'Escape Room' Serves Up Bloodless Thrills And Pallid Puzzles
This flat attempt to map contemporary anxieties over the template of more grisly films like Saw only "recalls the mechanized horror trend while sanding off its serrated edges."
In the early-to-mid 2000s, mainstream horror was dominated by series like , , and , each telling stories of torture and mechanized death that mostly repulsed critics, but reflected the darkening mood of the country more than other studio films dared. Look past their can-you-top-this grisliness and they tap into the common fear that young people have no control over their own destiny, that they've given, at least there was the possibility of expelling demons from your life. But for a few years, audiences were freaked out by their own sense of powerlessness.
