Escape the Field

While efficiency and originality are both pluses in genre filmmaking, neither of them should come at the expense of creating an immersive world that sparks the imagination, or characters the audience actually cares about. With both of those qualities so woefully underdeveloped, Escape the Field feels not only like a midseason episode, but a premature series finale.

Escape the Field won’t change the world, but it is a solid showing for everyone involved, and it works overtime to keep the audience entertained throughout – at least until the sequel-bait ending for a movie that will probably never happen.

In the end, Escape the Field is tolerable at best. It doesn't shatter any expectations, but it won’t be utterly hated if one decides to give it a go. There are more charming and innovative horror-thrillers about escaping a maze, but Escape the Field tries. For a first feature, it is serviceable for a small-budget venture.

The more we know, the less mysterious and less interesting Escape the Field is. The more that’s revealed, the more obvious the panic amongst those writers becomes.

It's ambitious, but with such hand-holding dramatic direction and a dreary visual palette that never creates terror out of random corn stalks, it couldn’t be more dull.