Well, I guess it was only a matter of time before something like this was made into a horror…
Escape rooms have become a big thing over the last few years (especially here in the UK) so seeing a movie that has someone making them a deathtrap…I find that premise both intriguing and worrying.
Want to play a game? Oooooh, now I want to watch Saw!
Escape Room is about 6 random people who are given black puzzle boxes (for a second I wondered if we were looking at a cyber Hellraiser with epic gothic overtones!) which when unlocked give them tickets to an escape room made by one of the World’s best designers of escape rooms. They have to work together as a team to get their various puzzles and traps. What they have to realise (and it gradually dawns on them) is that you need to find the clues or you will die.
I’m not usually too keen on the PG-13 horror/thriller movies that are coming out but this one wasn’t too bad really. It felt like a diluted mashup of Saw, Cube, 13 Ghosts and The Collector in a lot of ways with a dash of Hostel added. Not for the gore, I hasten to add, but the traps and twists and turns in the movie.
Nothing outright shocks you in this movie, there are no horrific jumpscares, and a lot of it is rather predictable…but in this movie, it’s actually OK to be that way…it just works well.
It also ends in such a way that there is a possibility for a sequel which could be interesting but at the same I hope they don’t do this as sequels tend to ruin things and make it worse (yes I know there are exceptions, but that’s rare).
Escape Room is rated 15 and available on DVD, Blu-Ray and Digital Download 10th June in the UK.