Escape Room review

ESCAPE ROOM:

EVEN WITH AN INTERESTING PREMISE WITH A LOT OF POTENTIAL, IT DOESN’T QUITE “ESCAPE” THESE TIRESOME HORROR/THRILLER CLICHÉS!

By Nico Beland

Movie Review: ** ½ out of 4

COLUMBIA PICTURES

Taylor Russell in Escape Room

            The game is real in the new horror film, Escape Room which follows in the footsteps of the hugely successful Saw franchise and The Cabin in the Woods. The film is directed by Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension writer, Adam Robitel (The Taking of Deborah Logan, Insidious: The Last Key) and produced by Neal H. Moritz (Fast & Furious franchise, XXX 1 and 2, 21/22 Jump Street) and follows a group of strangers who are sent to an escape room and discover that it isn’t quite as it seems.

            It sounded like an interesting albeit familiar concept judging by the trailers, a group of people in a place that’s being controlled, and all sorts of bad things happen. We’ve seen this idea done to death, but as long as it does something fresh and new with it anything is possible.

            Aside from some creatively terrifying rooms and moments of suspense, Escape Room is sadly no Cabin in the Woods. It’s a good attempt for what it’s trying to do with its fascinating premise, but I felt it doesn’t quite unlock the full potential of it in favor of falling victim to tiresome horror movie clichés and flat characters.

            The film follows six strangers consisting of shy physics student Zoey (Taylor Russell-Strange Empire, Falling Skies, Lost in Space (2018)), struggling stock boy Ben (Logan Miller-Ghosts of Girlfriends Past, Ultimate Spider-Man, Love, Simon), young trader Jason (Jay Ellis-The Game, Insecure, Top Gun: Maverick), war veteran Amanda (Deborah Ann Woll-True Blood, Ruby Sparks, Marvel Netflix Universe), former miner Mike (Tyler Labine-Tucker & Dale VS Evil, Voltron: Legendary Defender, Super Troopers 2), and gaming geek Danny (Nik Dodani-Atypical, Murphy Brown, Alex Strangelove), who are invited to an escape room facility for a chance to earn $10,000 should they escape successfully. However, what starts as a simple game soon becomes a matter of life and death as they must find their way out of a room that becomes a giant oven, thaw a block of ice containing a key before freezing to death, and escaping a hospital ward before poisonous gas fills the air; but as they progress further in the escape room they learn the shocking truth.

            The film also stars Robitel as Gabe and Yorick van Wageningen (The Chronicles of Riddick, The Way, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011)) as The Gamemaster.

            Overall, Escape Room has an interesting premise and some legit chills, but they’re not enough to make up for its predictable story and bland characters. It’s every horror movie character stereotype, the shy awkward girl, the geek, the stoner, the badass woman, the black guy, the stoner, and the aggressive guy and I’m confident you can guess which ones will die, but somehow this film manages to make these annoying stereotypes even more obnoxious, nobody is likable and everyone’s a bitter asshole almost like a Saw remake with Michael Crichton characters.

            There’s no real emotional investment in these characters and you just want them to die faster every time somebody opens their mouth and says something stupid. If the characters were more fleshed-out and…less annoying then I probably would have cared more, but as is a happier ending would have been if everyone got slaughtered, poisoned, frozen, and roasted to death.

            If there’s anything that bugged me more than the characters, it’s the actual plot of the movie. As mentioned before, I love the premise of the film, but the story itself is just trying to be Saw and The Cabin in the Woods except played safely for the PG-13 audience and by the end it turns into a young-adult adaptation like The Hunger Games or Maze Runner, I’m not kidding, and it works about as well as you’d think.

            The filmmakers and Sony must be really proud with this movie because self-contained films no longer exist in the eyes of Sony’s executives and the film ends on one of the worst cliffhangers I’ve seen since…their Venom movie that came out last year. It’s obvious that it’s trying to be the next Saw or Paranormal Activity but lacks any substance or unique style to make it happen.

            Escape Room isn’t a terrible movie, but it could have been so much better if the premise was better executed and fully realized. I can see a movie like this working, but what we got makes me not want to revisit it and would rather see what goes down in Happy Death Day 2U next month.