torture, I would say without offending somebody, if you can't stand the gore in Saw than watch this one.

Gore 1/5 Nudity 0/5 Effects 2/5 Story 3/5 Comedy 0/5

That kind of movie (a bunch of people stuck in a small location) is always a gamble. Every actor has to be good, the story must be interesting and well written, the director must know where he's going. You can't hide an empty script or anything else behind some great camera work, an amazing location or a celebrity among the actors.

In that case, I have to say: well done !

It's not a great movie but it's a good one, which is impressive considering its kind and the fact that it's a low budget.

Original concept, but it is a little similar to SAW, also the ' Frog voice' ,... hehe, but more pleasant to watch , with less blood and torture! Not bad at all for a low budget thriller/horrisch movie. And the actors are not bad either.

I wanted to give it a 1/2 star instead of a full star, but I couldn't figure how to do it.

The premise seemed promising at the beginning, but everything started to fall off after about 15 minutes into the movie.

The acting is terrible; the characters aren't even remotely interesting. You can't sympathize or hate(for that matter) any of the characters.

The ending is absolutely meaningless! And when the credit rolls you involuntarily spit in your soda.

British cinema used to be great, but alas; it's gone Hollywood. We're all awaiting its return.