‘Survival is a choice…’
Puzzles have a long and varied history in the world of horror films. From the Saw movies to the Cube franchise, all the way back to Pinhead and the puzzle box in Hellraiser. This has spilled over into real life in recent years with the advent and popularisation of escape rooms. The concept being that a group of people are locked in a room and must solve a series of puzzles in order to escape, occasionally with disastrous consequences. Escape Room marries the tradition of puzzles and mazes within horror and the craze for escape rooms away from the silver screen to devastating effect. It’s also fitting because after only three days, I am already longing to escape from my own self imposed prison that is watching a horror film every day.
A group of strangers including a shy physics student (Taylor Russell), a down-on-his-luck slacker (Logan Miller) and a high powered businessman (Jay Ellis) are invited to compete in a labyrinthine escape room for a huge cash prize. It soon becomes clear that all is not as it seems.
These movies tend to stand and fall on the innovation and ingenuity of the puzzle makers. If you can make the audience engaged enough to try to solve the puzzle in real time then you have cracked it. The escape rooms conjured here by director Adam Robitel are delightfully sadistic and it is this, along with the chemistry shared by the cast, that ensures that Escape Room feels compelling and unique, despite its familiar concept.
The cast do a great job of selling the absurdity and hopelessness of their situation and while the set up for a sequel is a little too on the nose, I will 100% be returning for Escape Room 2 (due out some time in 2020). This movie will do well to escape the long shadow of the Saw movies, but with this first entry, Robitel and his cast have made a hell of a start. One of the best horror movies of 2019.