Escape the Field (Movie Review)

Escape the Field is built around an undeniable, if somewhat well-worn, hook: a group of strangers awaken one-by-one in a cornfield. They have no idea how they got there, why they in particular were selected, or how to escape. They also appear to have each been granted one item that is crucial to their survival, such as a gun with a single bullet, a compass, or a flask half-filled with water. Will they be able to band together to solve the puzzles that point to the truth of their situation, or will they succumb to the mysterious and threatening creature that walks behind the rows?

So yeah, it’s Cube in a cornfield. Or In the Tall Grass with escape room puzzles. Or outdoor Escape Room. Or Maze Runner on a straight-to-VOD budget (I assume - I’ve never seen it, but surely that’s what it’s about, right?). There are any number of movies built around some variation of the same plot, and for good reason - the formula works. You’re tossed into a movie where you immediately have a bunch of questions and the satisfaction comes from seeing those questions answered over the next 90 minutes.

I won’t spoil the answers here, but suffice it to say they’re adequate, if nothing new or exciting. If you wrote down three blind guesses in the first five minutes of the movie about what’s going on, you’d probably get pretty close with one of them. For me, a nerd who has an iPad full of The Room games and their knockoffs, the biggest draw is the puzzles. Items are repurposed for innovative uses, things are put into other things to open yet another thing, switches are flipped, practically anything can turn out to be a map. Judged solely on the level of watching someone do a Let’s Play on a puzzle video game, Escape the Field is fairly satisfying.

Obviously, this isn’t a video game, though, it’s a movie with actors and everything. There are some recognizable faces like Jordan Claire Roberts (The Umbrella Academy) and Theo Rossi (Sons of Anarchy, Luke Cage), who are both fine in the co-lead roles. Their backstories are “doctor” and “dad” respectively and that type of single word archetype is about all you’re going to get as far as characterization goes. Like every other element of the film, it gets the job done even if it never really provides anything beyond the bare minimum.

Unless you’ve never seen any of the superior versions of this story, you’re not going to be dazzled by Escape the Field. This is a straight down the middle, easily watchable, yet utterly unremarkable low budget flick. It’s the kind of movie made to half watch on a lazy Sunday afternoon while you fold laundry. There’s nothing wrong with taking a proven formula and executing a solid B-/C+ version of it - it’s no secret that whole swathes of the horror genre wouldn’t exist without middling, yet still entertaining versions of better movies. You won’t love Escape the Field, but you also probably won’t hate it and either way it’s guaranteed to completely evaporate from your mind 24 hours after watching it.