Panic Button (2011)
Four people think they have won a contest until they become stranded at 30,000 feet and forced to play a game to save their loved ones from a horrible demise. I don't want to reveal too much of the story line as it would spoil things for a first time viewer.
An excellent British thriller about the paranoia of social media and how the things you post on web sites, social networks etc can come back to bite you. In a way reminiscent of Saw but with a lesser budget, the first hour is brilliantly intriguing and very suspenseful. I was totally gripped as events unfolded. The social side of the internet is a place where anyone can post anything often without consequence, hidden behind user names and passwords. A slow burning character piece, the four cast members draw you into their often sordid internet activities through a tight script which slowly reveals more the longer the film goes on. Talk among people can often become boring very quickly so it is credit to the script that this never seemed remotely possible. The more spoken the better the film became. The film's real achievement is that even with a tiny budget, a well written script can really make the viewer stop and think to themselves "Am i like these people?"
It was only during the last third that things began to break down a little and a wave of predictability washed over proceedings. On the whole though Panic Button is a tense horror thriller which i thoroughly recommend.
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