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Escape Room
(Columbia Pictures)
By Lucas Allen
What’s worse than being stuck in an escape room with family and friends? How about being stuck in an escape room with other strangers while it becomes a scene straight out of a “Saw” sequel.
That’s the premise for the new horror/thriller “Escape Room,” which mixes the simple mind tricks of puzzle solving with the deadly game of life and death.
As the story begins, six strangers are chosen at random to take part in a game that one of them will be the first to complete and win $10,000. College student Zoey (Taylor Russell), deadbeat Ben (Logan Miller), businessman Jason (Jay Ellis), trucker Mike (Tyler Labine), former Marine Amanda (Deborah Ann Woll) and nerdy Danny (Nik Dodani) soon arrive at a place thinking it’s just something they want to try for extra cash.
But before they know it, the game begins when what they thought was a waiting room turns out to be the first room. The only way out is to figure out the puzzle. But solving it proves difficult when the game becomes a life and death situation for all of them.
As they go through each room, they start to realize that they weren’t just chosen at random but for a different reason. Each clue connects to each of the players who experienced a dark moment in their past, and this game is meant to test their survivor skills.
Now their only chance of getting out of their predicament is to overcome their trauma and finish the game before all of them face the ultimate punishment.
Going into this, you might think this movie will be nothing more than 90 minutes of characters getting tortured through this dangerous game. But the film goes a little more than that as you’re introduced to each of them and get to understand their past experiences that got them there as it goes on. It’s really a character piece first and horror movie second. Yes it’s still fun to watch them go through such horrific moments, but the way they tried to work together to figure out how to get out and why we care about them helps bring in that fun.
While this movie works well as a suspenseful thriller, there’s some storytelling flaws that almost ruin it.
The movie begins with one of the characters trying to solve one of the last puzzles before it takes us back a few days earlier, which is definitely a cheap way to get you interested from the start. Not to mention once the game is over, the movie keeps going, giving us a full rundown as a way to set it up as a franchise, when a quick cut to the end credits would’ve sufficed.
Despite those flaws, the movie paces well in its hour-and-a-half runtime giving us great moments in suspense and thrills to spare. There’s honestly not much to say about the acting since there aren’t any big name stars to carry this film.
Still, the six main actors do a fine job working with what they got from a script as average as this. With that said, your enjoyment of this movie depends on how you feel about being with these characters for the duration of the runtime.
You may go see that latest Shyamalan movie, or you can take the “Escape Room” with your friends and have a fun time. Either way, this one seems to have the more logical conclusion.
THE MOVIE’S RATING: PG-13 (for terror/perilous action, violence, some suggestive material and language)
THE CRITIC’S RATING: 3 Stars (Out of Four)
