Escape Room

Dear fellow readers,

I'm a sucker for escape rooms and I've done actual escape rooms and VR escape rooms. They are fun and exciting! But this movie is very different. A psychological thriller.

Warning: Spoiler Alert!

Six people from varied backgrounds are presented with a puzzle cube: Zoey, a physics student; Jason, a wealthy day trader; Ben, a stockboy; Mike, a truck driver; Amanda, an Iraq War veteran; and Danny, an escape room enthusiast. When they solve the puzzle, they are invited to take part in an escape room with a $10,000 prize. The participants arrive at an office block with no greeting, and when Ben tries to leave, the door handle falls off, revealing that the challenge has begun. They escape the first two rooms, a giant heating oven and a winter cabin. After finding the key, however, the rooms become fatal. Danny falls through the ice in an icy room and drowns; Amanda plummets to her death in an upside-down billiards bar where parts of the floor periodically fall into a deep shaft below; Jason accidentally shocks Mike to death to solve a puzzle in a hospital room filling up with poisonous gas, leaving Zoey behind to die after she refuses to leave in order to destroy security cameras; and in a room with optical illusions, strobe lights and transdermal drugs coating the surfaces, Ben kills Jason over an antidote required to escape.

Some rooms, through songs playing, coats, and hospital beds, remind the players of them being sole survivors of various disasters; Mike escaped a mine cave-in, Zoey survived a plane crash, Danny survived when his family died of carbon monoxide poisoning, Amanda survived an IED blast, Jason survived a shipwreck in frigid weather, and Ben survived a car accident where his friends died. Zoey realizes that the purpose of the game is to determine which player is the luckiest. Ben, after escaping the last room where a wall moves inwards to crush him, meets the Gamemaster, who controls the game that the Puzzle Maker designed. The Gamemaster explains that each year they lure in players with something in common – college athletes, savants, etc. – and wealthy viewers bet on the result, with the current game luring in sole survivors of previous disasters. The Gamemaster tries to kill Ben, but Zoey intervenes, having used an oxygen mask in the hospital room to survive until the room was unlocked by cleaning staff. Together they kill the Gamemaster.

As Ben recovers, Zoey returns to the building with a detective. The police do not believe Zoey, as all evidence of the game has disappeared. They do not believe Ben either, as he is found to have drugs in his system from a previous room. While looking at the graffiti on the wall, Zoey notices the words "No Way Out" and realizes they are an anagram for "Wootan Yu", a name that appeared in several places throughout the escape rooms, suggesting the game is not over. Six months later, Zoey meets up with Ben and shows him newspaper articles that passed off the other players' deaths as everyday accidents. When Ben suggests Zoey should move on, she refuses. She reveals clues to Ben that point to an unlisted building in Manhattan. Ben agrees to go with her. However, the Puzzle Maker is already preparing to make their flight a new deadly game of survival.

This story continues into a sequel, Escape Room: Tournament of Champions. This movie has two alternate endings. The theatrical version that was released has a different ending to the extended cut.

After escaping the "sole survivor" escape rooms orchestrated by the Minos Corporation, Zoey Davis and Ben Miller decide to confront the shadowy organization after finding coordinates to its New York City–based headquarters. Zoey is encouraged by her therapist to move on from her trauma and to get over her aerophobia, but she opts to drive with Ben instead of flying.

The pair find the headquarters derelict and are accosted by a vagrant who steals Zoey's necklace. She and Ben give chase straight into the Q subway train. Their train car separates from the rest of the train and is redirected to a remote station, sealing Zoey, Ben, and other passengers Rachel, Brianna, Nathan, and Theo inside. As the passengers realize in horror that they are once again in Minos' deadly game, the train becomes electrified. Zoey and Ben learn that the others are the "winners" of previous escape rooms, having survived them. To escape, the group must collect subway tokens as the electrification increases. Theo is killed while the rest escape. Nathan reveals his escape room group were all priests, Brianna's were all influencers, and Rachel's consisted of people who cannot feel physical pain.

The next room is a bank with a slowly closing vault and a deadly laser security system. The group manages to decipher the complex route to get around the lasers and escape with just seconds to spare. While in the room, Zoey is perplexed by frequent references to someone called Sonya and that the escape rooms have no apparent connection to the group unlike before.

The next room is a postcard-like beach with more references to Sonya. They discover that the beach is covered in quicksand. While Rachel is sinking, Nathan sacrifices himself to save Rachel and is swallowed up by the sand. Zoey finds an alternate route out just as Brianna unlocks the intended exit. An argument on which route to take breaks out; Rachel and Ben side with Zoey. Brianna escapes through the main exit while Rachel and Zoey traverse to the alternate route, but Ben falls into the quicksand.

Zoey and Rachel make their way out through a manhole back into the city. Overjoyed at first that they are outside, they quickly realize they are still in the game when they encounter a panicked Brianna. If they do not make it out of this room, acid rain is periodically sprayed on them. The group opens a taxi to escape into but once Zoey enters, the taxi locks Rachel and Brianna out. Zoey falls into the next room while Rachel and Brianna die in the rain.

The next room is a child's bedroom containing a diary from Sonya, revealing the rooms are based on a fun day out she had with her mother. Zoey discovers Sonya's mother is Amanda Harper, who survived her fall in her original escape room and was forced into designing escape rooms for Minos after they abducted her daughter. Amanda appears and begs Zoey to become the next puzzle-maker for Minos, warning that she has no choice. Ben is revealed to be trapped in a cage. When Zoey refuses Minos' demand, Ben's cage starts filling with water, but Zoey and Amanda work together to free him. They manage to break out, fleeing the facility. They report their findings to the police, who retrieve the bodies of Rachel, Brianna, Nathan, and Theo; the news about Minos goes public. An FBI agent assures Zoey that Minos will be tracked down.

Filled with confidence, Zoey decides to take a plane home with Ben. Onboard, she sees a woman who resembles her therapist, and then realizes she is in another escape room. The distorted voice of Minos' leader mocks Zoey and Ben for falling into their latest trap as the plane begins to fall and gas fills the cabin.

In the extended cut, the film opens with Henry, revealed to be a designer of the escape rooms. When his wife Sonya threatens to divorce him and take their daughter Claire with her, she ends up trapped in the sauna when it turns into an escape room. However, she does not solve it in time to escape and eventually dies from the extreme temperatures.

Later in the film, when there is a malfunction during the Acid Rain room's transition, Zoey is taken to a department of Minos where she meets Claire, who turns out to be the actual puzzle maker. Claire has been locked up in a room by her father, who is one of the higher-ups in Minos and who has forced her to create elaborate escape rooms after which he has taken all of the credit. Claire begs Zoey to help her get out of the room. Up until that point Zoey has been hesitant, until it is revealed Ben has been saved by Claire who created a secret compartment under the quicksand for him to fall into. However, Ben is found by Henry's men and thrown into the final room: a sauna. With Zoey's help Claire manages to break out and is then met by her father. Zoey and Claire succeed in fighting Claire's father off and they save Ben. Claire locks the Minos employees inside the control room, and suggests Zoey report her findings to the police.

After Zoey escapes to the original location where she finds Ben in an ambulance, it is revealed that Claire was the mastermind all along. When she was younger, she tried to be as bad as possible in an attempt to see if her parents truly loved her as she is. When her mother Sonya said that she was getting her help by sending her away, Claire murdered her in the sauna. Claire ultimately traps her father in her old room and kills him.

Trust me, this film is worth watching. Go check it out! Until next read... ciao!