Escape Room  ★★½

THE scourge of a good opening curses thriller Escape Room.

The film starts with a man caught in a slowly shrinking room, the walls closing in as he frantically searches amid the splintering furniture for clues to reverse the process.

Based on this alone, I thought we might be in for a rollercoaster ride. Unfortunately, while it’s generally entertaining, the film doesn’t have any further sequence that hits the same height.

While it maintains momentum for most of the running time, courtesy of some inventive set-ups and an energetic cast, it runs out of steam to deliver a disappointing ending.

The main characters, Zoey and Ben, are among six people seemingly invited at random to try out a new ‘escape room’ adventure, lured by the promise of $10,000 in prize money for the winner.

What they don’t realise is that this ‘escape room’ has deadly consequences for those that don’t survive.

For example, what they initially think is the waiting room for the adventure turns out to be the first stage of the escape room when the door handle breaks off.

Trying to get out triggers heat in the walls which becomes more intense as time moves on, eventually becoming akin to an oven that threatens to burn everyone alive.

Having got out of that room they find themselves in a cabin and surrrounding ice field – a set-up that I still can’t quite fathom –  with the attempts to escape also causing the characters to start forming groups and indoviduals to turn on each other.

The best set-up is an upside down bar and pool hall and there is also a hospital where a series of flashbacks to each character’s past is somewhat explained.

I say somewhat because the finale isn’t that believable or interesting.

The film is the third directing efort by Adam Robitel who last was Insidious: The Last Key, one of the worst horror films of 2018. Escape Room is a notable improvement.