Escape from Tomorrow is a unique indie horror movie with its own clandestine production story. The real draw is that this movie was illegally and secretly filmed almost entirely in Disney World Florida. It portrays a world as far removed from the Disney microcosm as you can get. Disney Princesses are high-priced prostitutes, the park is infested with pedophiles, the Epcot Centre holds a terrible secret and guest can just disappear and be experimented on. The director Randy Moore edited the movie in South Korea to protect himself from the looming ‘House of Mouse’. Nothing like it has ever been done before. Guerilla style filmmaking like this is just going to keep happening. Cameras now fit in pockets, come in phones, even on glasses. There is a man in Norway with bionic implants including a camera in his eye socket, who is considered the first “real” cyborg, and was subjected to the first anti-cyborg hate crime. Camera’s are everywhere, and anyone can be a director. Anywhere can be a background. Lawyers and security companies will have a field day.

“Escape from Tomorrow” is ostensibly a suspense/horror movie, but there is no explicit threat, no explanation, nothing is explained. Vague hints are dropped here and there, references to a disease, spies, but there is no explanation about what the victims are suffering from.

“Escape from Tomorrow” is about as far from the Disney image as you can get. The film itself is fine, taken on its own merits it’s an acceptable suspense/horror film, but not spectacular. The iron balls of director Randy Moore is what makes it memorable. To walk into Disney and spend hours each day trying to line up shots and set up different scenes throughout The Park, all without getting caught, takes courage. The scope and difficulty of this guerilla style filmmaking cannot be overstated. There are already multiple internet shows creating original content with personal equipment, many include “urban exploration” (or as the courts call it, trespassing) to find the right scene, but abandoned hospitals and crumbling ruins don’t have Disney’s well-documented and occasionally hilarious history of protecting their image. The movie’s official site includes a ticker that counts down the amount of hours they have not been sued. As of writing, it stands at 10 weeks, 0 days, 15 hours, 31 minutes and 25 seconds.

So, what did Disney do? They could have buried it under legalese and red tape and filthy, filthy lawyers. They could have bought it and distributed it themselves. They could have mounted up, boarded their helicopters and made the filmmakers disappear. Or they could ignore it, and let it die on its own. If they brought the full fire and fury of the Mouse down on Moore’s head, there was a very real chance of making him a martyr, turning the movie into some sort of symbol and giving themselves bad publicity. Instead, possibly learning from past mistakes, they are ignoring it, letting PDA distribute it to theatres and VOD. According to boxofficemojo, it earned $171,962 on a budget of $650,000, but this figure does not include VOD sales, which have earned $120,560, according to a Deadline article dated October 28th. All together, that’s $292,522, a substantial loss.

Disney made the right call, and their image is largely unblemished. This movie exists, and will continue to exist. The message will continue broadcasting, but there aren’t that many listening yet. Undoubtedly in years to come it will grow in popularity and inspire other filmmakers, but for now I have to consider it an interesting failure. Definitely check it out if you ever get the chance, “Escape From Tomorrow” is a good one and deserves more attention than its getting.

Donal O’Connor

@EscapeTomorrow @RoyAbramsohn #Disney #horror