Little fear, good writing to be found in Escape Room

Taylor Russell in Escape Room. Image courtesy Columbia Pictures.

The only thing Escape Room kind of has going for it is its premise. Throwing confused people into a confined space and ramping up the danger is a simple yet elegant idea for a horror movie, ripe for social commentary and some rather gruesome deaths. But having a good idea is not nearly enough to carry a film, as is the case with Escape Room, as even the best ideas need a modicum of both good writing and filmmaking talent to succeed.

Again, at least Escape Room has a nice little premise to build from. Six strangers are coaxed into an escape room with the promise of a $10,000 reward for the winner. Each participant has their own reason for signing up for the strange game. One is a brilliant but shy college student (Taylor Russell). One is a weary veteran (Deborah Ann Woll). One is a ruthless businessman (Jay Ellis). One is an alcoholic grocer (Logan Miller). One is an amiable trucker (Tyler Labine). And one happens to be an escape room dork (Nik Dodani). Once the door closes the game begins, the players soon realize the puzzles are more lethal than the average game. Can they overcome their disparate backgrounds and make it through each level of the game?

Again, this is a pretty solid idea for a movie. Escape Room has the right ingredients for both physical horror and sociological terror, with the dangers of the rooms and the fraught relationships combining to bring out the worst in the players. A good version of this movie should bother people, make them uncomfortable and at least a little squeamish. Escape Room isn't a case of missed opportunity or lost potential, but at the least it wasn't doomed for failure.

So why doesn't Escape Room offer up some scares or discomfort? Aside from a PG-13 rating the filmmakers can't seem to work around, it's the writing that is at fault. This type of film requires some terrific writing to provoke ill feelings and build atmosphere, and the script by Bragi Schut and Maria Melnik doesn't provide the necessary quality. There are certainly little things at issue, like clunky dialog and thin characterizations, but the real problems are the notable structural issues that can be seen from the beginning. Instead of opening on the players meeting one another, the movie actually starts toward the end of the order of events and then goes back three days to introduce half of the players. It's unclear what is actually gained from starting with an intense moment before moving away from it, but what is lost is a sense of disorientation for the viewer. For a movie like Escape Room to get some reaction from viewers, it needs to confuse them to the same degree as it confuses the characters. Starting in the first room with little explanation of what is happening would make that confusion palpable, but starting from the end before going back to the beginning introduces a safe environment that isn't necessary. That the movie uses flashback as often as it does as a storytelling technique is all the more bizarre, as it shows the entire movie could have occurred within the walls of the building.

Escape Room doesn't gain much traction in act two – the flashbacks are more distracting than they are interesting – but any suspense or chills developed in that act are wiped away with the film's disastrous finale. Escape Room's need to explain the puzzle – the who and the why – results in some risible explanations and some Nilbog-esque revelations. The movie teeters on the edge of silly and dumb as it stumbles toward the ending, throwing in the worst of its dialog and the most illogical choices from its characters. This, again, is an issue with the writing, as it indicates a lack of confidence in either the storytelling or is an insult to the audience's intelligence. A good mystery is way more interesting than an exposition-filled ending, especially when the explanation is as convoluted and asinine as Escape Room's.

Review: One and a half out of Five Stars

Click here to see the trailer.

Rating: PG-13

Run time: 100 minutes

Genre: Suspense

tl;dr

What Worked: Premise

What Fell Short: Writing, Ending, Acting

What To Instead: Saw, Cube