Such cursed backstory meant that when 2019’s token sacrificial lamb Escape Room came out, the most shocking thing wasn’t that it made $155m globally from a budget of just $9m but that it was actually kind of sort of good?īeyond its opportunistic title and Cube meets Saw meets every other film that has since copied Cube and Saw premise, it was a surprisingly inventive and genuinely fun little B-movie, a quick, unpretentious blast of PG-13 death and destruction that raised a below ground bar just slightly above surface. Dross like Texas Chainsaw 3D, Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones and Insidious: The Last Key made money despite loathsome reviews, partly because they were mostly tossed out without press being able to actually write about them first, screenings non-existent (this strange trend is analysed nicely in an AV Club podcast episode). Ever since 2012 saw Paramount chuck toxic found footage shocker The Devil Inside into the wild and make $33m in its opening weekend (from a $1m budget), studios have found audiences more then willing to cough up their Christmas money for equally heinous product.

Escape room movies