Escape Room (2019)

Escape Room (2019) - Taylor Russell
Escape Room (2019) – Taylor Russell

Taglines: Solve the Puzzle. Escape the Room. Find the clues or die.

Escape Room Movie Storyline. Shy physics student Zoey, struggling stockboy Ben, young trader Jason, war veteran Amanda, former miner Mike and escape room enthusiast Danny are all gifted a puzzle box and after solving the puzzle, a clue invites them to the Minos Escape Room Facility for a chance at $10,000 should they successfully escape. When Ben tries leaving the room for a smoke break, the door handle breaks off, locking them inside and revealing an oven temperature gauge. The group figure out a puzzle involving coasters allowing them to escape just in time as the room erupts in flames.

The group find themselves in a winter cabin and Ben has a flashback to a drunk car accident he was in. Using a clue linked to the incident they escape the cabin and enter a room that is frozen with frigid temperatures. The group fish out a key encased in a cube of ice, but as Danny attempts to retrieve Ben’s lighter to melt the cube, he falls into the ice and drowns. The group manage to retrieve the key by melting it with body heat and escape the room.

The third room is an inverted bar with pool tables where sections of the floor start to fall away. Identifying an 8 ball as the key to get out, Zoey solves a sliding puzzle to get numbers for a safe to retrieve the ball from. Amanda successfully unlocks the safe to retrieve the ball but as she makes her way across the roof to join the others, the ball falls out of her pocket. Sacrificing herself, Amanda drops down to the floor and manages to throw the ball to Jason just as the last piece of floor falls away and she plummets to her death.

Escape Room (2019)

The group enter a hospital ward containing beds identical to ones each of the game’s players were treated in after being declared as sole survivors: Zoey survived a plane crash, Mike was the only miner pulled out alive after a cave-in, all of Ben’s friends were killed after he drove drunk, and only Jason was found by the Coast Guard after he and his college roommate’s boat overturned in frigid waters.

The group learn Danny’s entire family was killed by carbon monoxide poisoning and Amanda was the only soldier in her unit to survive an IED blast in Iraq. The remaining survivors realize deliberate planning led to them all arriving at the escape room, to see who would be the luckiest out of the lucky, and aspects of the game have been modeled on their lives.

A TV broadcast states the group has five minutes to live until the room will be filled with poison gas. Jason, Ben, and Mike locate an EKG machine to find the optimal heart rate that will lead to the next room. Believing a high heart rate will save the group, Jason inadvertently kills Mike by blasting him several times with a defibrillator, before hooking himself up to the EKG and letting the poison lower his rate to below 50 BPM. The pathway to the next room opens and Jason and Ben escape, but Zoey refuses to follow along, collapsing and dying after disabling several cameras in the room.

Escape Room is a 2019 American thriller film[3] directed by Adam Robitel and written by Bragi F. Schut and Maria Melnik. The film stars Logan Miller, Deborah Ann Woll, Taylor Russell, Tyler Labine, Jay Ellis, and Nik Dodani, and follows a group of people who are sent to navigate a series of escape rooms, only to find the consequences are deadly.

Development of the film began in August 2017, then under the title The Maze, and the casting process commenced. Filming took place in South Africa in late 2017 through January 2018.

Escape Room was released in the United States on January 4, 2019, by Sony Pictures Entertainment, and has grossed over $53 million worldwide making it the second highest grossing film of the year. The film received mixed reviews from critics, who praised the atmosphere and cast, but criticized the familiar plot and its failure to take full advantage of its premise.

Escape Room Movie Poster (2019)

Escape Room (2019)

Directed by: Adam Robitel
Starring: Taylor Russell, Logan Miller, Jay Ellis, Deborah Ann Woll, Nik Dodani, Yorick van Wageningen, Cornelius Geaney Jr., Russell Crous, Bart Fouche, Jessica Sutton, Vere Tindale
Screenplay by: Bragi F. Schut, Maria Melnik
Production Design by: Edward Thomas
Cinematography by: Marc Spicer
Film Editing by: Steve Mirkovich
Costume Design by: Reza Levy
Set Decoration by: Tracy Perkins
Art Direction by: Mark Walker
Music by: John Carey, Brian Tyler
MPAA Rating: PG-13 for terror / perilous action, violence, some suggestive material and language.
Distributed by: Columbia Pictures
Release Date: January 4, 2019

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