Imagine Saw, but toned down on the gore and with a reduced presence of Jigsaw, while highlighting more compelling main characters. In 2019, director Adam Robitel surprised audiences with the horror thriller “Escape Room,” a film that managed to captivate and satisfy viewers with its cleverness and entertainment.
It skillfully incorporates comedic elements to prevent the movie from becoming overly dark and pessimistic, and not everyone meets a grim fate. Nevertheless, the film still boasts a respectable body count, keeping it firmly within the horror genre without venturing into an April Fool’s Day-like conclusion. The plot revolves around six strangers who confront a life-or-death challenge within perilous escape rooms, all for a monetary prize. The catch is that these rooms are perilous in the extreme.
The initial installment proved a box-office hit, with the sequel effectively building upon the strengths of the original. As we await the third entry in this franchise, our options are re-watching the films and delving into in-depth analyses of the most terrifying moments from “Escape Room.”
10 Confessions in the Hospital
After Amanda’s sacrifice, the remaining survivors go ahead and enter another room that resembles a hospital ward. The game in this one doesn’t start very quickly, and this is where they open up and reveal they are survivors from other experiences. Mike survived a mine disaster, Zoey survived a plane crash, Jason survived a shipwreck, and Ben is the only one in his family who survived carbon monoxide poisoning.
The confessions add some tension to the group who finally realize there’s a pattern to their presence and every room is supposed to make them go through their trauma again. It’s a heartbreaking scene.
9 The Knob Comes Off
So, everyone’s settled in, cozy and tight. All invitees are now in the Minos building where they start knowing each other in a waiting room. At first, it seems like a gathering of average people who, for some reason, get invited to participate in something pretty trendy like an escape game. Only this one has money at the finish line.
As they try to figure out when it starts, Ben tries a doorknob and it comes off. This is a sign that it’s already begun without them knowing it. This beginning is ominous, almost random, and exciting. At least for a couple of seconds until things start heating up. Literally.
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8 Danny’s Death
By leaving the cabin, they “enter” another room. Not before we realize the rooms are associated with the past traumas of every participant. Now they’re outside in the freezing cold. It’s snowing, and the floor is icy. Like one of them says, “It’s like ice skating.”
Seconds later he ignites something and the room starts getting colder and colder. As they attempt to find more clues, they get some equipment for surviving the extreme weather, including a fishing pole, a compass, and a jacket. Conflicts arise as they start getting desperate.
In a desperate attempt to retrieve a lighter, Danny, the escape room nerd, crosses over to where Ben’s smoking a cigarette, but then he falls into the freezing water and the group realizes the game is anything but harmless. Danny’s lifeless body eventually sinks below the ice.
7 The Acid Room
After escaping the last room, leaving Zoey and Mike’s bodies behind, Ben and Jason enter a hallucination room. Literally. This thing is like a ’70s LSD novelty with terrible consequences. Both men start to fall under the effects of the room that’s full of strobe lights and optical illusions. Eventually, they start fighting for an antidote they need in order to continue, but Ben strikes a final blow and kills Jason, serving justice for the less empathic player.
6 The Crunching Room
When Ben leaves the hallucination room, he falls down some sort of library. When he tries to solve the puzzle without success he activates something: the room starts shrinking. And chances are the hydraulic force of the machine is enough to crunch him to death. It’s a very short scene that features a suffering Ben inside a wall where he will most likely die. The curious thing is he doesn’t. He must only remain still.
5 Running Through the Ice
When a door ultimately opens in the snow room, they must run for their lives through the breaking ice. The scene is only a few seconds long, and we’re not even past the trauma of Danny’s death. As they run, all we keep thinking about is what insanely cool location can exist to hold this kind of attraction.
Do they make it to the next room? Let’s find out with the next moment on the list.
4 Amanda’s Sacrifice
The next room is great! An actual upside-down bar where the floor starts falling down a giant shaft. The players are forced to hang onto objects on the walls and whatever they can grab. All while a blasting radio forces them to find clues to elevator music. A safe holds the key out, and they try to solve a sliding puzzle to get the code. The thing is each mistake is another part of the floor that goes down.
They finally open it and the key is a ball. Amanda has it, but she’ll have to climb over the other side where the others have regrouped, and the door to the next room is located. Sadly, the ball falls and Amanda sacrifices herself to pick it up. Seconds pass as the last big tile falls and Amanda tries one last time to hold on to a phone cord. It doesn’t hold and Amanda falls to her death.
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3 Shock Till You Drop
After Amanda’s death, Ben, Jason, Zoey, and Mike enter the hospital ward where they confess their past traumas. When the game begins, a countdown shows they only have a couple of minutes before getting gassed to death. Somehow, Jason finds the clues. Only he doesn’t apply them so well.
The less likable guy in the group actually convinces Mike to let him defibrillate him to see if the heartbeat is the proper one for the door to open. Mike stares bewildered, but this doesn’t stop Jason who shocks him once, leaving Mike breathless. Then twice, when Mike flatlines. The door doesn’t open and Jason has killed Mike for nothing.
2 It Starts to Get Hot
The very first room in Escape Room is a horrific sign of what will ultimately happen to these people: it starts to get hot. But not sauna style. More like burning alive style. The players realize the clues are necessary to leave the oven-like room. As they use a duct to escape the burning room, some of them remain skeptical about the safety of the game. Others are already terrified. It’s a thrilling introduction to the rest of the film.
1 “No Way Out”
The scariest moment in the film comes when everything is revealed. Zoey is a courageous survivor that’s helping the police solve the crime. But it’s only she who knows about the place, the bodies, and what took place inside the Minos building. When she goes with the police to the site, there’s nothing. Not even a trace of the rooms.
The burning waiting room must have left ashes, but this is not enough for the police to believe her. As she stares at a graffiti drawing that says “No Way Out,” she remembers Dr. Wootan Yu who narrated the video in the hospital ward room. Wootan Yu? Actually, an anagram for No Way Out. Zoey realizes she may be competing with an entity that’s more powerful than she thought. Of course, she won’t find out until the sequel.
You can stream Escape Room on Hulu.
