![]() ![]() ![]() And before they realize it, the game has already begun, and its volley of perils are alarmingly real - real heat and flame, real hypothermia, real claustrophobia and dizzying heights to fall from. They arrive at the game, and meet Iraq veteran Amanda (Deborah Ann Woll), struggling long-haul truck driver Mike (Tyler Labine), and die-hard escape-room enthusiast Danny (Nik Dodani). There’s something humanizing and humbling about a good puzzle, and even the coldest Patrick Bateman type or hopeless slacker can be a little redeemed if we see him really applying himself to one. The first challenge is opening the invitation box itself, and in a brief montage that cuts between the three of them struggling with the puzzle, we find ourselves instantly rooting for them. They’re all gifted invitations to the experience by people close to them - for Zoey and Ben, as a means to broaden their horizons. Zoey (Taylor Russell) is a shy, brilliant college student with a trauma in her past, Jason (Jay Ellis) is a suave, go-getting stock broker with a survival-of-the-fittest philosophy of life, Ben (Logan Miller) is a failson with a drinking problem working for his uncle in the backroom of a hardware store. The film opens by introducing us to three of its six strangers, who eventually find themselves in the waiting room of an escape room that promises to be the most immersive in the country. But the increasingly wobbly line between reality and unreality is just one tense contraption rigged up in Insidious and Paranormal Activity franchise veteran Adam Robitel’s tight, fun little thriller.Īnd it really is a thriller, more than the horror movie one might assume it would be. And as with movies about theme-park spook houses come to life, there’s a fun conceptual ouroboros baked into making a movie about an escape room - a place people go in part to feel like they themselves are in a movie - turned real and deadly. It’s a no-brainer: Unlike our countless phone-based diversions, escape rooms are probably one of the only contemporary innovations in human recreation that lends itself to compelling onscreen action. Escape Room feels like a movie whose existence was assured from the moment the first trend piece was published about those titular team-building exercises that have since become ubiquitous. ![]()
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