Review by Adam Stephen Kelly
Stars Scarlett Alice Johnson, Jack Gordon,
Michael Jibson, Elen Rhys, Joshua Richards, Vern Raye
Written by Chris Crow, Frazer Lee,
John Shackleton & David Shillitoe
Certification UK 18
Runtime 95 minutes
Directed by Chris Crow
Made for a modest £300,000, Panic Button explores the dark side of social networking in a way that makes Catfish look like Cats & Dogs. Revolving around Facebook equivalent all2gethr.com, the film places four characters (two men and two women) on a luxury private plane under the pretence that, courtesy of the social networking website, they have won an all-expenses-paid trip to New York City. Forced to give up their mobile phones for the duration of the flight, they board the plane and, upon take-off, are quickly greeted by the face of a talking alligator on the television monitors, who introduces them to the in-flight entertainment: a game based on their internet habits. Eager to play with the mention of expensive prizes, the contestants agree to partake in the game, which is soon to become an unrelenting nightmare at 30,000 feet.
In each other's company, the alligator subjects the passengers to a series of questions sourced from their years using all2gethr.com, where every link they've ever clicked, message they've ever typed, purchase they've ever made, and video they've ever watched have been stored, many of which are about to come back to haunt them as the game takes a far more personal and twisted turn than they could ever have imagined.
Saw on a Learjet would be a fitting way to summarise Panic Button, but it packs much more of a punch than any of the sequels. It's conservative with its use of blood, instead delivering the shocks by raising the stakes of survival aboard the plane. As more and more information about the passengers is revealed by the alligator, the disturbing nature of the film is continually amped up. And it's not the improbable predicament that is the most unsettling part, but the specifics of the details that are shared of what the characters have looked at on the web. The things that reveal a certain amount of darkness in those who don't necessarily look particularly shady on the surface. Things that don't just pertain to four characters in a fictional feature-length movie, but most people in real life. This is what makes Panic Button so smart, multi-layered and brutally honest.
Well-paced and with a tight script, this is a film that is also greatly effective because of how fresh it feels. Only over the last couple of years have we seen horrors and thrillers inspired by the rise of social networking and YouTube. The Social Network told a very Hollywood interpretation of the story of Facebook's creation, the appalling Chain Letter splattered gore all over a backdrop of chain emails with deadly consequences, and Death Tube spliced webcam voyeurism and viral videos with graphic violence. The filmmakers behind Panic Button have trodden fertile ground with this movie and absolutely succeeded in making a modern horror movie that is very much a product of our times. Just excellent.