10 Worst Movies Of 2019 (So Far)

4. Escape Room

Escape Room
Sony Pictures Releasing

It’s not been a great year for horror. While a couple of movies like Climax, Midsommar and Piercing have provided thrills, they’ve been overwhelmed by the likes of Pet Sematary, The Curse of La Llorona and, of course, Escape Room.

While any of those could have made this list, the latter is particularly egregious, because the premise is so hard to f**k up, or at least you'd think. Ever since escape rooms as a concept became popular, pretty much every single person in existence has commented how they’d be the perfect setting for a horror movie. Trap a bunch of heroes in a series of escalating challenges with violent consequences and there you go, you’ve finally got the successor to Saw.

Escape Room somehow manages to make that premise so uneventful though, with absolutely no creative spark in how it's executed. It feels like the filmmakers took the initial idea and then forgot to build a movie around it, completely wasting any potential it might have had. This would have struggled if it debuted on Netflix, but it’s indefensible when it’s a proper cinematic effort.

[JB]

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WhatCulture's former COO, veteran writer and editor.

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Josh has over 11 years of experience as a published writer, having worked nine of those years as a full-time content producer at WhatCulture. In that period he has created hundreds of articles, videos and podcast episodes for multiple WhatCulture channels, specialising in gaming, horror and film & TV. He now primarily works as a senior content producer and presenter on WhatCulture Gaming where he co-hosts the WhatCulture Gaming Podcast, a top 3 UK most listened to gaming podcast that he co-created in 2018. Over the years he has reviewed several high-profile gaming releases, covered industry events with on-site reporting, opined on breaking news, and even kicked off his interviewing career by chatting to childhood hero, Tommy Wiseau.