Escape Room
Year: 2019
Rating: PG-13
Length: 99 minutes / 1.65 hours
For all the Young Adult clones that The Hunger Games (2012) spawned in Hollywood, it’s interesting to see something that takes the elaborate death traps present in that series and applies them to the horror genre. While I’m sure the Saw series likely did this kind of thing already, I haven’t seen any of those films to know (too bloody for my tastes). This is where Escape Room (2019) takes an interesting premise and makes it feel like a generic Hunger Games knock-off while remaining a PG-13 horror film.
At first glance, Escape Room is a smart thriller that forces its “players” to solve these rooms and eventually escape alive. Some of these set pieces are quite well done, including an oven and an upside-down bar. The reason these people were trapped in a series of escape rooms was also somewhat interesting, even if it wasn’t explained very well. However, as is the case with most horror films, the problem is that none of these characters stick around long enough to give a lasting impression. This becomes apparent early on, which didn’t give me an impetus to invest in any characters.
Ultimately, Escape Room suffers from some fairly glaring structural flaws. Not only is there a fakeout from the get-go, but the ending is left so incomplete that I can’t even comprehend what was accomplished or what the escape room designers had planned to do. Now that I learn there’s an Escape Room sequel that is very much like Catching Fire (2013), I can’t help but draw more parallels to the Hunger Games series. Overall, the premise didn’t feel like it was properly explored, or at least it was explored in too many iterations to whittle down the characters to a manageable level.
A Hunger Games knockoff that focuses on elaborate deathtraps, I give Escape Room 2.5 stars out of 5.
1/2
