So this morning, I took myself to the movies and saw Escape Room, which I’ve been curious about since the trailers were released. I love the idea of escape rooms, I’ve played through The Room and all its sequels multiple times, give me some good ol’ puzzle solving and I am SO there! While I was expecting some scares, I was hoping there wouldn’t be anything too gruesome since it does carry a PG-13 rating. Hopefully there would be more clever atmospheric scares than gory death scenes, and I was right!

(Fun fact: did you know that there were two movies that came out in 2017 also called Escape Room? I didn’t until I was trying to find pictures for this movie! Apparently, those two movies are…not great, though I can’t personally vouch for them.)

THE PLOT

Escape Room starts off in, funnily enough, an escape room! It initially looks like a lavishly decorated living room, and all is calm until Logan Miller drops through the ceiling. He’s limping, beat-up, and in full-on panic mode as he hobbles to a complicated looking number-maze-lock thing on the door. He realizes that he needs four numbers, but as soon as he pulls on the 1, the wall opposite him starts closing in. Great. We’re right there with him as he struggles to look for clues to find the four numbers needed as more and more of the beautiful room gets destroyed and crushed behind him. He finds the four numbers needed, so he thinks, but they don’t work, and we watch as he slowly gets crushed…..

…..and then we flashback to three days prior. Here we meet three of our main characters, Zoey (played by Taylor Russell), Jason (played by Jay Ellis), and of course, Ben (played by Logan Miller). Please note that Ben seems slightly more put together here, as in, he’s not being crushed in an escape room…yet. These three characters are vastly different from each other, and they each receive a mysterious puzzle box from someone they know. The puzzle box leads them to Minos Escape Rooms with the promise of ~fabulous cash prizes~ if they can solve the unsolvable escape room. It is here we meet our other three main cast members: Danny (played by Nik Dodani), Mike (played by Tyler Labine), and Amanda (played by Deborah Ann Woll). After Ben presumably breaks the doorknob in the waiting room, the six unfortunates discover that the waiting room IS the escape room, and the game has begun. The rest of the movie is, you guessed it, an escape room! We learn throughout the rest of the film more about the characters and why they were chosen for this deadly game through eerily specific details in all the rooms, and also, who sent them here in the first place?

There’s a lot of really morbid puzzle-solving. Like, a lot.

THE REVIEW

This movie is really, really fun. That feels wrong to say about a “psychological horror-thriller,” but I swear it is fun. In my opinion, the movie does a fascinating job of revealing minor character details throughout without dropping the big twist until the right moment. I love things like this where you feel like you have to pay attention to every detail otherwise you’ll miss something and honestly maybe you should watch it again to really get everything?? I live for stuff like that. It was distressing because of what was happening and exhilarating when something finally went right. I really enjoyed it as a whole, and I think my opinion of the movie got even better the more I thought about it afterwards. Those are my favorite kinds of films-the ones that make you think about them afterwards.

Now it’s time to escape into the next room of this review, (I dunno if I’ll be able to keep up the pun game for every review, fam) so Spoiler Warning now in effect, and I really recommend for this movie that you see it first completely blind to any spoilers or major plot details!

THE MUSIC

The music for this film was really unique when I noticed it, and it’s one reason I want to watch it again, because I’m sure there were notable music moments I missed. The score really set the stage for uneasiness and suspense, and it reminded me of the music played in every movie where someone’s trying to hack into a computer under a time limit. You know the one. Notable music moments include the opening song that sets the room we see Ben fall into, the song that plays during the montage of Ben, Jason, and Zoey trying to solve their puzzle boxes, the end credits music, and of course, that AWFUL distorted rendition of Petula Clark’s “Downtown” that plays as a timer in the upside-down Pool Room, pictured above. Bad room. Worst room. Hate it.

THE CHARACTERS

Overall, there were a lot of likable characters in Escape Room, which is kind of unfortunate because many of them don’t, well, escape. All the characters were unique, and I appreciated how each of them had different reactions to the stressors in each room, according to their character. Zoey is my absolute favorite, she was a delight to watch the entire film, and I so appreciated her being the absolute brainiac of the group. More genius WOC roles in movies, please!! There was also a great character arc for Ben, which I really, really enjoyed, and there was a lot of heart given to both Mike and Amanda as well. Unfortunately, Danny isn’t around long enough to really be developed, and Jason turns out to be a survivalist asshole with quite a superiority complex. But generally, you felt for all the characters, and you wanted to see them escape, which meant that their death scenes generally hit you just as hard as they hit the survivors. Danny’s death is a shocker for all of them, especially Ben, and the way Amanda’s death hits Zoey is heartbreaking to watch but it puts Zoey into hardcore survivor badass mode, which is pretty great. This does mean, however, that Zoey is determined to bring down the corrupt AF corporation behind Minos Escape Rooms, which cool, but also based off that last scene, NOOOOOOOOO!!

THE SCENERY

Now when I first saw the trailer for Escape Room, I thought that each room would be designed for one of the characters specifically. That’s not actually the case, but each room is drastically different and incredibly deadly, with character-specific details woven-throughout. They’re all designed in such a way that you could see them being a legitimate escape room in the real world, except they all have some kind of ACTUAL deadly twist, as opposed to actors and fake consequences. The little details were really clever and sometimes kind of heart-wrenching. The fire and closed-off vent crawl triggered Amanda’s PTSD in a really gutting scene and introduction to her character. The antler trophies in the room pictured above each represented one of the well-known reindeer from the “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” song, which was rough for Ben because of his flashback and rough for the audience because that is clearly insinuating that the reindeer have been slaughtered which like, rude, leave Christmas out of this?? My least favorite room is the arctic winter awfulness simply because it was devastating watching them work together to both deal with Danny’s death and try to melt the key needed out of the center of a solid block of ice while they’re sharing ONE coat among them. Ugh. But a very close second is that stupid upside-down pool room. Design-wise it’s great, but overall? Hate it. Hate what happens. Nope.

THE TWIST

Okay, if you’ve read this far and haven’t seen the movie yet, trust me when I say you really probably wanna see it first before I continue.

For everyone else? Here we go.

Escape Room has actually, a couple twists when you think about it. The initial twist is, of course, the fact that all the dangerous traps are actually real and very deadly. The stakes are REAL high.

The next twist comes in the room outfitted like a hospital. Each character is drawn to a specific bed, set up differently. It turns out, each character spent time at some point in the hospital, and each bed is a perfect recreation of their room. Through discussion, they learn that each of them was the sole survivor of something traumatic that happened to them (we get little flashes about what these events could be throughout the film). Zoey figures out that whoever is running the escape room must want to see who, among them, is the “luckiest of the lucky.”

After a couple more rooms and a couple more deaths, we catch up with Ben, who did indeed survive getting crushed in the lavish living room (so I guess technically he just didn’t get crushed). He hobbles into some sort of warehouse with a large screen that shows each of their pictures, and all of them, save for his, have a large red “X” over top. In his picture, he is labeled the “WINNER.” A bearded British man enters the room to reveal the next twist: this entire thing was set up by a group of bored, rich people who are fascinated by the human will to survive. British Beard proclaims that humans have always loved watching other humans in near-death situations, and they have run these escape rooms multiple times, sort of like an experiment, to try and figure out what it is that makes up the ultimate winner (sidenote: notice how this is also kind of a dig at the audience to the film? After all, aren’t we also paying to watch humans survive in impossible situations for entertainment? Granted, it’s all acting, but still…). It’s a very Hunger Games-esque twist, and British Beard boredly states that he really didn’t think Ben would be the one to make it out, his money was on one of the more fit characters (um, rude?). Ben, absolutely bruised and battered beyond belief at this point, just wants the prize money. All his new friends are dead, and he should probably go to a hospital.

The next twist comes when British Beard says something like “when a horse wins a race, does it get the prize?” and then he tries to choke Ben to death with a wire. Ben is able to get out of the choke hold by taking a piece of wood out of his leg and stabbing British Beard. It still looks like British Beard will be the ultimate victor until…

BAM he gets shot in the back by our next twist: Zoey didn’t die after all! They make sure British Beard can’t follow them and they hobble out into the sunlight.

We ain’t done yet, though, as Zoey is later seen with a group of police officers, headed in to the Minos building to take down the corporation. However, when they bust down the door, it just looks like an abandoned warehouse, with decaying furniture everywhere and graffiti smothering the walls. Zoey, panicked, points out that no, no, this was the lobby! And the vent was right there! And-

She notices that there’s a specific phrase graffiti-ed over the “vent”: “NO WAY OUT” which, she figures out, is an anagram for “WOOTAN YU”, the name of the doctor that’s been splashed all over the movie and, theoretically, the evil mastermind behind all this. Zoey realizes that even THIS is a part of the game!

We STILL AIN’T DONE THOUGH, and we jump ahead to 6 months later, where Zoey and a very cleaned-up Ben are meeting for coffee (they’re sweet and I love them). Ben would very much like to leave everything behind, please, but Zoey refuses. She found headlines explaining away the deaths of all the previous characters, and she’s convinced they would have had headlines, too. They weren’t supposed to win, and they did. Zoey is able to track down what she believes to be the coordinates to Minos headquarters, saying she has plane tickets, let’s go. Ben agrees. GET IT.

STILL. NOT. DONE. We cut to a plane that appears to have lost an engine, but wait, it’s another escape room? The flight attendant and a man on board frantically search for numbers and a key to get into the cockpit, but when they do, the pilots are knocked out, and there’s no way to control the plane, and they crash….

in a SIMULATOR. The flight attendant complains about getting her shoe stuck on something AGAIN, ugh, and the fake plane resets while various people in hazmat suits walk around looking creepy. A silhouette on a screen asks about the survival rate, and a smug guy says “4%. We have their flight info.”

It’s a brilliant setup for a sequel (please, PLEASE give me Zoey punching the living daylights out of this Dr. Wootan Yu, PLEASE!!!) and a creepy reminder that, just like Zoey said, they weren’t supposed to win, and technically? They still haven’t.

(sidenote: does anyone else think the flight attendant looks suspiciously like Zoey’s roommate who goes home for the holidays?? ARE THEY ALL IN ON IT???)

“OOF” MOMENT

Honestly, I really didn’t think there was a particularly awkward or cheesy moment in the film. However, I will mention both Danny’s death and Mike’s death in particular, because they’re infuriating and real hard to watch. Plus it absolutely breaks Ben both times and I just…please help him. Get him a blanket and like, a cozy book or something. Also, initially the “NO WAY OUT” twist drove me crazy because?? LET THEM BE HAPPY, PLEASE.

FAVORITE MOMENT

Hands down, I have to give this to Zoey. We assume she dies due to the poison being released in the air, but in a fun moment, two guys in hazmat suits come into the room, talking about cleaning up the bodies, and they see an oxygen mask. When one of them says “pfft an oxygen mask? What would she use that for?” Zoey appears behind him with a pole and yells “TO BREATHE, BITCH!” and absolutely whacks him so she can escape. I LOVE HER.

SHOULD YOU TAKE YOURSELF TO THIS MOVIE?

This is another one that I think is entirely up to you! If you like escape rooms, crazy puzzles, good characters, fun twists, and a decent thriller, I say go for it! If it’s not your genre, no worries. I’m not super into crazy gory thrillers myself, and we don’t see any gory death scenes (the exception might be Jason, there’s some blood there, and British Beard gets shot a couple of times). I would say there IS a seizure warning for one of the rooms: when Ben and Jason enter the TV static room, the rest of the scene plays out with a whole lot of strobe light and weird camera effects. It’s kind of tough to watch in general, so be warned!

TRAILERS TO WATCH OUT FOR

Many of the trailers were similar to Aquaman (Miss Bala, Pet Sematary, Godzilla: King of the Monsters), but they added Happy Death Day 2 U (similar to Pet Sematary, probably won’t see it alone if I do see it) and The Intruder (which I probably just won’t see in general, not really my jam, unless I hear it has some amazing plot thing that wasn’t featured in the jump-scare-y trailer. Sheesh, between this and Pet Sematary, when are people gonna learn to just not move into weird old houses?? STOP IT).

And that’s the end of this review! If you like mystery thrillers with deadly puzzles, good characters, and a whole LOT of twists, I’d say give this one a go! It’s not a groundbreaking movie, per se, but I think it’s enjoyable and interesting, and I keep wondering about the details I probably missed! So if that sounds like something you’d like, I say take yourself to the movies and see Escape Room.

(2019, not either of the 2017 versions. Unless that sounds like something you’d enjoy, of course.)