Let the Panic Begin

Jodie Foster is in for the scare of a lifetime. Her latest film, Columbia Pictures’ suspense-thriller Panic Room, is a terrifying romp into an abyss of chills and thrills masterfully executed by director David Fincher (Seven, Fight Club).

When recently divorced Meg Altman (Foster) and her daughter Sarah (Kristen Stewart) move into their new house, they discover a secret room that serves as a high-tech safe room. Complete with surveillance monitors, a ventilation system and a hidden phone line, the room resembles a modern-day bomb shelter. Why would anyone need a room like that?

They find out soon enough. When three burglars (Jared Leto, Forest Whittaker and Dwight Yoakam) invade their home, Meg and Sarah are forced to seek refuge within the room’s impenetrable steel doors. Only from inside the panic room can mother and daughter fight for their lives. The only problem? What the burglars want is inside the room…and the intruders will stop at nothing to get inside.

"This eccentric millionaire had built this panic room so that if anybody came to steal his money, he could protect himself," says Jodie Foster. "This room is pretty special. It has eight video monitors with cameras all over the house. It has stashes of things that you might need–a fire blanket, a fire starter. It has water, so that if you needed to stay there for a month, you could."

In medieval times it was called the castle keep. The 20th century gave way to bomb shelters, evolving into storm shelters. Now, even the White House has a Situation Room–a secure, high-tech complex located in the building’s basement that has been in existence since the Kennedy administration.

In the movie, the room consists of four concrete walls, a buried phone line not connected to the house’s main line, its own ventilation system and a bank of surveillance monitors that covers nearly every corner of the house–all protected from the world as we know it by an impenetrable door made of thick steel.

The more crime, terrorism and international kidnappings have come to dominate American newscasts, the more ubiquitous the "panic room"–an impregnable space to retreat to in the event of an armed intrusion–has become. Fear, paranoia and protective instincts are the ultimate motivators, especially for those who have the means to do something about it. And though statistics have shown crime in general to be on the decline, "people take action based on their perception of risk rather than the actual risk," says Jeff Fryrear of the National Crime Prevention Institute in Louisville in The New York Times piece, "The New ‘God Forbid’ Room."

"The more insecure we are, the deeper we retreat," says Edward J. Blakely, the dean of USC’s School of Urban Planning, in the same article.

"The paranoia levels right now are absolutely staggering," a maker of Spycams told The Wall Street Journal. As Americans gain access and interest in more sophisticated forms of protection such as spy cameras, phone tap detectors and computer keyboard trackers, sales in such civilian spy-gear shot from 30 to 60 percent in the past year, helping turn security and surveillance into a $5 billion industry. As reported in The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles-based Bolide International sold 3,200 Spycams alone in the past two months–double the number at this time last year.

In Southern California, a pervading sense of unease among studio and other business moguls has driven the demand for safe rooms to unprecedented levels. Gary Paster, a California-based builder, built his first safe room for an entertainment industry figure in 1980. Paster told The Los Angeles Business Journal that he has gone from building roughly six safe rooms a year in the early ’90s to now more than 60.

Paster’s safe rooms, which can cost from the middle thousands up to $100,000, are comprised of special security doors made of bullet-resistant Armortex and electromagnetic locks built to withstand everything from baseball bats to 9mm automatic gunfire. Most popular are security doors that turn an unassuming walk-in closet or bathroom into a safe room.

Architects serving the rich and powerful increasingly prepare plans for panic rooms as a matter of course. They have become not only a necessity for wealthy estates, but also a must-have security measure for corporate headquarters and executive suites. The plans are kept confidential, from the blueprints to the end of construction, and installed at the last minute by a designated security team.

"Our clients request them," one such architect told The New York Times, "especially whenever there’s a riot, an earthquake or a panic about Armageddon."

The reasons customers cite for building panic rooms are as various as their high-tech accoutrements: some want more than a simple hideout when and if they come under attack; others feel the panic room is a necessity to guard their riches from modern-day marauders.

In David Fincher’s Panic Room, it may be the only thing that keeps Meg Altman and her daughter alive.

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"The Panic Room" is a Columbia Pictures film opening on May 29 in Metro Manila.