MOVIE: Escape Room (2019)
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...