Heavily influenced by various strange outings I endured as a boy with my father - who at the time lived in Orlando, Florida – ESCAPE FROM TOMORROW is my personal attempt to make sense of what felt like a very artificial childhood, brought on by our cultural obsession with these fake, manufactured worlds of so-called fantasy - escaping into which, as a child, I adored. Sadly, I believe this made me, and probably a huge percentage of the general population, partly insane! Because what I wanted more than anything else was to live inside this other world that didn’t really exist, with a different set of rules and magic - and in a tragic, almost fateful way, I still do. But I wasn’t alone back then. There were other forces at play, pulling me along for the ride with their own nefarious agendas... Moreover, these sacred spaces of my youth constituted a very surreal landscape, as they were both extremely personal and yet shared by millions; and they continued to haunt me, even more so as I became an adult and had children of my own.

Ultimately, I think the film is really about defining the word “escape” and how so many American households seek it out in a yearly pilgrimage to a materialistic Mecca in hopes of finding divine diversion and amusement perfected, which I believe is merely a synthesized fantasy passed on to us from early childhood. The mythos in which today’s children are raised suggests that everyone can be a prince or princess, entitled to their very own kingdom to reign over happily ever after. But these realms only exist because of their elusive corporate architects who profit in unfathomable ways, perpetuating archetypes while our fleeting children become villains and the grand delusion takes hold.

The writing process was fast, like I was on autopilot. I didn’t use a computer and drafted the entire story out in long hand on yellow legal paper. I tend to rewrite too much when I use a computer, so I don’t anymore. Then I put it away, worked on something else and didn’t look at it again for about a month or so. Usually, when I go back and revisit one of my early drafts I cringe and contemplate death, but this one held up surprisingly well, though I instantly began adding more layers. Ideas were shifting, new characters emerged and everything became very dark for a while, and then, oddly, it all lifted up a bit at the end. They say you’re supposed to cut things when you rewrite and “trim the fat,” so to speak. I went in the opposite direction. But I was obsessed! Constantly adding scenes in hotel rooms, restaurants and airplanes, whenever I could get a free moment throughout the entire production, I just couldn’t stop, and we ending up shooting a huge amount of footage.

-- Randy Moore