Adam Robitel
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Cube (1998)
Directed by Vincenzo Natali
influenced Escape Room (2019), Escape Room: Tournament of Champions (2021)
Plot Themes
I’ve seen some folks say they get some Saw vibes from the film based on the initial marketing, but I found it more akin to the low-key love child of Cube and The Game .
The concept has been thoroughly explored in movies like Cube (1997) and the Saw franchise.
The film’s premise—six strangers are invited to participate in an escape-room challenge that turns out to have deadly stakes—is straight out of a Hollywood script lab, blending elements of other, more original movies (namely, 1997’s Cube and the Saw series) in hopes of making a quick buck off of name recognition.
Sort of a real world variation on Vincenzo Natali’s 1997 cult favorite Cube combined with the current escape room craze, the movie spends more time than expected fleshing out its characters while also still coming up with a variety of moderately inventive ways to kill off its cast one at a time.
Escape Room has obvious parallels to Cube (a group of people attempting to find their way out of a confined space) and the Saw pictures (an unseen puppet master forces individuals to play sick games in order to survive).
When first watching the trailer, it’s very easy to compare this film to the Saw franchise or the film Cube .
The Game (1997)
Directed by David Fincher
influenced Escape Room (2019), Escape Room: Tournament of Champions (2021)
Plot Themes
I’ve seen some folks say they get some Saw vibes from the film based on the initial marketing, but I found it more akin to the low-key love child of Cube and The Game .
It’s a handy crutch on which to support a scary, suspenseful flick in the vein of The Game , Cube or Saw , but unfortunately, playing for thrills rather than torture porn, Adam Robitel’s film gets about halfway in terms of delivering on the promise.
Think of David Fincher's The Game , only set entirely in one building.
With a smarter script, Escape Room could have been an exercise in uncertainty such as David Fincher's The Game , keeping us guessing for as long as possible whether what looks like menace is genuine or simply part of the show.
The genre was probably invented 40 years ago, when Ira Levin wrote “Deathtrap” (or maybe eight years before that, when Anthony Shaffer wrote “Sleuth”), but it got kicked into the age of head-trip technology with David Fincher’s “The Game” (1997), in which the ever-shifting reality that surrounded the Michael Douglas character reflected the prospect of life being hijacked by the morph-happy consciousness of video games.
For a while, I thought Robitel (whose most recent directorial effort was the Insidious spin-off, The Last Key) intended to take the movie along a trajectory similar to those in thrillers like Sleuth or David Fincher’s The Game, where reality becomes a parlor trick and things are rarely what they seem.
The thing it reminded me most of, however, was the Final Destination series.
The film, handily directed by Adam Robitel (“Insidious: The Last Key”), contains its share of cliff-hanging, race-the-clock action bits that test the players’ wits, guts, integrity and loyalty as the story evokes elements of the “Saw” and “Final Destination” franchises as well as a high-tech version of Agatha Christie’s “Ten Little Indians” (minus four, that is) and the old board game-turned-comedy film, “Clue.”
On the other hand, similar movies like “Final Destination” and the odious “Saw” did spawn several sequels, so there really may be no escape.•••…
Safe to assume that not everyone will make it out alive, with characters being slayed quicker than a “Final Destination” sequel - but their deaths - at least - will serve the young teens old enough to buy a ticket.
First off, Final Destination 2 pretty effectively took the piss out of this kind of horror movie scene more than fifteen years ago.
Clearly, the makers of “Escape Room,” including producer Neal H. Moritz of the “Fast and Furious” series, director Adam Robitel of the found-footage thriller “The Taking of Deborah Logan” and co-writer Bragi F. Schut of the Nicolas Cage film “Season of the Witch,” were looking to start a low-to-mid budget franchise a la the not-so-dearly-departed “Final Destination” films.
The screenplay by Bragi Schut and Maria Melnik is clearly indebted to Christie’s classic “And Then There Were None,” but the more probable inspiration is “Saw,” though with far less gore.
Escape Room borrows from two cinematic fast food franchises that started off promising, but became gradually more ridiculous as time went on: Saw and Resident Evil .
Without saying too much about the games, viewers can expect everything from extremely harsh weather conditions from opposite ends of the thermostat, walls closing in on contestants swallowing every object in sight (anyone that’s ever played an old-school survival horror video game such as Resident Evil will feel right at home during that sequence, and possibly the entire movie itself, in turn rendering it better than any of the garbage Paul W.S. Anderson pumped out adapting that very franchise), preyed upon medical conditions, and a topsy-turvy barroom containing genius puzzle mechanics.
The film, handily directed by Adam Robitel (“Insidious: The Last Key”), contains its share of cliff-hanging, race-the-clock action bits that test the players’ wits, guts, integrity and loyalty as the story evokes elements of the “Saw” and “Final Destination” franchises as well as a high-tech version of Agatha Christie’s “Ten Little Indians” (minus four, that is) and the old board game-turned-comedy film, “Clue.”
The bar, subsequently, is set very, very low for 2019’s January newborn, Escape Room, which arrives with PG-13 calibrated similarities to the 1998 cult classic, Cube, and finds a fresh-faced ensemble of actors working with director Adam Robitel, who lands his second consecutive first-horror-movie-of-the-year opening, following 2018’s Insidious: The Last Key.
This isn’t the first horror movie of its type: Not to be confused with 2017’s “Escape Room,” which also centered on the eponymous experience veering out of control, or last year’s “No Escape Room,” which added a supernatural twist to the same general scenario, Adam Robitel’s “Escape Room” follows a group of strangers trapped in a devilishly clever series of escape rooms that will kill them if they don’t solve puzzles fast enough.
His last movie, 2018’s Insidious: The Lost Key, received some positive notices from critics, and his latest, the broad and goofy Escape Room (you know, the puzzle rooms that you tackle on your company retreats now instead of going bowling) will likely receive the same.
Y es Escape Room (con el título, desde luego, han arriesgado poco), película de Adam Robitel, director de Insidious: la última llave (2018), siempre ligado al terror, que en su tercer largometraje demuestra una dignísima capacidad visual y de puesta en escena para acabar componiendo un trabajo respetable, a pesar de un guion con evidente saqueo de otras historias anteriores.
Production designer Edward Thomas’ sets are fantabulous, especially one where the room is literally turned upside down ala Fred Astaire’s “Royal Wedding” and Lionel Ritchie’s “Dancing on The Ceiling.” But, the most compelling question Escape Room will leave you with is “…do you want to try one thing that really scares you?”
Relic (2020)
Directed by Natalie Erika James
influenced by The Taking of Deborah Logan (2014)
Themes
We’ve seen in previous films that there is a real-life horror show that comes along with aging (it has been recently explored in genre movies like M. Night Shyamalan’s The Visit or Adam Robitel’s The Taking of Deborah Logan ), but I think what James does here is a bit more moody and subtle, allowing the unease of what these characters are dealing with to seep into viewers as she prepares to unleash some unexpected terrors later on, and the results are enthralling.
Really, in recent years, it's been Relic and slow-burn cult favorite The Taking of Deborah Logan, and that's pretty much it.
The story is certainly a topic previously touched upon in other films, namely in the chilling found footage project The Taking of Deborah Logan, but it’s handled in a much more poignant and haunting fashion in Relic than in most other efforts.
Director Natalie Erika James’ Australian feature Relic , sees such truths play out in the most haunting and affecting way imaginable, in a sensational debut feature that has the enveloping feel of Hereditary , but is like The Taking of Deborah Logan meets The Babadook , by way of David Cronenberg.
The elderly have been portrayed as creepy in numerous horror films, from M. Night Shyamalan’s The Visit to The Taking of Deborah Logan .
The final ten minutes are ultimately the only section that could have probably used another pass from screenwriters Bragi Schut (2011's " Season of the Witch ") and Maria Melnik, but by then the picture will have already won over most viewers.
Director Adam Robitel (“Insidious: The Last Key”) and writer Bragi Schut (“Season of the Witch”) honor the harmless nerdiness of the escape-the-room fad — seriously, it’s the best corporate team-building field trip ever — by steering clear of “Saw”-style gore in this predictable thriller about six strangers invited to compete for $10,000 at a super-high-end, fully “immersive” puzzle experience, only to find that yes, Hermione, this is going to be exactly like wizard's chess.
Adam Robitel directed 2018’s limp Insidious: The Last Key and co-writer Bragi Schut co-wrote 2011’s Season of the Witch, the one with Nicolas Cage in the Nickelback-singer haircut.
Clearly, the makers of “Escape Room,” including producer Neal H. Moritz of the “Fast and Furious” series, director Adam Robitel of the found-footage thriller “The Taking of Deborah Logan” and co-writer Bragi F. Schut of the Nicolas Cage film “Season of the Witch,” were looking to start a low-to-mid budget franchise a la the not-so-dearly-departed “Final Destination” films.
The inventive script by Bragi Schut (“Season of the Witch”) and Maria Melnik (story by Schut) brings together six strangers who were mysteriously invited, via a small puzzle box, to experience a Chicago escape room.
Make no mistake, these are still two-dimensional characters with one or two defining traits: Amanda (Deborah Ann Woll, TV’s True Blood and Daredevil ) is a war veteran, Zoey (Taylor Russell, Netflix’s Lost in Space ) is intelligent but introverted, Ben (Logan Miller, Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse), is frazzled and apathetic, Danny (Nik Dodani, Alex Strangelove ) is an escape room expert for some reason and Mike (Tyler Labine, Tucker and Dale Vs.
A brief opening act lets us meet the shy but very smart Zoey (Taylor Russell of “Lost in Space”), the high-powered stock broker (Jay Ellis of TV’s “Insecure”) and embittered grocery strockroom drunk Ben (Logan Miller).
There’s Zoey (Taylor Russell of Netflix’s Lost in Space ), a shy-genius college student.
Some, like veteran escape room player Danny (Nike Dodani, Alex Strangelove ) and savant physics student Zoey (Taylor Russell of Lost in Space ) are helpful; veteran Amanda (Deborah Ann Woll, True Blood, Daredevil ) is an asset to the group but has her own secrets; and friendly dad-type Mike (Tyler Labine, Tucker and Dale vs. Evil ) tries to keep spirits high.
Enter Zoey (Taylor Russell of TV’s good, not great “Lost in Space”), a math and physics whiz so shy she can barely bring herself to speak in class (perhaps it’s because her teacher comes across as way too creepy).
OK, it’s not the most original concept for a thriller – the Saw films , My Little Eye and Hostel spring to mind – but the superb, stranglehold direction of Adam Robitel ( Insidious; The Last Key ) draws you in early and never lets go, even after you think things have been resolved.
What might the presence of Ray Bradbury’s “Fahrenheit 451” portend in a room that turns into “an Easy Bake Oven?” — are pallid.
Director Adam Robitel looks like someone to watch – he helmed the most recent “Insidious” movie and co-wrote a “Paranormal Activity” installment, so he clearly knows his way around a horror film.
But the increasingly wobbly line between reality and unreality is just one tense contraption rigged up in Insidious and Paranormal Activity franchise veteran Adam Robitel’s tight, fun little thriller.
For a while, I thought Robitel (whose most recent directorial effort was the Insidious spin-off, The Last Key) intended to take the movie along a trajectory similar to those in thrillers like Sleuth or David Fincher’s The Game, where reality becomes a parlor trick and things are rarely what they seem.
Adam Robitel directed 2018’s limp Insidious: The Last Key and co-writer Bragi Schut co-wrote 2011’s Season of the Witch, the one with Nicolas Cage in the Nickelback-singer haircut.
The genre was probably invented 40 years ago, when Ira Levin wrote “Deathtrap” (or maybe eight years before that, when Anthony Shaffer wrote “Sleuth”), but it got kicked into the age of head-trip technology with David Fincher’s “The Game” (1997), in which the ever-shifting reality that surrounded the Michael Douglas character reflected the prospect of life being hijacked by the morph-happy consciousness of video games.
In recent years, horror and thriller fans have seen a wave of unusual and original films, confronting vital political themes ( Get Out , 2017) and kicking back against tired generic tropes ( Hereditary , 2018).
The genre was probably invented 40 years ago, when Ira Levin wrote “Deathtrap” (or maybe eight years before that, when Anthony Shaffer wrote “Sleuth”), but it got kicked into the age of head-trip technology with David Fincher’s “The Game” (1997), in which the ever-shifting reality that surrounded the Michael Douglas character reflected the prospect of life being hijacked by the morph-happy consciousness of video games.
There are intimations of “Tales From the Crypt,” “Final Destination,” “The Game,” and other older, better films here; this movie never catches a fire like any of those did, and even its twist coda feels dreary and pro forma.
The contestants, in a twist stolen from the Bruce Willis thriller Unbreakable, are all sole survivors from previous tragedies.
From Alfred Hitchcock’s Rope, to Vincenzo Natali’s Cube and, of course, homegrown James Wan’s Saw – not to mention about a million others of varying quality – limited locations can often lead to genuinely clever, imaginative stories.