Escape Room VS Escape Room, Which Film’s Better?

Why would two film companies make the same escape room movies with a release date in the same year? Both of these Escape Room movies were released in 2017. Did you see them both? Despite the overt confusion created by having two movies with the same title, we do love deadly game cinema. Elaborate traps within a horror movie setting are something Mother of Movies personally is on board with.

Two Movies With the Same Release Date

Sometimes when a craze is hot (escape rooms), production companies invest in similar scripts around the same time and then race to see who can get it done first. I wonder if that’s what happened here. In most cases, if the idea is similar, they go under different titles like The Disaster Artist and Best F(r)iends which are both about Tommy Wiseau and Greg Sestero.

In any case, escape rooms were on trend for a moment and so, these ideas became movies at the same time. When a filmmaker comes up with a great concept, everyone seems to want it. Take 2023’s Cocaine Bear for example. Dozens of similar horror films popped out of the woodwork. In this scenario, strangers find themselves in a position to solve puzzles or die.

To put these two escape rooms against each other,  how will we tell them apart?

Here’s How to Tell Them Apart

I will call one Escape Room (Bag Head) as it features a possessed man in the room who wears a hessian bag on his head. The other I will call Escape Room (original) simply because it was technically completed and released first.

Where to Watch Escape Room Movies

You can watch these two movies on most streaming platforms. For the best and cheapest way to watch both Escape Rooms check JustWatch.com on a mobile device through the app store.

The Escape Room 2017 Plot

It’s Tyler’s 30th and his girlfriend gets invited to an escape room event. Once inside, and separated Christen vanishes, and Tyler and his friends begin the game. They see Christen on a television screen and decide it’s all part of the event. The Escape Room starts to take a gory turn for the worst. Will they escape alive?

• Filming: November 2015 and completed in September 2016. Released in the USA in June 2017 at the Seattle International Film Festival,
• Written by: Noah Dorsey,
• Escape Room 2017 cast includes: Evan Williams, Annabelle Stephenson, Elisabeth Hower 
• Directed: Will Wernick who also co-wrote the story.

Escape Room 2017 Official Trailer

Escape Room 2017 Review

This one has more backstories which I like. It begins with friends hanging out at a restaurant drinking champagne and having a good time. I think there is a moralistic message interlaced here. Too subtle for its good though. A lot of time was spent getting to know the characters without getting to know them. There’s a difference between being ambiguous to create a ‘whodunnit’ vibe and not telling afterward. While this plays out, nothing much happens apart from watching the group work out puzzles. It goes on until about halfway through.

The kill scenes are short-lived. By the time the final scenes got out, none of the players had particularly grown on me. I didn’t much care who lived or died. Review sites tout deficient opinions on this film. Of the two, this is the one I thought had more potential but it still wasn’t good. Between the two my ratings only change by half a star and neither passes.

Where usually I am grateful that a movie progresses past the questionable end, I discovered the film was trying to portray a sinister conclusion with an ominous message. But the question remains;

“Did you escape or did they?”

The Escape Room (Original) is rated

2 Bear trap kill devices out of 5

Escape Room Trailer 2017

What is Escape Room 2017 About?

Sean Young plays Ramona, a woman who runs an antique shop visited by Brice (Skeet Ulrich). He sees the puzzle cube box (which houses a demon) and decides to steal it when Ramona won’t sell it to him. He uses it as decoration in his escape room business.

Escape Room (Bag Head) 2017 Storyline and Ending Explained

When four friends enter to play the Escape Room game they discover everything is not as fun as they thought it would be. They have less than an hour to solve the puzzles needed to escape the room alive.

• Filming: December 2016 and completed August 2017 with a release in September 2017,
• Written and directed by Peter Dukes.
• Escape Room 2017 cast includes Skeet Ulrich, Sean Young, and Christine Donlon.

Escape Room 2017 Review

Skeet Ulrich (Scream 1996) is in it. I like him. I was happy to see him.
This is the one that I watched and I’m ashamed to say I liked it. The setting has been done to death: A demon in a box, don’t let it out, trapped in a room, kill or be killed, solve the puzzle. I’m not sure I’ll ever get tired get of people trying to perfect this formula. Even when it’s bad it’s good.

Escape Room lags in the middle and I became distracted. There is only so much you can do in a singular room where the killer is. There is also a fair bit of stupidity for people playing a game of wits and getting mowed down in uninspiring ways.
The opening sequence surprised me with a reference to Gremlins which I loved. However, I still don’t understand why Ramona, keeper of the demonic box kept it in plain sight in her shop. Unlocked.

Some films do get it right. Wish Upon (2017) is something similar that failed to hit the mark but The Possession (2012) was more of a box office hit. This movie committed some definite crimes but the final scene pushes towards delving further into the demon behind-the-box idea used here.

The ending is solid and enticing even if Angie, who works with Brice, had overacting eyes, I still loved the end-scene dialogue. This horror movie about real-life puzzles is quite trashy, yet enjoyable in a predictable trope-filled way.

Escape Room movie (Bag Head) is rated 

2.5 Unlocked demonic boxes out of 5