An Average Movie-Goer’s Review
Spoilers! If you don’t want spoilers – check out the Spoiler-Free post
I love horror movies and if I’m going to watch them anyway, why not write an entertaining/funny review from the POV of an average movie-goer and not a professional critic.
Today we’re looking at 2019’s self-described psychological horror Escape Room. At 95 minutes long it manages to fit a lot of story in a short amount of time but not much horror.
Six strangers are offered the chance to solve a series of escape rooms with a grand prize of $10,000 but they quickly discover the game is for keeps as the rooms have fatal traps for those that don’t escape.
Quick Review:
If a four-piece children’s wooden puzzle is like a bad horror movie and a Sudoku puzzle book is a good horror movie, then Escape Room is a Word search book that when opened is actually a book of random facts. Perfect analogy.
Is Escape Room Scary?
No. Absolutely no horror/terror/screaming was experienced. I didn’t even have to look behind me at all. In fact, halfway through I had to stop and double-check this movie was considered horror because it felt more like an action adventure, that doesn’t make the movie bad, just a not a spooky time movie.
Escape Room (2019) Full Plot Summary:
To make this easier we’re going to list out the 6 characters who have to go through the escape rooms and their background since the puzzles in the room are based on their pasts:
Zoey Davis (played by Taylor Russell) aka Main Character: Years prior to the start of the film she was backpacking with her mother in Vietnam when their plane went down. Everyone onboard died except for her and it took the authorities a week to find her.
Ben (played by Logan Miller) aka the Redemption Arc: Years prior to the film he was the first of his friends to get a car. He and four of his friends went out for a joyride during the Christmas break while drunk. As they were singing Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer (this will be important, trust me) they crashed killing everyone on board except Ben.
Lieutenant Amanda Harper (played by Deborah Ann Woll) aka the Badass with a bad past: Is an Iraq war vet who survived an IED blast that killed everyone in her Humvee except her. She suffered third-degree burns on her back and neck and has post-traumatic stress from the experience.
Mike Nolan (played by Tyler Labine) aka The Overly Positive Nice Guy: Was a miner in West Virginia with 11 others including his younger brother when the mine collapsed and you guessed it, everyone died except him. His story is a bit more tragic as he was able to hear his brother next to him dying while they were both buried and unable to move.
Danny Khan (played by Nik Dodani) aka The Exposition: an escape room enthusiast who as a child survived carbon monoxide poisoning in his home that killed the rest of his family
Jason (played by Jay Ellis) aka Just the Absolute Worst: A successful day trader who during college went out on a boat with his roommate and got stuck out at sea after their boat capsized. As the temperature dropped, hypothermia began to set in and there was only one red jacket between them. His roommate became so confused he attacked Jason and then swam out to sea thinking he could see help. The next day Jason was found by the coast guard and his friend was found dead out at sea.
The film opens up with Ben falling into a nice room filled with antiques and a fireplace, the sort of room someone would call a study or a reading room. Ben spots a puzzle on the other side of the room just as the walls begin to start closing in.
The clue near the puzzle tells him to “follow the light to greener pastures” which is meant to direct him to a green book on one of the shelves that is lit by the light once it’s knocked over by the wall. Now, here’s the problem I have with this, what if the light fell differently? What if, when Ben dropped into the room he would have knocked the light over before the walls began closing in? This is an issue in various of the rooms the group ends up going through but suspension of belief, I guess.
Anyway, Ben continues to follow the clues and figures out the code before the walls close in on him but the code doesn’t work. The walls get closer and embed a piece of wood from one of the destroyed chairs into his thigh. Ben screams and the screen cuts to black revealing the title card.
We flashback to three days earlier in Chicago, Illinois where we now follow Zoey who is attending a physics class, and a rule for any movie/tv show is if there’s a classroom, whatever is being taught is related to the story in some way.
In this case, the class is on quantum mechanics, specifically the quantum Zeno effect, which the professor defines as if you’re observing an atom it won’t change, which is a very simplistic definition of it but ehh it works for the movie I guess.
It’s clear Zoey is smart but very shy and suffering from some PTSD due to the plane incident, her professor encourages her to break out of her shell and do something that scares her during the Thanksgiving break. The following day a package arrives for Zoey from her professor containing a sleek black puzzle box.
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We then cut to Ben, pre-wall crush, working as a stock person at a grocery store who is down on his luck. He asks his boss for a promotion to the checkouts but is turned down as it would be bad for business to have him in front. It’s not clear how far ago the car accident happened but it appears to be fresh in people’s minds and Ben is currently coping by drinking alcohol and carrying a flask around.
Later Ben returns to the stock room to find the puzzle box and a note left telling him it’s for him.
We cut to day trader Jason who is in the middle of a phone call and being an all-around dick to an assistant. It’s clear that while Jason works hard and is successful, he has a huge ego and allowed the success to get to his head. His assistant returns giving Jason a package containing the puzzle. Jason believes it came from his rich client and feels obligated to solve it.
Zoey, Ben, and Jason separately attempt to open the puzzle in their own ways, reflecting their character traits. Zoey draws different configurations and makes notes in a notebook, Ben tries to brute force it open with a hammer but eventually gives in and works on it by trial and error, and Jason watches videos on how to open puzzle boxes, essentially cheating.
The three eventually solved the puzzle box and it spits out an invitation from a company called Minos, inviting them to solve a rare escape room with a $10,000 reward.
The following day the three show up at the escape room and meet the other three contestants, Danny, Mike, and Amanda in the waiting room. The waiting room attendant behind frosted glass tells each of them to have a seat as someone will be with them shortly.
Danny explains they must be waiting for the Games Master who will them the rules and how the escape room works, Jason takes every opportunity to insult each of the group, and Mike attempts to make jokes and get to know the rest of the group.
Ben gets annoyed and attempts to go out to smoke but the door handle breaks off revealing an oven knob. Danny realizes the waiting room is the escape room and they all start looking for clues for a way out.
Mike finds a screwdriver in the book Fahrenheit 451 leading Zoey to believe the knob has to be turned to 451 but when she does the ceiling retracts revealing heat lamps.
Mike finds a lock on the frosted partition separating the attendant and the group shifts their focus to finding a key for it. Jason finds a snow globe with an exact replica of the boat he and his roommate were trapped in but keeps it to himself.
Danny tries to convince the rest of the group they’re not in any real danger and that it’s all part of the game. Ben decides to break the lock open and grabs the fire extinguisher but it’s revealed to be a fake.
Zoey finds the key and opens the partition revealing the attendant was a mannequin playing a pre-recorded message. The phone rings and Jason picks up, the voice on the other end tells them to follow the posted rules but the group hasn’t seen any rules posted in the room. After he hangs up, it triggers a trap that lowers metal barriers on the windows, turns on red lights, and activates more heat tubes.
Amanda begins to have a panic attack but Zoey helps calm her down by giving her water and talking her through it. She then notices a sign on the wall telling the group to use coasters and realizes pushing down on the six coasters opens a vent in the room to safety.
Danny, Mike, Ben, and Zoey push down on the coasters as Jason elects to go through the vent and finds a grate that can be opened with a screwdriver. Amanda takes over for Mike letting him be the next through the vent with the screwdriver. Amanda is next as Zoey realizes they can fill water glasses with water from the water cooler allowing them all to escape.
Zoey is next through the vent as Ben and Danny continue filling water glasses but come up short because Amanda drank some earlier. As they lose hope because for some reason they don’t think to use literally ANY OTHER HEAVY OBJECT IN THE ROOM, Ben realizes he can use the alcohol in his flask to fill the last glass, and the two escape just in time before a large fireball burns the room.
The vent leads the group to the next room designed as a hunting cabin with two locks on the door, one a simple lock, and the other being a lock requiring a seven-letter word. Despite the fireball in the previous room, Danny still believes it’s all part of a game where no one will get hurt. Meanwhile, Amanda wants out and finds a camera in the room. She yells at it that she gives up while Mike attempts to break the tension with a joke and his positivity.
The group argues while Jason finds the first key and Ben realizes the clues in the cabin point to Rudolph being the seven-letter word needed, a reference to his accident.
With the doors open the group heads to the next room designed to be a frozen lake, once they all step out of the cabin, the doors lock and windows get covered with metal grates. A thermometer outside tells them the temperature is 30 degrees Fahrenheit (-1 Celsius) and dropping.
They quickly look for clues and find one red jacket, a replica of the same jacket Jason and his roommate had when stuck on the boat.
Mike separately finds a stuffed replica of his dog that points him to a fishing rod up on a tree, Zoey finds a compass in the red jacket following it to find a metal magnetic weight, and Ben walks over a piece of ice that breaks off revealing a fishing hole.
The six regroup attaching the magnet to the rod and dropping the line into the fishing hole. Ben annoyed at Jason because he was being Jason, walks away from the group to have a smoke.
The rest pull up a key encased in a solid block of ice from the water and ask Ben for his lighter. He slides it over on the ice and Danny elects to go pick it up. Just as he picks it up the ice breaks below him dropping him in the ice and killing him.
Failing to save Danny the group realizes the severity of the situation and mourns his loss. All except the dickhead Jason who tries to figure out how to get the key out of the ice. The group elects to use their own body heat to melt the ice and take turns with the jacket.
As the temperature hit below 0 Fahrenheit (-18 Celsius) Jason is able to pull the key out of the now melted ice block. They all rush to the lock that opens a door on the opposite end of the room. As they run towards the exit the ice begins to crack underneath them and explode, all five make it to the other end and the next room.*
The next room is a completely upside down billiards room with the group standing on the ceiling (now the floor) and all the typical things found in a billiards room nailed down to the floor (now the ceiling) along with the song Downtown playing on a loop through loudspeakers.
Jason realizes a door across the room is missing a doorknob and Mike realizes the 8 ball is missing from the pool table. The song stops abruptly causing a large portion of the floor to fall into a seemingly bottomless pit.
The group jumps up and hang on to the sides of the walls, Amanda gets all badass and climbs up swinging across the room and behind the counter to find a safe that requires a 4-digit code. Zoey then realizes one of the walls contains a sliding puzzle and, after sliding across the room, solves it giving the group four colors corresponding to billiard balls on the table. This gives them the code for the safe but it ends up not working.
The shelving Zoey is hanging onto begins to break off the wall and she falls to the floor knocking herself unconscious. The music stops and the floor starts to break off, luckily Zoey wakes up in time to jump and grab back onto the wall realizing if the room is upside down, the code must also be.
Amanda tries the new code and finds a doorknob painted as an 8-ball, she places it in her pocket and starts to swing back to the group by the door. The 8-ball falls out of her pocket and she has to drop down on the remaining piece of floor to prevent it from rolling off. The music stops and she’s able to toss the 8-ball to Jason and jump up in time to grab a phone cord before the final piece of the floor falls.
Zoey grabs a pool cue and tries to use it to reach out to the hanging Amanda but Amanda realizes it’s too much of a risk and sacrifices herself by letting go of the cord.
The group moves onto the next room while they all mourn the loss of Amanda except for Jason because he’s Jason. This room is a replica of all their respective hospital rooms. They realize being the sole survivor of a tragic event is something they all have in common and they share their stories.
Zoey realizes they are all statistical improbabilities and the games are designed to find the sole survivor of the group as they’re watched by the cameras. She then remembers the Quantum Zeno Effect and decides to break all the cameras in the room so they can’t be watched.
Meanwhile, a video plays telling the group they need to test their limits to find a way out of the room and Jason interprets this to mean they need to increase their heart rates to the limit. He finds an EKG machine and believes that will trigger the door to open when the appropriate heart rate has been found. He also finds a canister of poison gas that is counting down from five minutes giving them only a limited amount of time to open the door.
Ben tries to get Zoey to help them but she yells back that doing what those watching want is the wrong thing. Jason uses Mike’s dead brother to manipulate him to use a defibrillator to increase his heart rate but instead accidentally kills him, only then realizing the game isn’t to increase their heart rate but to decrease it.
See? Just the worst.
The gas starts to deploy as Jason uses meditation to lower his heart rate and get the door open. Ben again tries to reason with Zoey but she tells him to leave her behind as she starts to succumb to the poison after breaking all the cameras.
Jason escapes the room and Ben reluctantly follows behind, the door then seals shut again leaving Zoey in the room with the gas. She attempts to crawl to an oxygen mask but falls, seemingly dying.
Remember how after each room I keep writing that everyone except Jason mourns a loss? Same here. Ben loses his shit on Jason and accuses him of lying about his past, believing his roommate didn’t swim out by choice but instead was killed by Jason in order to have the jacket all for himself.
A quick flashback reveals Ben was right. With only the remaining jacket, Jason killed his roommate by drowning him in the icy water. Just the absolute worst. The two fight but realize they need to work together to get out of the room.
Jason finds a hatch and together they open it seeing a message on the underside of the cover saying “Feel free to leave but may we note it’s best to find the antidote.” The two realize the handle was coated in some kind of hallucinogenic and they start tripping balls but it’s also a poison killing them.
The two search for an antidote and Ben finds only one vial. Jason being Jason attacks him for it but after a struggle is pushed causing him to fall back and hit his head. Ben injects himself with the antidote and sees Jason has died from the blow to the head.
Ben then jumps down the opening and lands at the scene from the beginning of this movie. The scene cuts back to Zoey still laying on the ground as two Minos employees in hazmat suits enter the room through a hidden entrance and comment on having to clean up two bodies. They then see a hanging oxygen mask and wonder what Zoey was planning on doing with it.
It’s then revealed Zoey faked her death and actually did get to the oxygen mask in time, she attacks both the employees taking their guns and exiting the room through the hidden entrance.
In another fake-out, it’s revealed Ben survived the walls closing in on him by grabbing an ornate shield and using it to shield him from the fire of the fireplace as he climbed in. Once the walls closed fully they opened back up and he was able to escape the room through a door.
The next room is revealed to be the Game Master’s room, a man working for Minos to ensure the group was playing by the rules. He explains to Ben the escape rooms are funded by the wealthy elite who want to see groups of people try to survive the rooms. They’ve had multiple previous rooms with other groups in the past and bets are placed on who would win.
After Ben asks if he can go free, the Game Master walks behind him and tries to strangle him to death. Ben struggles, reaches for the piece of wood lodged into his leg, and stabs the game master with it. The Game Master releases Ben but knocks him unconscious and is about to kill him when he is shot from behind by Zoey.
Zoey checks on Ben but the Game Master attacks her and after a brief struggle, Ben hits the Game Master knocking him to the ground. He then grabs Zoey’s gun and shoots him dead. The two finally escape.
A day later Ben is in the hospital with Zoey at his bedside when the police arrive asking her to show them the building. When they arrive all the evidence of the escape rooms is gone and the police doubt her story, they also don’t believe Ben as the hospital found hallucinogens in his system.
Worst police ever.
Six months later, Zoey and Ben meet at a restaurant where Zoey shows him clips of newspaper articles of Minos having faked the deaths of Amanda, Mike, Danny, and Jason. She has also found clues to the Minos’s headquarters in New York and wants Ben to help her take them down, having already bought plane tickets to New York for the both of them. Ben reluctantly agrees. (sequel baiting!)
We then cut to a plane on the verge of crashing while two flight attendants attempt to solve a puzzle to get into the cockpit. They succeed in opening the door to find the dead pilot and co-pilot but are too late to pull the airplane up before crashing into the mountains. It’s then revealed the entire thing is a simulation for a new escape room Minos is preparing for Zoey and Ben.
A scene that really cements the fact that this movie is the furthest from psychological horror.
Final Review:
If a four-piece children’s wooden puzzle is like a bad horror movie and a Sudoku puzzle book is a good horror movie, then Escape Room is a Word search book that when opened is actually a book of random facts. Perfect analogy.
The movie is definitely well-acted and the story is engaging especially being able to fit the backgrounds of 6 different characters while still being able to provide a few twists.
The escape rooms themselves have some interesting solutions and premises but some character choices don’t make sense (not using other weighted objects instead of the glasses of water) and the ending goes a bit off the rails. (A whole airplane sim to get back at two people who passed the escape room? How profitable are these escape rooms?!)
Overall it’s a good movie but not a good horror movie. Not sure what makes it psychological horror besides the fact that the escape rooms could kill you but the tension and suspense is never portrayed high enough to elicit horror.
NOTES
*The ice looked to be exploding in strategic points activated by an outside source which leads me to think that Danny’s death was not accidental and caused by the Games Master, possibly for not obeying the rules and bringing a phone into the game. This is never verified so just speculation.
Cast IMBD