PANIC BUTTON (2011) Dir. Chris Crow

Here's a review for upcoming UK horror film Panic Button, a nifty look at the perils of social networking websites and the issues that are raised from certain video, testimonials and other disturbing images that are freely available to internet users. It's also got Vicki Fowler off of Eastenders in it too...check the review after the jump....

Is social Networking as safe as we all think? Do we really know who's behind these sites, apart from Facebook and Myspace (Tom and Jesse Eisenberg), we don't necessarily know who is behind them and and what kind of information is being collected and what it's being used for. Is it being used for good or some far more nefarious use. This is the question the film Panic Button takes a look at, albeit in a strange mix of Saw meets Exam kind of way.

Not to sound like a conspiracy nut but you sometimes don't know these things.

Panic Button tells the story of a group of four young people who win a contest on an online social networking site called ALL2gethr.com, an all expenses paid trip to New York. These are the four main characters of the film, We have Jo, a recovering alcoholic and single mother, Max, a sarcastic computer wiz, Gwen, who led a troubled past and Dave, a foul mouthed, horrible individual. All deeply flawed in their own way. As they board a private jet, they asked to relinquish their mobile phones and are told that they will be participating in an new online experience during the flight. The game begins as soon as they get airborne and it gets more and more personal as the questions get tougher. The host knows a little too much about these four young people and uses it to his advantage at 30,000 feet. As the games get darker, the four winners have to fight for survival as there is no escape.

The cast do well with the script that was written by Frazer Lee, who has seems to have researched a lot into social networking websites. Scarlett Alice Johnson, Vicki Fowler off of Eastenders plays Jo, the recovering alcoholic and single mother. She's pretty good in the role too. Then we have Jack Gordon (Heartless) as Max, the computer wiz, again he's pretty good in a sort of cool geek kind of way. Elen Rhys (Season Of The Witch) plays the girl with the very troubled past, Gwen, again she is pretty good in the role, starting out as sweet natured but turning as the games go deeper. Finally we have Michael Jibson as Dave, a perverted, horrible individual only out for himself. Probably the best actor of the bunch and his performance is really good as it makes the viewer absolutely despise his character.

Second time director Chris Crow has done a brilliant job on his sophmore feature and the use of one location for 95% of the film is pulled off brilliantly. He manages to maintain and air of tension between each character in such a small space which really adds to the atmosphere of the film, It's also very well lit and the camera sets ups are well executed.

What I didn't really understand was the strange HAL 9000 type of camera attached to the door to the cockpit, it wasn't the only camera on the plane yet that one seemed to be the most important one, I did however like the idea of the bathroom camera, it was a sort of big brother diary room type of dealy and it's pretty cool.

Panic Button is a well crafted tension filled thriller, with pretty good performances and a great idea behind it. The use of social networks is great and does bring about fears of what might be going on behind the scenes of these websites. It goes to show that with a minimal budget, a great script and an eye for tension and uneasy atmosphere, us brits are still showing the rest of the world that we can make effective genre films.