Escape Room II

Posted on May 12, 2022 by Tennyson

Vampire Owl: I am not that fond of the rooms from where one can escape.

Vampire Bat: Yes, you want those rooms from which escape is impossible.

Vampire Owl: You know that vampires have always wanted to make the best use of their dungeons.

Vampire Bat: The dungeons from which there is no escape; I have heard about them.

Vampire Owl: Almost all those dungeons below the castle are like that.

Vampire Bat: There is one exception though.

Vampire Owl: You are saying that there is a dungeon in the castle which allows people to escape.

Vampire Bat: Well, I don’t see why there wouldn’t be a loop hole.

Vampire Owl: So, there is always a small chance to escape.

Vampire Bat: Yes, there is always that hand of God.

[Gets a vegetable pizza and three cups of ginger tea].

What is the movie about? :: It is shown that a woman is locked within a hot shower room of a huge mansion and is burnt to death as she expresses her desire to leave her husband. She was left with clues to escape while showering, but was too late to use them to her advantage, leading to a painful death. This husband is shown as the man who is responsible for the escape rooms, and is certainly obsessed with the same. Zoey Davis (Taylor Russell) and Ben Miller (Logan Miller) are the only survivors of these escape rooms which were built by the Minos Corporation, and they plany to confront them after finding the coordinates to its headquarters in New York City. Zoey is aeorphobic, and therefore decides to find the corporation by driving all the way to New York, thus getting rid of the uneasy encounter. They do have nightmares about being in escape rooms whenever they are in closed spaces. When they reach the place where the headquarters of the corporation is supposed to be, they don’t find any workers our there, and there is only a vagrant who manages to steal Zoey’s necklace.

So, what happens with the events here as we just keep looking? :: As they chase the thief, they end up in an underground train which has its doors locked and the vehicle on a journey to the next station. The thief manages to get down before the door closes though. Their train car separates from the rest, and finds themselves being redirected to a remote station, as the two along with a few others are trapped in the carriage. They meet the other passengers Rachel (Holland Roden), Brianna (Indya Moore), Nathan (Thomas Cocquerel), and Theo (Carlito Olivero) inside, and it turns out that they are all winners from previous games in escape rooms. As the passengers understand that they are in trouble again, being locked in the train car which also gets electrified, not allowing them to touch anywhere. Now, they are forced to find the subway tokens which will open one of the doors. They keep looking for clues until it almost gets too late, and Theo is killed by electrification. The others do manage to find the clues and the tokens to escape.

And what more is with another escape room or more around here? :: The team finds out that all these survivors were part of groups which had their own type of people, like full of influencers, priests etc. Their next level is a bank which has a deadly laser security system that almost kills Brianna. There is a vault in the end of the bank’s room which seems to be the only way out, but they have to go past the lasers. They do find a certain clues out there, but it seems that they won’t be enough. There are references to a person named Sonya, but none of them are able to find all the necessary clues. Nathan decides to make a walk of faith in between, but that doesn’t seem to work either. This won’t be anything close to the final escape rooms, and getting out of the room is only going to be a small problem in comparison to what is to come next, including some seemingly outdoor rooms well designed in 3D. They are all upset about not being to crack the codes, but that is not going to lead them anywhere in a complicated world of mazes. Can at least one or two of these people make out of these rooms in time? Can anyone if not Zoey can bring this corporation in front of the law?

The defence of Escape Room 2: Tournament of Champions :: There is the continuation of what we had witnessed in the first movie, and we all know that the levels of the first movie was never enough for the eyes. Here, we have some more interesting rooms to escape from, and there is some fine detail related to each of them. There are multiple endings to keep one interested in a sequel, as there is scope for one or two in both of those finishes. The close battles that the participants have with the rooms assigned to them remain engaging, and with the time limits, things only get more interesting. The setting is there for another movie to continue the franchise and the performances are pretty good too. Taylor Russell leads well to continue the franchise, while the others provide support nicely. The special effects are used effectively to add to the efficiency of the rooms too. There are some twists added here and there, and there are indeed some different ones with those multiple endings that we see here.

The claws of flaw :: The movie doesn’t feel that new as we have already seen the establishment of the escape rooms well in the first movie, and it was an interesting venture indeed. There is not that much of an improvement on the design of the escape rooms – the same could have helped better with further innovations; we know that even the computer games need better levels every time, especially those dealing with puzzles and traps like Prince of Persia and Lara Croft: Tomb Raider series. It doesn’t use the possibilities to the best advantage in that case. As this is the second movie in the franchise, we were expecting to see that one grand level design which couldn’t be easily copied. The puzzles of escape could have also been better planned, for some of them don’t really feel interesting, with too much of absurd calculations there – things can be made difficult without adding too much of mathematics, the thing that we all have hated since school days. There can always be some hidden trapdoor or item; even a thing from the past to replace it.

How it finishes :: Escape Room 2: Tournament of Champions does remind us of the world that we are in, with no escape – that is one a philosophical note, even though there is a lot of truth in such a statement which serves more as warning than anything else. The movie does have more than version, which leads to different endings and divergent possibilities which can come later in a possible sequel. It does feel difficult to wonder about the better ending without watching both of them. This also makes one wonder which sequel we are all going to have at some later point of time. If the corona virus is not going to come back that strong again, maybe we are going to see a sequel of this franchise in the theatres too – after this rush of movies looking for screens end at a later point. With the puzzles leading to and beyond danger with twists, this is the kind of franchise that we are all looking for. After all, there are lots of puzzles and riddles that we face in every day life, as humans are all creatures of their own dangerous rooms of the mind with intrusions.

Release date: 16th July 2021 (Theatre); 20th September 2021 (Netflix)
Running time: 88 minutes
Directed by: Adam Robitel
Starring: Taylor Russell, Logan Miller, Deborah Ann Woll, Holland Roden, Indya Moore, Thomas Cocquerel, Carlito Olivero, Isabelle Fuhrman, James Frain

<<< Click here to go to the previous review.

@ Cemetery Watch
✠ The Vampire Bat.

Wrong Turn

Posted on February 11, 2022 by Tennyson

Vampire Owl: I have always taken the wrong turn intentionally.

Vampire Bat: Why would you do that?

Vampire Owl: Because it has made all the difference in my life.

Vampire Bat: Your life is not that different from anyone else.

Vampire Owl: I don’t see why you are not able to find the difference.

Vampire Bat: You are actually supposed to take the road less travelled.

Vampire Owl: The wrong turn can also lead to such a road.

Vampire Bat: It is only a distant possibility. It can also lead to nowhere.

Vampire Owl: There is no nowhere for a vampire. There is a place everywhere.

Vampire Bat: Well, you can make the claim, but achieve nothing.

[Gets a vegetable samosa and three cups of black tea].

What is the movie about? :: Scott Shaw (Matthew Modine) travels to the countryside to search for his missing daughter, Jennifer Shaw (Charlotte Vega) who had promised to text him regularly, but he hasn’t heard from her or the others who were with him. The locals are not really helpful, and some of them feel that there is no use in searching for them, as the forest is very deep, and so many days have passed after the last information was provided about them. But he decides to keep looking, with some hope. Then, it goes to a flashback. Accompanying Jennifer, there were her friends as well as her boyfriend, Darius Clemons (Adain Bradley) and friends from college, Milla D’Angelo (Emma Dumont), Adam Lucas (Dylan McTee), Luis Ortiz (Adrian Favela) and Gary Amaan (Vardaan Arora). They only have hostility from local people in the bar, especially from a man named Nate Roades (Tim de Zarn), who asks if they need a guide, but the boys make fun of him. The whole bar seems to be not happy about their presence now and the encounter.

So, what happens with the events here as we just keep looking? :: Jennifer also meets a strange woman called Edith (Daisy Head) who has a young mute girl, Ruthie (Rhyan Elizabeth Hanavan). At night, they also see a strange figure standing and looking inside their car, only to see the person quickly disappear. The woman at the hotel where they are staying tells the group to stay close to trail, as nature can be very unforgiving. There are also shadows moving near their hotel rooms at night. They do find some beautiful scenery, cliffs and waterfalls, and the trek surely begins very well. They decide to take a few steps away from the usual trail to find a historical fort along with more of the scenery. But on the way, a tree falls, and despite everyone trying their best to move away from it, Gary is killed in the most brutal fashion. Jennifer tells the group that she had seen a person out there, but nobody really believes her. It starts raining, and the group feels that they are lost, as it is night, and there is no mobile phone network available for any of them.

And what is to follow with the horror that awaits them in the forest? :: They decide to set a camp out there, and wait till the climate gets better or at least until there is light. Jennifer once again feels that there is someone walking near the camp, but doesn’t tell anyone because she feels that nobody would believe her, and it could have also been the shadow of a tree in the wind. But the very next day morning, they find out that Milla is missing, and so are their mobile phones, and any gadget they possessed. They realize that they were sleeping in a graveyard. They also find a foundation being laid for the true and blessed America. They also come up against Ruthie in the forest, and as Adam tries to chase her, he is caught in a trap, and is dragged underground. They try to look for him, only to find him being blindfolded and taken away by two people in deer skull masks. They feel that there are many other people in similar masks walking around them, and there are also a good number of traps being set at different parts of the forest. Can they survive this, or are they walking directly into a massacre?

The defence of Wrong Turn :: Wrong Turn manages to be an interesting reboot of a franchise which has run strong for quite a long time, even though it did lose some of the way with the later titles. The franchise has never stepped back in being the model slasher horror, even though there were setbacks with the story and characters in the later movies. Here, even though the movie begins in quite the usual manner, it gets better with progression, and the second half of the film is a thing of quality, raising itself to a reboot to look out for. The trial scene is among the best that a movie of this kind can offer. Charlotte Vega as the scream queen does own the movie, and is at her best during the sequences of fear within the forest and the later trial. Unlike how it looks in the beginning, the character does undergo a fine transformation in the middle and later stages of the movie. We are yet to see how she would in other horror films, but we are hopeful about that. Overall, the movie is successful in seemingly creating a world from where nobody seems to be able to even think about escaping in one piece.

The claws of flaw :: The ending is not that effective though, with the shots during the credits. The movie should have just ended just before the credits started rolling – maybe, they can have a black screen added there so that there can be a better setup for a sequel, which should be there without fail. The main performers other than the leading lady are not that effective around here, maybe because their characters had to be dumb to suit a slasher horror movie’s killers and their work. It is after at least two of the trekkers die, that things get more interesting. The movie, even though not that long, does take some time to get things quicker and sharper. It could have also used some of the common elements from the previous movies, but this one seems to play nice on many occasions without taking the risk that the earlier films had taken. It is their lack of understanding about what people want to see in a slasher horror classic which is Wrong Turn, as much as The Hills Have Eyes. Well, this is a slasher film with a fine premise, I would leave the advice to use the creative imagination and make it rise above the rest instead of leaving its own message messed up.

How it finishes :: This is my first review of any Wrong Turn movie because there has been only one film in the franchise releasing after this blog started, and that one movie never really came to the theatres here even in a highly censored form, and there was never really any chance to get it in electronic format here, without OTT platforms or with people finding interest in slasher horror. Therefore, this one is basically a requirement for me as a movie reviewer, a title which I have held since the early 2000s, even though this blog started only in 2013. I had to remove my earlier writings in blogs as I couldn’t find them worthy enough after starting this one after finishing my MA English Language and Literature. Well, this blog or web site was started to prove a few people wrong, and it doesn’t matter what I gained or lost with it, as I am glad to have this running. I am also happy to watch this reboot which maintain a lot from the original series, even though the main elements of those movies could have been here for more. This is above many horror movies of the time, that is for sure.

Release date: 26th January 2021
Running time: 109 minutes
Directed by: Mike P Nelson
Starring: Charlotte Vega, Emma Dumont, Daisy Head, Adain Bradley, Bill Sage, Dylan McTee, Matthew Modine, Vardaan Arora, Tim de Zarn, Rhyan Elizabeth Hanavan, Chaney Morrow, Damian Maffei, Mark Mench, David Hutchison, Chris Hahn, Valerie Jane Parker, Daniel R Hill

<<< Click here to go to the previous review.

<<< Click here for an Italian movie in the woods.

<<< Click here for a Polish movie in the woods.

<<< Click here for a Spanish movie in the middle of nowhere.

<<< Click here for the beginning of a big slasher world.

@ Cemetery Watch
✠ The Vampire Bat.

Meander

Posted on October 12, 2021 by Tennyson

Vampire Owl: I remember having met an elf with a similar name.

Vampire Bat: Well, this is certainly not a fantasy movie.

Vampire Owl: Elves are as real as we are. None of us are fantasy.

Vampire Bat: Well, for humans, we are all fantasy elements.

Vampire Owl: The girl on the poster does look very much real.

Vampire Bat: You surely cannot say the same about her surroundings.

Vampire Owl: The poster here doesn’t seems to mean anything.

Vampire Bat: It could be a reflection of the useless lives that the humans lead.

Vampire Owl: Well, with the terrible mindset that they have, what else can they do?

Vampire Bat: They could always choose to be extinct and save the planet and the other life forms that live without hate.

[Gets a vancho cake and three cups of iced tea].

What is the movie about? :: Lisa (Gaia Weiss) who works as a waiter is seen lying in the middle of a road in the countryside until a car arrives from a distance. She starts walking, but the man in the car, Adam (Peter Franzen) who works as a night watchman offers her a lift, as there is nobody nearby, and there is no hope of finding civilization soon enough. They seem to get along well enough, and Lisa is disappointed about her daughter’s death – she realizes that the girl would have been nine years old on that day if she was alive. There is the feeling of melancholy that runs through her, and she hopes that she could die one day and unite with he daughter again. It is then that it turns out that the man who is with her is a murderer, and the police is in search of him, as she realizes the same from the news on the radio. But the realization comes a little late, as he slams her head against the dashboard of the car, leaving her motionless.

So, what happens with the events here as we just keep looking? :: Lisa wakes up in a small room which seems to have no way out. She is clothed in a strange suit which tightly fits her body, and a strange light-emitting device is attached to her wrist. Later, a door on the side opens and reveals a narrow tunnel through which she crawls with great difficulty, and the door closes right behind her, leaving her trapped inside on her all fours. She has no option, but to continue crawling, trying to find and exit which could lead her to freedom. The device on her wrist also seems to have a timer and alarm, as it seems to remind her of time running out, as she has to go squeeze through extremely narrow passages, as she moved towards light. As the roof of the tunnel comes down, almost catching her buttocks stuck within, that would be only the first of the challenges that she would have to overcome, soon to be followed by a rotten body, water, acid and others.

The defence of Meander :: Almost whole of the movie has just one setting around here, and it has also dealt with the same effectively. There are some fine traps in here, and the more terrifying thing is that they are all within a crawlspace, with the chance of escape being really minute – I wouldn’t give most of us any chance with this, but we root for the lady in distress here, as we are more confident about her getting through, even though not as much as Prince of Persia or Tomb Raider would. Here, in between, we come to know that there is more to all of these than what meets the eye, and that there is something beyond our comprehension, most probably supernatural or paranormal at work. The same is revealed in the end, and it means that we have further scope for a sequel here. After all, this kind of a premise, like that of Prometheus and Alien Covenant, even though lesser in grandeur, can have many different paths to follow. The mysterious feeling never really leaves us.

The claws of flaw :: Meander is surely not the usual kind of a movie, and it goes divergent from even any other possible film who can deal with a similar circumstance. It doesn’t have much more than what it provides here, and leaves us with minimal settings. People who don’t wish to see one person trying to fight it all to make the way out of a long crawlspace won’t find this one to be of their type. Even though this is supposed to be science fiction, the same type of elements show less of a presence around here. We also feel that this could have been better, more direct in what it does, because you know how these have worked really well with the video games. There could have been direct ideas provided here, and even though there could be symbolism being connected here, there is not much that we can use directly. We do have many films with one actor getting all the focus, and others being almost absent – Sunny is a recent example, and this one could have done more with the one character other than the trap escape acts.

Performers of the soul :: The movie has only two actors, and it is more or less about Gaia Weiss, who is there for the whole of the movie, and works through it very all, as her character keeps trying to survive against all odds. She nicely fits in here, and one would feel that if there is a full action film coming soon, she could be right in there, doing a great job. She plays the character that has do the impossible, and she does some fantastic work as the one person who goes through all of these. To add to it, there is also an emotional side to her character, which is also portrayed well. Peter Franzen also has some work to do, but he has a very less time on the screen. Basically, we can say that everything is left to Gaia, and she becomes the sole pillar on which the movie depends on, as far as performances are concerned. She never looks like she is going to lag with that much of a weight on her. Not many people could have handled the same so well too.

How it finishes :: Meander makes a fine French movie that has different elements coming together even with almost everything set in one particular place. It is all about survival, set in a seemingly difficult situation, much scarier than The Shallows where we know the enemy, and much hopeless than The Platform in which there was at least the certainty of food and a possible companionship. Unlike the rest which has some hope for its protagonists, this one is at an advanced level of leaving almost no chance to survive, like a hopeless level of The Maze Runner. As a film which gives you claustrophobia, this one is surely an experiment which you might want to remember for long. As the lady moves through this particular crawlspace world, you are into some slow and effective moments of thrills, unlike the ones that we usually see elsewhere. It is that tale of survival which once again has the protagonist fighting against all odds, and we are all hoping for her to survive.

Release date: 11th October 2020
Running time: 87 minutes
Directed by: Mathieu Turi
Starring: Gaia Weiss, Peter Franzen