At a glance, the new thriller ESCAPE ROOM plays like SAW– light. Look a little closer though, and you’ll also see shades of a couple of other popular horror titles. With its cynical glimpse at a disturbed sect of society willing to pay top dollar to take pleasure in witnessing the pain of others, one might be reminded of HOSTEL and with its sole survivor plot thread, FINAL DESTINATION springs to mind. Further connecting ESCAPE ROOM to the likes of SAW and FINAL DESTINATION is the fact that this movie clearly has “franchise” written all over it. What truly separates ESCAPE ROOM from the previously mentioned films, however, is a more tame PG-13 rating, meaning this is about as mild as your average torture porn film is going to get.
In ESCAPE ROOM, six strangers are brought together after receiving HELLRAISER-like puzzle box invitations to a sort of amusement attraction that will test their smarts as much as it’ll test their endurance. What these strangers don’t realize initially, though, is that they all have something in common and it is this plot hook that is at the very heart of a thriller that will have these individuals attempting to surmise whether or not the challenges and riddles they are navigating through are real or part of one hell of an elaborate hoax (David Fincher‘s THE GAME, anyone?)
ESCAPE ROOM was directed by Adam Robitel (INSIDIOUS: THE LAST KEY) and while this thriller does feel like it’s stitched together with elements of other noteworthy genre films, kudos are in order to this filmmaker for keeping this slick-looking movie coasting along at a brisk pace and for steering clear of the straight up nihilism that you might be expecting. Yes, ESCAPE ROOM gets a little ugly, but it isn’t all cynical gloom and doom. There are actually characters here who show a bit of compassion and look out for one another and ESCAPE ROOM even benefits from bursts of humor. Further props to the art direction team for putting together some pretty cool escape room designs for our human guinea pigs to try and fight their way out of, one of the coolest being
As for said guinea pigs, each of the 6 strangers tossed into these potentially dangerous scenarios bring their own specific character traits to the table, and the actors who play these characters (Taylor Russell, Jay Ellis, Logan Miller, Deborah Woll, Tyler Labine, and Nik Dodani) do an adequate job demonstrating the severity of their situation, most notably “True Blood” and “Daredevil” co-star Woll as a woman suffering from PTSD.
As for the plot, ESCAPE ROOM certainly tends to stretch the bounds of credibility, particularly during the final act and it isn’t always as straight up intense as you might hope for, but again, this well-paced movie does offer up a handful of thrills and at the very least, it moves at a quick clip.
Furthermore, ESCAPE ROOM refuses to spell everything out opting, instead, to leave certain aspects of the goings-on, appropriately ambiguous. After all, this thriller is clearly looking towards the future so it would be foolish to spell everything out so early in the game when it’s obvious there’s no escaping the inevitable sequel. See you next year, everyone.
