According to Wikipedia, there are thousands of escape rooms around the world – places where people go to be locked inside rooms and play "a physical adventure game in which they solve a series of puzzles using clues, hints, and strategy to complete the objectives at hand". If I had ever heard of this phenomenon before, I didn't pay any attention to it. Going to an escape room doesn't sound like a way I'd like to spend my time. I'd much rather watch a horror movie about people being trapped in an escape room, and it looks like we have dueling escape room projects to look forward to: while the producers of the Tom Sizemore film THE DOOR (which I wrote about yesterday) have a movie called ESCAPE ROOM coming down the line, Lionsgate is preparing to give a different ESCAPE ROOM a DVD, Digital HD, and VOD release this October.
The trailer for the Lionsgate ESCAPE ROOM has been released online and can be seen below. It reminds me of that flood of "trapped strangers" movies that hit soon after the release of the first SAW, except the trapped people aren't strangers in this case. They're friends who chose to put themselves in this situation. Then it gets out of hand.
Directed by Will Wernick and written by Noah A.D., this ESCAPE ROOM has the following synopsis:
For Tyler’s 30th birthday, his girlfriend, Christen, gets him an unusual gift: admission to a mysterious escape room event. As they enter with four friends, they find themselves trapped in bizarre rooms where they must solve tricky puzzles in order to advance. But Christen has disappeared, and Tyler is shocked to see her on a video monitor, naked and trapped in a cage while the seconds count down.
When the cruel game begins to turn deadly, he realizes they may not all escape with their lives.
Evan Williams, Annabelle Stephenson, Elisabeth Hower, Dan J. Johnson, John Ierardi, Kelly Delson, Iris Avalee, and Billy Flynn star.
Lionsgate will be releasing ESCAPE ROOM on October 17th. If you would like to pre-order a copy of the DVD, you can do so at THIS LINK.