In the year 1997, Manhattan Island has been turned into a maximum-security prison. On the island, prisoners are tossed in and left to fend for themselves, creating a sort of no-mans land of cons. When the president’s plane crashes onto the “island”, ex-army vet Snake Plissken is framed by the Man to get the prez out.

One thing that can be said for Escape From New York is that it may be the film that kicked off the whole science fiction/action/prison flick genre. I may be wrong, but I really can’t think of any other film prior having this styled scenario. Made at the height of John Carpenter’s powers, in between Halloween and The Thing, this one is a yet another example of what Carpenter could accomplish back in the day on a very meager budget (7 million).

The first the thing I noticed about EFNY, besides Adrienne Barbeau’s cleavage, was the nice and gritty look this baby had. Everything looks dark and dreary, with Carpenter creating a truly netherworld vibe of futuristic despair. You get the idea that America’s future is not all too great, and Carpenter laces the film with vibes of fascism and martial law. Kudos must also be given to the synthesizer laden Alan Howarth/John Carpenter score, which excellently aids the films overall feel. Carpenter’s soundtracks are almost always dead on, and it's something I feel the guy never really gets credit for outside of his work on Halloween. In summary, this baby looks and sounds just right.

To me, what’s the most amazing thing here is that Carpenter seems to be able to convey to the viewer that there’s much more happening on screen than there really is. For a sci-fi/action film, there’s really a shockingly small amount of either sci-fi or action up on the screen. Oh sure, Snake will get in a fight here and there, something will blow up, but Carpenter truly achieves here by making you think you are seeing more than you actually are. I feel the reason this works is that the viewer really starts to identify with anti-hero Snake Plissken and his assorted cast of quirky characters that he encounters on his mission. The entire cast reads like a who’s who of early Carpenter films, from Donald Pleasance, Tom Atkins, and Adrienne Barbeau. Even Jamie Lee Curtis, who does the opening narration, gets in on the action. It’s not like any character in this film is truly “good”, cause’ they most definitely are not. Each character is selfish and shifty in their own right, yet you still get to like em’ and root for em’. Without this assorted cast of oddball characters, especially in anti-hero Snake, EFNY would not have worked as well as it did.

While far from an excellent film, it’s easy to see why EFNY has the cult following that it does. It’s a great example of low budget, B-level filmmaking where every cent of its budget is up on the screen.