Escape Room (2019, Dir. Adam Robitel)
The Summary: It really couldn’t be any more straightforward than the marketing material makes it out to be. There are a bunch of people who get invited to an escape room, but it turns out to be actually deadly. There really isn’t anything more to it than that.
The Good: Does more character work than most January-dropped horror films do. Some of the escape rooms are legitimately entertaining in their weirdness and execution.
The Bad: Definitely showed too many of its escape rooms in the marketing materials (there’s only really one or two that hasn’t been spoiled by trailers). Almost nothing scary happens at any point in the movie. Has a blatantly sequel-inviting ending that just underwhelms since there’s no way they’re going to follow this up.
The Review: Escape Room is better than it has to be. I think it’s important to say that up front, because a decent amount of this review is going to come off as critical, and I really didn’t hate the movie. Part of that is probably due to low expectations–horror films dropped in January amidst the Oscar contenders don’t tend to be movies that their respective production houses have much faith in. Because of that, I usually go in with tempered expectations. This is a PG-13 horror-lite that’s hoping to cash in on a few teen dollars while everyone goes to see A Star is Born for the eighth time (seriously, is that movie ever going to leave theaters?). The setup is incredibly simple–a bunch of people with chips on their shoulders/dark pasts receive puzzle boxes that reveal an invitation to an escape room, and then it turns out to be deadly. There’s an attempt at the end to justify this, but it’s far too little and far too late. What people are here for is to see who dies in what order, and how weird the rooms get. The answer to those two questions are: ‘exactly who you think will die, and probably in the order you predict,’ and ‘pretty weird, actually.’
The acting is perfectly serviceable, led by relative unknown Zoey Davis as Taylor, and a supporting cast whose highlight is Deborah Ann Woll, finally getting to do something other than cry at Daredevil over on Netflix. She plays a traumatized Iraq vet and gets a surprising amount of physicality and emotion out of the character. The rest of the group do fine–it’s the kind of movie where everyone has about one interesting thing about them, and after you know about it their character development is basically done. There are no real stinkers in it however, and nothing to distract from the craziness of the escape rooms. They run a pretty broad range. The first oven-themed room is pretty boring, even by real-life escape room standards, but the upside-down pool hall shown in the previews is legitimately great, and there are some other nice moments in the execution of the rooms. Seeing how the rooms escalate and how elements of the characters’ pasts are woven into their execution is engaging enough for an hour and a half.
To be clear, it’s not all good. This movie was dropped in January for a reason. The plot is contrived, and when it attempts to explain itself it really only gets worse. The ending is nakedly grasping for a sequel that the story really doesn’t deserve, and the film isn’t edited particularly well. This is the kind of movie that only gives half of its six characters an opening scene before the first escape room, so if you’re surprised which three characters are going to survive to the end, you clearly haven’t been paying much attention. Adam Robitel directed the really incredible The Taking of Deborah Logan back in 2014, and last year’s Insidious: The Last Key was better than expected, but this is a definite miss for him. So, the movie is predictable, often uninventive, and has an inflated idea of its own importance. All that being said, I really didn’t hate it. It was a perfectly disposable way to spend an afternoon. If it’s on Netflix or at Redbox, it’s probably worth the dollar or the sunk cost of your subscription to check out, especially if the premise sounds like your thing. The ending is pretty dumb, but I was impressed when comparing this to the usual standard of January horror (looking at you, 2016’s The Forest).
The Score: 