Flip that calendar, ladies and gents, because it’s 2019! New year, new you, and new ways to watch people die in a horror film. Quite true to its bonne anneé premiere, Escape Room reminds me of one of those fancy black tie New Year’s Eve parties—complete with surprises, strobe lights, loud music, tight clothing, and just enough of a good time to prevent you from regretting the purchase. Now if only the film offered us a little bubbly too…
After an opening scene that presents a frightful preview of what’s to come, Escape Room dials back the clock and 
kicks off in earnest by walking us through careful introductions of each of our six main characters—a mashup of individuals with a variety of skills even Captain Planet’s recruiter would admire: a shy, dorky college student with a penchant for numbers, a buff, cutthroat stock broker, a dim-but-earnest truck driver, a drunk grocery store shelf-stocker, an escape room aficionado, and a pretty redhead with combat skills (“Jyessicuh” to all you fans of the breathlessly-uttered “Suhkehh”). What brings them together? A surprise puzzle box invitation and a promise of $10,000 to the person who manages to make it out of the escape room.
Our crew quickly finds itself stuck in the waiting room, and the game has officially begun. Our heroes have to battle life-threatening extremes under the watchful eye of security 
cameras, and what starts out as fun and games quickly becomes much more dire than any of them expect.
Reminiscent of tired horror tropes, on its surface Escape Room has the makings of a cheap, formulaic modern scary movie: a variety of characters, a common challenge, life-threatening risks, and the underlying mystery of why it’s all happening in the first place. But while others have followed a similar path and failed, Escape Room offers enough attention-grabbing, fear-based puzzles to keep you at the edge of your seat, wondering what’s next. The film smartly steers clear of over-the-top, bloody gore (think every sequel of Saw), and its comedic punchlines unexpectedly connect. Surprisingly, this film has just enough pep to cross the finish line.
Sure, some of the last-minute puzzle solutions are more than a bit far-fetched, and we aren’t exactly talking original material here (I mean aren’t we basically watching Cube or House on Haunted Hill revamped for the 21st century?), but there’s enough nail-biting thrills, literal chills, and keep-you-guessing mysteries in Escape Room to merit a meager thumbs up from this horrorista. I’ll give director Adam Robitel a pass on this one, but next time, perhaps let’s try something a bit closer to The Taking of Deborah Logan and a bit further from Insidious: The Last Key.
SpecialK Verdict: If you walk in expecting “meh” you’ll enjoy a fun ride of a film. Now let’s all ditch the overly ambitious resolutions and apply this approach to 2019—we just might find our midyear selves pleasantly surprised.
Escape Room opens Friday, January 4.
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