When Randy Moore went to Disney World, he brought a camera, as so many people do. Only he wasn’t making a home movie on his little Canon 5D Mark II.
The director’s black-and-white horror film, “Escape from Tomorrow,” out this Friday, tells the story of a family on vacation at the amusement park. It’s full of swearing, nudity, prostitution, public drunkenness, gore and nightmarish hallucinations.
Needless to say, the Mouse did not sign off on this.
“Obviously, [Disney] could just crush us,” says Moore, 37. “Or at least put us into some sort of litigation for years and years and years.”
But they haven’t. “We’ve heard absolutely nothing from them,” he says.
Moore’s film, which made the rounds at Sundance earlier this year, is apparently known to the Walt Disney Company — yet they’ve steadily resisted even commenting (The Post’s request was ignored), reportedly to avoid giving the cheeky little indie any more publicity.
In it, the lead character finds out, the morning before he and his family visit the park, that he’s getting fired — and slowly starts losing his mind. Or — the film suggests — is it the park that’s crazy?
First-time director Moore, a story editor who lives in Los Angeles, still can’t quite believe his luck — but he’s going with it.
“My only goal was to get to the finish line and literally have the film in the can,” he says. “After we finished, we went to Korea and made a 35-millimeter film print, even though we’d shot it digitally. We were like, ‘We made it! And it can’t be unmade! Maybe they’ll try to hold us up forever, but somewhere, it will exist.’ ”
So how do you sneak into Disney World (and Disneyland — Moore shot in both parks) and make a movie without getting caught?
Pretty easily, it turns out, in today’s world of high-tech digital cameras. Throughout weeks of shooting, Moore and his crew were only stopped for questioning once, at Disneyland.
“A security guard said, ‘Are you a celebrity?’ ” says Roy Abramsohn, who plays the film’s central character. “The guard said, ‘There are people following you around, taking pictures.’ He told me they have a certain protocol for celebrities, for taking them around the park.”
With a small cast — a family of four, plus a handful of assorted others — and an equally minimal crew, Moore shot unimpeded footage of his characters on rides, mingling with Disney mascots and visiting Epcot countries. Approximately 80 percent of the footage in the film comes from the parks themselves.
Afterward, Moore added the hallucinatory effects and shot the most scandalous material in outside locations — such as Disney princesses being willingly fondled by leering businessmen. Or Abramsohn’s character, imprisoned by a mad scientist in Epcot Center, squirting a white Neosporinlike ointment all over equipment bearing the corporate name “Siemens” (this brand name, ubiquitous at the park, is projected onto Epcot during a fireworks sequence as well).
Or, perhaps most controversially, the scene in which the entire Epcot globe goes up in a giant explosion.
But “Escape from Tomorrow” isn’t just a stunt — it’s a story Moore’s been mulling for a long time. “I used to go down to Orlando to visit my father, as a kid,” says the Illinois native. “And then I grew up and had my own kids and took them there, and all those locations — Epcot, the Magic Kingdom — brought back all these memories and emotions. The location is a rite of passage for so many Americans. I think it’s transcended being a regular theme park. It’s so deeply enmeshed in the cultural landscape of America.”
But he also remembered the dark side of the parks: the relentless heat and humidity, the lines, “the kids going crazy and demanding these $30 wands. These poor parents are trying to give the kids the happiest day of their lives, and they’re all just miserable. It comes from this relentless pursuit of happiness in our culture.”
Moore knew he had to make the movie, and he also knew Disney would never give its blessing. So he hired a cast and crew who were game for a little subterfuge.
“I liked the script. It was weird,” Abramsohn says. “And I thought, ‘What’s the worst that can happen? A trespassing arrest?’ But I never thought it would see the light of day.”
Then, he says, “Randy told me he wanted to do it in black and white. I thought, ‘Oh my God, now it’s really never going to be seen.’ ”
But now that the release date is only a week away, it looks as though it will be seen. The film begs the question of whether Disney will crack down on visitors with cameras, given Moore’s enthusiastic take on the future of guerrilla filmmaking.
He’s even involved in sponsoring a contest on Vine and Instagram, inviting people to upload videos “illustrating your favorite Disney experience” with the hashtag #DisneyEscapeExperience. Moore will choose the winners, and first prize, winkingly, includes a $500 Disney gift card.
“Technology has caught up with the filmmaking industry,” he says. “It’s kind of put everyone on a level playing field. We didn’t even have the best cameras in the park — there were tourists walking around with better equipment than us. And that was three years ago.
“Today, we could probably go in there and make an IMAX movie.”