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Escape Room
Stars: Taylor Russell, Logan Miller, Tyler Labine, Deborah Ann Woll, Jay Ellis, Nik Dodani
Director: Adam Robitel
This horror-thriller rattles along in fine style, so much so that we're prepared to accept the seemingly ridiculous premise (though escape room challenges do exist on a somewhat less ambitious scale) and its even less believable complexities, and just sit back to enjoy the fun.
Six people from various walks of life are each sent a mysterious black box, which invites them to participate in an escape-room game from which the winner will emerge $10,000 richer.
But this challenge is different: there are half a dozen rooms and each one is potentially lethal.
As they progress - and die - the would-be escapees are often kept alive only by the mental skills of brainbox Zoey (Russell), whose polar opposite, Ben (Miller) lives in a perpetual state of terror.
The cast sweat and shiver (according to the room involved) with shrieking conviction, in a series of increasingly life-threatening situations, keeping us on the edges of our seats, until things go a bit doolally and anti-climactic at the end.
The fine details of some of the rooms, of course, border on the impossible, but the film happily remains, for seven-eighths of its runtime at least, the cinematic equivalent of a fairground thrill ride.
David Quinlan
USA 2019. UK Distributor: Sony (Columbia). Colour by efilm.
96 minutes. Not widescreen. UK certificate: 15.
Guidance ratings (out of 3): Sex/nudity 0, Violence/Horror 1, Drugs 0, Swearing 1.
Review date: 18 Jun 2019