February 10, 2025

FILMHOUNDS Magazine

All things film – In print and online

Saw: The Escape Experience (Escape Room review)

It must have been hard to imagine that when James Wan and Leigh Whannell finished up their student short film, about a deadly trap and a traumatised victim that twenty years on we would be talking about the franchise as a whole. Not only did that short become 2004's biggest horror hit, made on a low budget and ushering in the hero of torture porn horror, it spawned a media franchise, with eight subsequent films – and a tenth on the way, a comic book, two video-games, one mega-fun rollercoaster, board games, action figures and Halloween costumes galore. Now, as the franchise appears to ramp up again for another big bout in the limelight we get Saw: The Escape Experience.

The brilliance of this , immersive narrative, isn't just that you get to put yourself in a game like never before, trying to unlock the puzzles that Jigsaw has laid out for, but that it feels like it fits perfectly within the universe of the movies. The best of the movies spoke to their time, 04's ever growing malpractice suits – made human by shallow doctor Lawrence Gordon (Cary Elwes) – through the loophole, money guzzling economy of Saw VI – epitomised by a slimy Insurance Broker (Peter Outerbridge). Even spin-off Spiral: From the Book of Saw attempted some post-Trayvon Martin cop commentary, though fumbled thanks to a “one good cop” message that feels at odds in the post-BLM world.

The story of this escape experience is that you become Gold Investors in the Avaritia group's London based development program. Built on the prime location of a former abattoir, the Avaritia group has fiddled the numbers so that it's obligatory 10% social housing remit can be ignored, and as faces to the corruption it's time to learn a lesson.

Naturally these sort of interactive things don't happen overnight, and so no one could have known about the ever growing corruption of our current regime, but money talking and poor people footing the price seems so prescient now that of course Jigsaw would have something to say.

Lionsgate

It's a challenge, and an immersive one at that, the attention to detail is astonishing. The production value feels like the movies, each room you move into plucked right from one the games, smoke effects, videos (with actual Tobin Bell voicing the iconic baddie), and the acting from the on-set performers never wavers even when someone (in this case FilmHounds) makes a flippant comment. To go into details of the puzzles would spoil the fun, but needless to say there are two large games, and within them you are split into smaller groups meaning multiple visits could offer different games and different outcomes.

The runtime, a good hour and a bit of game-play works for the feeling that you're in a movie. You feel like from the first little video setting up the story of Avaritia, to the final doom laden chant of “game over” you could have been watching a first person entry into the franchise.

Post-game, and to settle those jangled nerves and perhaps to mend crossed words with fellow players (it gets really stressful when you're literally watching someone scream they don't want to die), the Traproom bar offers cocktails still in keeping with the world of the game. Bloodbags for cherry flavoured cocktails, or syringes to indulge Blood Orange or Sour Apple drinks which only heighten the effort and foresight that has gone into making this feel like an entry into the universe.

If Saw: The Ride felt like one of the Saw film's pre-title traps – quick and nasty to get the heart pounding, then this is the main feature, a pulse pounding game that raises genuine questions on morality, our culpability in our fellow man's hardships and just how much we want to help other people.

Let the games begin.