Top Billed Cast: Taylor Russel, Logan Miller, Jay Ellis
The genre of the film Escape Room is a Thriller, this is
shown through the short shot duration and the desperate and dilapidated physicality
of the male character shown, these examples provide emotions such as nerves and
excitement to build up in the viewer which are typical conventions of a Thriller
film. It stays realistic of what is technically possible in today’s world but
yet is ambitious in its attempt to be horrific which further provokes these emotions in the
viewer.
The tone of the opening is tense and frantic, this is shown
through the grand living room placed before us in a symmetrical shot which then is crushed by the back wall closing in. This tone only continues to grow as the
man’s facial expressions become even more desperate and he vocally voices his frustrations
as he struggles to find clues to escape the wall closing in. The living room the man is placed in has a grand beauty to it, which contrasts greatly to the purpose of what the room is designed to do, crush people.
The audience is swiftly engaged by the use pleonastic sound effects
of objects smashing and breaking which only adds to the stakes of the extreme
situation, these objects increase tension further for the audience by making
the man’s job harder and working out the puzzle since his path is obstructed by
falling objects which also make his concentration on the clues impaired which further
brings in audience engagement. When watching the sequence, the audience would also
struggle to work out the clues with the man which makes the room seem near
impossible to escape which heightens the attention audiences will pay to scene
to see how the man will cope with his task. Specifically the Climax of the scene is by far the most
engaging when the door to escape doesn't open even when he completed the puzzle, the tonal shift becomes even darker due to the parallel non - diegetic soundtrack which then continues to build with the help of louder and even more pleonastic sound effects.
The singular character is presented as injured through the way
he stumbles across the room and his costume which is ragged and in disarray,
from this we can assume he has been through a lot to get to the room he is in
now. We know by the style of the costume he is no the richest person and seems
fairly average which suggests he is here for a specific reason which is not
surface level as opposed to a more obvious reason.
Based on the sequence shown its difficult to predict what
will be shown next, however maybe we will find out how the man ended up in the living
room he ended up getting crushed in or maybe be shown what happens next to the
character since we technically weren’t shown his complete death. I do think
this however this sequence alone was a very successful opening because Tension
was carefully increased throughout by the dramatic non – diegetic score,
pleonastic sound effects, visually arresting cinematography through the use of symmetry in the camera shots and the desperation
conveyed from the mans face when attempting to escape the room.
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