Escape Room (2017)

Directed by: Will Wernick | 89 minutes | horror, thriller | Actors: Evan Williams, Annabelle Stephenson, Elisabeth Hower, Dan J. Johnson, John Ierardi, Kelly Delson, Iris Avalee, Darrel Cherney, Cathy Diane Tomlin, Cali Fredrichs, Lance Caraway, David Hill

Escape rooms have been booming business for a number of years. The concept of having yourself locked up with a group of friends or colleagues in an attractively decorated themed room full of puzzles, riddles and games appeals to the imagination of many. You get (usually) an hour to get out of the room, but if you don’t make it, there’s no man overboard. Then you just failed in your intention. But what if there are consequences to not completing the assignments on time? Several film makers have run away with that fact. Because everyone naturally wants to benefit from the success of the escape rooms phenomenon. And so it happened that in 2017 two films were released, with not only the same theme, but also with the same title: ‘Escape Room’. In one, directed by Peter Dukes, the heroes clash with a demon-possessed killer who makes them solve all kinds of puzzles. In Will Wernick’s “Escape Room,” it remains unclear who the mysterious sadist is who pushes a bunch of thirty-somethings to their limits.

Wernick is a relatively unknown filmmaker who mainly has short films to his name. ‘Escape Room’ should be his big break, but the film is not exactly a high flyer. To celebrate her boyfriend Tyler (Evan Williams)’s thirtieth birthday, Christen (Elisabeth Hower) invited two friends for dinner, followed by an escape room night. It is all very mysterious, for who their mysterious host is and where they are going in the blinded car waiting for them, Christian does not know either. Once inside, Tyler, his sister Tabby (Kelly Delson), her boyfriend Conrad (John Ierardi), and couple Anderson (Dan J. Johnson) and Natasha (Annabelle Stephenson) are dropped blindfolded into different rooms; check it out without breaking a sweat. For a long time, Tyler thinks it’s Christian who is pulling the strings, but when the puzzles aren’t solved, he sees his friends die a horrific death one by one and images of his girlfriend – naked and in locked in a cage – he realizes it’s a completely different opponent he has to face.

‘Escape Room’ has a not-so-original concept – mix ‘Saw’ with ‘The Game’ and you’ll end up with something like this – but the makers have forgiven that. After all, a familiar concept in a new jacket is fine, as long as the jacket is of a decent quality. And that is what it lacks in every way. It all starts with the intro; this should give us an idea of ​​what awaits us, but it doesn’t make sense. We see a boy being tortured in a dark room, after which we follow a motorcyclist who crosses the city via a drone. Meanwhile, we follow a vague conversation on tape. This introduction could have been skipped completely, because it does not add anything to the film and we will not return to these events at a later stage. The film really starts with the introduction of the characters that it revolves around: Tyler and his friends. Since they are an extremely unsympathetic bunch of spoiled brats, the acting ranges from reasonable to amateurish and the dialogues are horribly bad, we hope they go into that scary room soon; at least there is still something to laugh about when they are slaughtered one by one… Meanwhile, a storyline of a seventh table companion (Iris Avalee), who decides at the last minute not to go into the escape room, ends up completely dead. It is suggested that she will play a role in the story, but nothing is done about it.

And so there are more loose ends that, had they been tied together, could have made something of the film, but disappear completely into thin air here. The tensions between two of the three couples, Tyler’s unfaithfulness; they are things that could have been used to make the characters more alive, give them plausible motives and the killer a motive. But Wernick and co-writer Noah Dorsey fail to act upon it. The escape room itself is also not really worked out properly; as a viewer, for example, you can’t puzzle along with the characters and that takes away a lot of the fun. In addition, interim solutions to riddles arise very spontaneously and with a group of such stupid types that is particularly implausible. Ironically, only when the killer actually strikes does the brewery come alive. That small glimmer of hope for a solid final chord that this creates is, however, mercilessly crushed with the very unsatisfactory ending. Will Wernick’s ‘Escape Room’ misses the mark on all fronts: a mediocre plot, poor acting and an ending that no one really wants. Forget it.