You might also wonder how in a building made up of many floors and bizarre pathways Zoey was able to so swiftly stumble upon the pair in their deadly battle. (They get a flower necklace at least, and certainly not strangled to death immediately following their final lap.) Then there’s Zoey’s in-the-knick-of-time return. For one: how did Ben escape the final room? He failed the puzzle but dumb-lucked into the trap door? For another, the scowling Game Master explains Ben’s would-be doom by asking if a horse gets a prize for winning the Kentucky Derby. Some churlish white guy identifies himself as the Game Master and is happy to monologue about the whole thing before trying to murder Ben, the game’s “winner.” Several things don’t add up in this section. The finale of the film confirms Zoey’s suspicions that Minos makes specialty escape rooms to torture players for the amusement of an anonymous but wildly wealthy and powerful audience. So when an armed, Hazmat-suited clean-up crew of two arrives, Zoey is lying in wait. Essentially, with the cameras down, there’s no one who can see that Zoey didn’t actually die from the gas attack. While others go on to duke it out in the drug trip room, Zoey takes a cue from her quantum mechanics class at the top of the film in a dubious application of quantum Zeno effect. So, instead of trying to figure out the trick of the EKG machine, she attacks every camera even when it means being left behind as the room fills with poisonous gas. She realizes the game is rigged against them. Midway through this menacing maze, the others scour the triage room for clues while Zoey focuses on the security cameras. But as the game gets more gruesome, Zoey realizes playing by the rules is no way to win. Lucky for her teammates, Zoey proves a puzzle-solving prodigy who repeatedly saves their lives. She’s the face on the poster and the heart of the film, going to the Minos Escape Rooms not so much for the prize but as a challenge to herself to be braver. Though there are six players in the mix, clever college student Zoey (Taylor Russell) is the clear protagonist. MAJOR spoilers below for Escape Room! YOU’VE BEEN WARNED. While I kept it vague ahead of the film’s release, below I dive into spoilers to reveal why and how Escape Room is ruined by its ending. In my review of the film, I praised its various virtues but cursed its catastrophic climax for ruining the fun. But once the game’s begun, they learn they may not escape with their lives. Enticed by a big cash prize, six strangers take on what’s reputed to be the world’s most challenging escape room. Escape Room is a horror-thriller that takes the popular puzzle-solving experience to a terrifying extreme.

Escape room film series