Director: Adam Robitel
Distributor: Sony Pictures Home Entertainment
Duration: 99 minutes
Escape Room (Blu-ray) – Movie Review
Horror movies aren’t what they used to be as they either feel bland and uninspired, or they aim to be extremely gross, thinking a lot of gore and blood instantly means it’s a horror experience. In the past, many directors and studios had to make a scary movie without proper resources and special effects, yet they still succeeded in putting down a proper performance. It seems that Escape Room steps back from gore and jump-scares, to work with exquisite sets by making something eerie out of the current trend of escape rooms. The movie and the setting reminded us of the Cube series, but we were happy to see a few original twists and turns.
The movie shows us six different characters, each having very different lives, receiving an invitation for a special kind of escape room. For one character it’s an invitation from a family member, for another, it’s her teacher, while for yet another it’s a gift from a business associate. The participants of the escape room are promised to get 10000 dollars if they manage to escape from the room that no one has been able to complete just yet. While everything looks like actual ‘fun and games’, it doesn’t take long before things get rather creepy and dangerous. The first room the party finds themselves in gets burned to a crisp, meaning that there’s actual danger involved. While not everyone is convinced that they can get hurt by just playing a game, it doesn’t take long before the stakes are raised and that it becomes a struggle for survival.
Escape Room follows a rather predictable path, but a pleasant one. You’ll see the participants go from one room to another, while slowly their past comes to light, as well as the intention of the game they find themselves a part of. The movie gradually throws you a bone, making sure you bite into it and only let go when the credits start rolling. While, as stated before, some plot points are somewhat predictable, the movie actually has a few surprising twists. Even though the cast can only do so much, it’s the design of the different rooms that make the movie truly interesting. It’s fun to see how every piece of the puzzle falls into place and it’s also quite nice when you try to connect the dots between some of the rooms and the characters.
The acting performances are pretty much restricted to the six participants in the movie. Each of the actors or actresses provides a sturdy performance, and all of them have a bit of character development, making the movie more interesting than you’d expect. Everyone is there for a reason and the cast emanates this idea quite nicely. With Taylor Russell on the cover, it’s quite clear she’s the key character of the movie, and she carries the torch with a lot of grace. This young actress hasn’t starred in that many big flicks yet, and we actually hope to see her career bloom as she arguably provides the best experience of the entire film. The other cast members also did a good job, but it’s Russell that deservedly steals the spotlight.
While you can find a few special features on the Blu-ray edition of Escape Room, they are quite slim pickings. You’ll have a few featurettes that feel like a long trailer rather than actual bonus content. It’s a shame that there isn’t anything about the construction of the rooms, or the special effects used. We would have loved to get more content for our money.
Conclusion
Escape Room is a fairly fresh breath of air in the ‘horror’ genre, even if the movie somewhat resembles those of the Cube series. We were quite entertained with the different characters the movie threw at us, but even more so with the design of the rooms the participants find themselves in. If you’re looking for an interesting experience then Escape Room can provide a fun evening.
Escape Room (Blu-ray) - Movie Review,
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[…] in 2019, we saw the first Escape Room movie, which actually pleasantly surprised us. The movie revolved around the very popular concept […]