10 Horror Movie Scenes You Didn't See (Thanks To Test Audiences)
4. Minos (Probably) Killed Zoey's Parents - Escape Room
2019's Escape Room wasn't a great movie, but it sure did end with an entertainingly over-the-top finale, albeit one which almost got even more silly were it not for test audiences.
The theatrical cut ends with an amusing fake-out where the evil Minos Escape Rooms company is seen preparing an escape room that resembles a plane, which they plan to capture surviving heroes Zoey (Taylor Russell) and Ben (Logan Miller) with.
But shortly after the film's release, director Adam Robitel confirmed that he filmed a different, "more nihilistic" ending which was negatively received by test audiences:
"In full disclosure, we had a test screening of an original ending which was much more nihilistic where Zoey ends up going back to her dorm room... She's been gaslit obviously and she finds a clue in one of her puzzle books that leads her back to the academic hall where we first met her. And underneath her desk, she finds a little note from the Puzzle Maker and her mother's compass pendant. It was really f**ked up also implying that Minos maybe even had something to do with her mother's plane crash. She's like deer in headlights and it felt a little obvious. Then the puzzle maker voice comes on the loudspeaker and it's like, 'You ready to play again?'"
The feedback from the test screening was that audiences instead wanted to see more of how Minos operated behind the scenes, and also have Zoey and Ben get some brief-yet-cathartic respite.
And so, Robitel ditched the idea of pulling Zoey and Ben directly into a new game and instead only implied as such, setting them on a collision course as each side prepares to face off against the other.
Given the implication that Minos were involved in Zoey's mother's death, though, many fans will naturally resent that this scene didn't make the cut, nor was it ever released.
Yet presumably because Robitel gave away this revelation shortly after the first film's release, he didn't end up incorporating it into the plot of the recent sequel, Escape Room: Tournament of Champions.