Escape Room: Tournament Of Champions

31 Days Of Horror 31

A rewatch and a realising I never got round to watching the sequel.

28a: Escape Room (2019)

Trailer which has more prize money than in the film

I watched this back in 31 Horror Films 2019 when it was new to streaming. This PG-13 take on killer escape rooms is pretty goofy fun, with the standout sequence being the upside-down room over a fifteen storey drop.

28b: Escape Room: Tournament of Champions (2021)

Trailer which answers the first puzzle a lot faster than the film does and a different person says the subtitle than in the version I saw

A direct sequel with the survivors from the original and a recap before the credits, before getting to the stuck-escaping with new characters who also know what’s up. It has the most brutal death of both films (not shown clearly) but none of the rooms are as wild as that first highlight.

Netflix has the theatrical version, while the “extended cut” is only six minutes longer at the beginning and end but that’s included in twenty-five minutes of changed material, eliminating one character and introducing a couple of others. I might take a look sometime, as it sounds like it provides a different kind of closure.

One thing I like about the series overall is that just about everybody does the right thing and helps once they know they’re in real danger.

The medium: Netflix

Gameability: A small group of characters in a series of trap-filled rooms? Hmm... ;)