Panic Button (2011)

(In French, On Cable TV, March 2021) Once, just once, I’d like to see a horror spoof in which the evildoers, having uncovered our characters’ innermost secrets thanks to elaborate hacking shenanigans, would despair at the humdrum life that most of us live. No ghastly secrets, no hidden identities, no criminal past, and barely any sordid perversions to be found in Internet search histories. Alas, this is not the world the characters in Panic Button live in, as four British social media users find themselves aboard a private plane flying to their prize vacation. But there’s a lot being kept secret, as a round of “innocent” questions asked by a hidden interviewer reveals that everyone has an implausible number of secrets to hide. And we’re not talking dull secrets either — we’re talking the kind worth killing for, which (this being a horror film) happens very quickly. As the body count goes up and the number of characters goes down, the film more or less goes where you expect an airplane thriller to do (down), with an added epilogue to make it all creepier. Developed on a low budget with a handful of actors and limited sets, Panic Button does quite a bit with what it has, but seen ten years later, does begin to suffer from topical novelty. As we leave the first troll presidency in the back view mirror, cautionary tales of social media run amuck are not just mainstream: they’re getting dull. The hysteric execution does the film no favour either, as the mechanics of its plot get more and more implausible by the minute. I do have some admiration for thrillers taking place almost entirely within the confines of an airplane—there have been some gems in the subgenre—but Panic Button feels a bit too ordinary and on-the-nose to be entirely fun or interesting. Kudos to writer/director Chris Crow for making much out of so little, but ten years later Panic Button seem to be heavy on button-pushing and thin on actual panic.