User Reviews

INFERNO: SKYSCRAPER ESCAPE is a cheap disaster flick with more than a passing nod to the likes of THE TOWERING INFERNO and the more recent SKYSCRAPER. It's a cheaply-shot affair with the kind of exaggerated over-acting you tend to find in movies made by inexperienced directors, and of course it was inevitably shot in Bulgaria. However, despite the myriad problems, I found myself enjoying this cheesy adventure at times. Claire Forlani isn't bad as the feminist heroine and it's nice to see her tackling some of the stunts; she certainly convinces as the mother who'll risk anything to save her trapped kids from a burning building. Jamie Bamber is more wooden and the bad guys go way over the top, but there's a lot worse out there.

It really is so bad you have to watch it. Wayne Williams has called out a lot of the continuity errors, which is a real irony given the plot line is about poor continuity in some photo evidence of adultery - excellent.

The acting is dreadful. I can only assume it's a combination of bad writing and direction as many of the actors have had fine performances in other productions. Riley Jackson trumps the rest of the cast for the most ridiculously exaggerated acting. (How did she get such a strong US accent with a British father, a US mother with a soft accent and growing up in Belgium?!!)

Obviously made for a US audience, with planted English, such as the Antwerpen fire fighters "Brandweer" having the English word "Fire" on the back of their uniforms and the "News" van being labelled in English, just in case you couldn't figure out what it was.

And how clever was the news reporter to jump straight into asking questions about the building's fire control systems, a few minutes into the incident!!!

Some continuity bloopers to add to Wayne's list:-

• the fire crews putting on the English worded uniforms, climbing into their European fire trucks, driving to the fire in their US fire trucks and arriving there in their European trucks again,
• the elevators in the 60+ floor building have about a dozen floor selection buttons
• mother and daughter got progressively dirtier through the film for no apparent reason with the daughter picking up scratches on both cheeks, but they walk out of the building just after the final explosion, which destroyed the building, a lot cleaner and the daughter's right cheek had healed nicely,
• the helicopter lands, keeps running while the passengers climb in and the pilot flicks about 20 switches (what the hell) in order to take off, no wonder it was predictably caught in a blast from 40 stories lower down,
• while falling the helicopter spins, but the instruments (artificial horizon) indicate it's rolling,
• the sound effect for the crashed helicopter is a crackling fire, but there isn't the slightest visible hint of any flames,
• what the hell were all the fire fighters doing outside the building at the fire trucks, did any actually go in,
• most unconvincing elevator shaft ever.

Look out for the engineer wearing a yellow helmet, in the background, just before the explosion. He's so funny, wobbling his head back and forth in order to use a ratchet spanner or socket, very badly.

What's with all the random steel girders loitering in the ceiling space, waiting to fall out on their victims below, one of whom gets up and limps out of the building.

And there must be lots more. Seriously watch this film, but be prepared to enjoy how bad it is.

It looks like it cost about a tenth of that. The fact that they had that much funding to work with and produced this drivel is just pathetic. OK, I'm sure that a fair portion of it must have gone to Forlani and Bamber, but why they signed on for this totally escapes me. They both recently completed other projects prior to this and also have new movies in the pipeline, so it's not like either are desperate for work.

This movie falls flat in so many ways. The person pitching this must have been really impressive because there was barely enough content for 30 minutes let alone an hour and 30 minutes. Scenes that should be short in order to create tension are stretched out to fill the running time. The effect was like having your teeth extracted in slow motion without any anaesthetic. The dialogue is so bad I'm convinced it was contracted out to the lowest bidder on Upwork. The same goes for the special FX - I could have created them on my 5 year old PC in less than a day.

The saddest part is that, even though the plot, if you can call it that, borrows liberally from Towering Inferno and a bunch of other movies, with a bit of effort they could still have developed it into something worth watching. Yet, it is almost like they purposefully didn't even try. Why not allocate some time to Bamber's character confronting his wife about the pictures? Why not have her investigate their origin and the reason behind someone sending them? I can only guess because it would make one think more about this and wonder how the characters could not be suspicious of photos of this nature sent anonymously. Oh, not to mention that the children are able to discover that the photos are faked in a matter of minutes, yet the high priced lawyers had them analysed and were not able to disprove their authenticity. Their experts probably disappeared into one of the plot holes never to be seen again.

There are so many basic logic, continuity and practical errors it is clear they never bothered to consult technical advisers. Here are just a couple of examples: 1) Bamber's character is heading down the stairs and is not able to continue due to smoke, so attempts to exit the stairwell at that floor, but the door handle is too hot. Why is the handle hot if it is a few floors up from the fire? 2) He then attempt to cover his mouth and go down the stairs through the smoke, but succumbs to smoke inhalation. So where did the firefighters that found him come from? 3) They then proceed downward where he was not able to go previously and arrive at the conclusion that they have reached the point of origin because the door is hot. Seriously? 4) This is supposed to be a huge multi-storey building, yet it only has one stairwell. I'm guessing they paid the building inspectors to ignore that... 5) The building in the marketing pictures is clearly not the same building as the one in the movie, as the shape it different and it is clearly much taller. 6) Also, the building in the pictures is virtually destroyed, whereas in the movie almost all visible damage is limited to the 20th floor. 7) At one point Beaumont refers to the lawyers "down" on the 60th floor, whereas the building clearly has nowhere near 60 floors. 8) When the two guys head out to the helipad, one can clearly see it is an older building with peeling paint and rusted girders and not newly constructed. 9) The electricity to the lift went out, yet they were later able to "ground" it. 10) In fact, just about everything in respect of the lift is totally unbelievable. My understanding is that legally all modern lifts are required to have battery backup. Usually, in event of a power outage, the lift goes to the next floor, opens the doors and then shuts the lift down to prevent further usage. They are also required to have an alarm in case of emergency. This used to be a button, but in modern lifts it is generally an intercom that runs off the battery backup so that it remains operational in event of a power outage. 11) At one point in the movie one is shown what is happening from the perspective of the building's security cameras and one can clearly see the two children stuck in the lift. So are we then expcted to assume that there is nobody monitoring the cameras?

I honestly wasn't trying to nitpick. These shortcomings are just so glaringly obvious, one has to wonder how this movie was ever made. If I can save even one person from wasting 90 minutes of their life, then writing this review will have been worthwhile.

This movie is appalling. It had the potential to be quite good I suppose, but along with the terrible effects and even worse acting, it was almost painful to watch. The actress playing the daughter was especially atrocious. Her amateur overacting was so diabolical, I celebrated as she disappeared down the elevator shaft. Unfortunately she survived but it was at least a brief respite. I hope her parents demanded a refund from the, what must have been, mediocre acting school she attended. The other actors weren't much better, in fact, the whole thing shall forever be imprinted on my brain as a reminder that I really must check imdb reviews before watching anything.

Faulty wiring causes an explosion in a skyscraper that leads to a raging fire. Estranged couple Brianna (a strong and feisty portrayal by Claire Forlani) and Tom (a solid and likeable performance by Jamie Barber) must work together to save themselves and their two children from the towering inferno.

Director Eric Summer relates the enjoyable and engrossing story at a snappy pace, generates a good deal of tension, and stages the exciting action with aplomb. The sound acting by the capable cast keeps this movie humming: Riley Jackson as perky daughter Anne, Isaac Rouse as wimpy son Ben, Nigel Barber as unscrupulous cross-cutting jerk Lucas Beaumont, Atanas Screbrev as smarmy sleazeball Eric Steele, Nathan Cooper as nice guy Paul, and Lorina Kamburorova as foxy secretary Adria. The CGI effects are pretty decent considering the modest budget. A cool little flick.

3/10 This was your basic setup for cheesy disaster movie. A couple having (very poorly portrayed) marital problems, one of them is an expert in high-rise structures gets trapped up in a high-rise after an explosion. As usual, their 2 kids were also in the building just above the explosion. The majority of the movie revolves around the 2 parents trying to get their kids out of the elevator and out of the building. The elevator scenes were hilarious, and the mom being able to one-arm hold her teenage son while grappling in the elevator was one of the worst scenes. The acting was pretty bad all around. I actually think the son(Isaac Rouse) did the best in the movie, and he was the only one who actually portrayed their character in a believable fashion. Jaime Bamber did not turn in his best performance, but he was still better than pretty much anyone else.

The writing was quite poor as well. There is one strange thing. The caption under the title is "The only way out is up". However, the family escapes the building by going DOWN, both by using the elevator shaft and the stairs. My guess is that was on the original promo movie poster and just never got changed.

I would not recommend buying this, but if you like this genre and have a chance to see it for free, it might be ok for a one-time viewing.