The third and final of films with this title, or at least I bloody well hope so. 'Escape Room' (2017), not to be confused with 'Escape Room' (2017) or 'Escape Room (2019), is a low budget horror film set in an escape room (obviously). However, where this film differs from the other two is in the fact that it is not the room itself that is deadly. Instead the film chooses to go down a paranormal route with a demon being the main source of the horror. Does it lead to the film being more interesting? Nah not really. As with the other three films, this film has a group of friends going to an escape room which is much more deadly than initially expected. The escape room they go to in this film is owned by Brice (Skeet Ulrich) who is looking too up the ante of his horror themed rooms after suffering a less than stellar season. He is drawn to a strange box that he finds in an antique shop. The owner of the shop warns Brice that the box houses a demon and is not for sale. Brice is inexplicably drawn to the box however and decides to steal it to use in his escape room to give it the final push he thinks it needs. Whilst the group are in the room they open the box, letting the demon out who promptly possesses the actor who is playing the killer of the room, leaving the group trapped to slowly be killed by the demon.
I had to double check that i was watching the right film when it opened up in an Algerian desert in the 1800s. Seriously that is how this film about an escape room opens. It is done as a way of introducing the demon box and how evil it is to the plot, but it is a pretty needless scene in the grand scheme of the film. The box itself is quite funny, and I don't think it is meant to be. The whole point of Brice being drawn to this thing because it has a demon inside it is fine, it works narratively and makes sense. What makes it funny is the fact that he wants it too complete the ambience of his escape room and yet when we see it is on a high shelf in the corner of the room so you can't even see it. It also isn't being used for any clues so it is truly a pointless addition, I just don't see why he thought it would be the piece de resistance of his escape room. One fun plot point is the killer being tied up with a chain that is loosened slightly every 5 minutes allowing him to get closer to the protagonists. The film as a whole isn't scary, but it is a smart way of creating tension. The biggest problem I have with the film is not the narrative of it. Yeah it is dumb but its a low budget horror film so whatever. My biggest problem with the film is the colour of it. It is so dull and often times looks black and white. I think this is done to give the film a 'scarier' look but all it does is make the film horrible to look at and actually hard to see what is happening quite a lot of the time.
The film also suffers from a pretty poor script, which in turn leads to pretty poor performances. The film is made by someone who loves horror films. Want to know how I know that? Because two of the main characters won't shut up about them. They talk about old horror films almost all the time and that is basically their personalities. However, this never comes across as two friends discussing horror films and instead comes across like a writer wanting to show off about how much of a horror fan they are and it isn't endearing. It also led to one of the dumbest lines I've ever heard in any film, where the antique shop owner is on the phone and says 'don't get it wet and don't feed it after midnight', of course referencing 'Gremlins' (1984). This might have worked if the film was a parody but it isn't and so just seems stupidly out of place. Lines like this do not help the actors in the film, and I'm sorry to say that no one puts in a good performance. I wouldn't go so far to say anybody is particularly terrible but some of the performances have truly terrible moments. Most of these moments come from Christine Donlon as Jess. Again the performance isn't terrible, but there were several moments where I was genuinely laughing. These moments mostly came when Donlon had to scream. These moments just did not seem genuine at all, and often times it was as if she was just holding her mouth open and a scream noise was being played over the image, that is how little emotion was in these moments. I got some good laughs out of it but I am pretty sure I wasn't meant to.
I was really not expecting much from 'Escape Room' and it did not surprise me at all. The film is not shot terribly but the colour of the film is unbelievably dull and makes it hard to look at occasionally. The script is also pretty shocking as are the performances at times and it leads to an overall poor experience. It is not close to being unwatchable and I have definitely seen a lot worse, but it is still pretty shit. No point in you wasting your time with this one, I did that for you.