Thanks to the visceral reaction that comes from being scared out of your seat, even the most forgettable or uninteresting of horror movies are capable of finding major box office success, based entirely on the mere promise of terror. 2019’s Escape Room didn’t provide much in the way of thrills at all, but it still proved profitable enough to get a sequel.
The high concept premise was certainly intriguing, with half a dozen complete strangers opting to indulge their curiosities in the titular venue, with a $10,000 prize on offer for whoever solves the various puzzles housed within. However, things take a turn for the nightmarish when it’s swiftly revealed that it’s a life or death situation, plunging them into immediate danger.
Essentially a watered-down version of Saw in microcosm, Escape Room nonetheless overcame middling Rotten Tomatoes scores of 52 and 50 percent from critics and crowds to recoup its $9 million budget 12 times over and then some from theaters, which inevitably led to Tournament of Champions landing in the summer of 2021.
A reasonably diverting method of spending 100 minutes without ever coming close to greatness, Escape Room has proven to be a reliable performer on-demand in the past, and it’s happening all over again. Per FlixPatrol, director Adam Robitel’s psychological chiller has found itself stuck on the Prime Video Top 10 in upwards of a dozen countries around the world, although this is one situation where the flick would be happy to stay exactly where it is.