ESCAPE ROOM 2

*CUT TO THE CHASE*

NOTE: This spoiler was submitted by Jeremy

The film opens with a recap of the last movie, where six strangers were lured to a seemingly harmless escape room run by a mysterious organization called Minos. Sole survivors Zoey (Taylor Russell) and Ben (Logan Miller) escaped and killed the Game Master before planning to expose Minos entirely after learning their base of operations is in Manhattan.

Zoey has been in therapy following the ordeal with the last escape room. She and Ben have tried to make trips to Manhattan, but Zoey has been too terrified to fly, and she is still haunted by witnessing people like Amanda (Deborah Ann Woll) die during the last “game”. The therapist thinks Zoey needs to let it go and thinks she sees “clues” to the game in everyday items, like her pen, her handbook, and a novel. Zoey decides to follow her advice.

Zoey convinces Ben to drive to Manhattan to go through with their goal of exposing Minos. Ben is also haunted by the ordeal, even having a nightmare that Minos found them at their motel room and trapped them in there to their deaths.

The two make it to Manhattan and arrive at an empty alley that was supposedly busy days earlier based on their coordinates. They come across a junkie who swipes Zoey’s mother’s compass necklace, leading her and Ben to chase the man into the subway. He loses them when they are trapped in a subway car. Soon, the two find that their car uncouples from the rest of the train, and they are trapped with four other strangers – Rachel (Holland Rhoden), Brianna (Indya Moore), Nate (Thomas Cocquerel), and Theo (Carlito Oliveiro). The train car is isolated in a tunnel, and the group soon realizes this is another Minos game. They are all survivors from past Minos games, making this a “tournament of champions”. The metal in the car is highly electrified, and the group must play to get out. Based on the riddles, they discover that they must decode a message in order to pass. With every letter they uncover, they get a token that helps them escape. The more letters they find, the more sparks fly across the car. Theo is electrocuted to death when he accidentally gets stuck to a bar. Zoey figures out that the message is “WELCOME BACK” and helps the group escape through a hatch in the car.

The group ends up in an elevator where they introduce themselves and describe their previous games. Brianna was trapped with other influencers, while Nate was a former priest trapped with other men of the cloth in a test of their faith. The group ends up in an underground bank where random tiles are rigged to set off laser grids, leaving the group with only ten minutes to make it to the exit safely. They solve various riddles to help them cross over safely, but Nate tries to be a hero and sacrifice himself to give the group a chance to make it to safety. After Nate falls unconscious, the group unlocks two safety deposit boxes marked with the name Sonya to gather the next clues and find the right path to safety. They carry Nate to the next room just seconds before the door vault to the next room shuts and the lasers take over the whole room.

The group ends up on a beach simulation where they find a camera that leads to their next clue. Soon, the sand starts swallowing things up, forcing the group to act fast to find the next exit. Rachel is sucked under the sand, so Nate grabs a life raft and rope to dive underneath and pull her out. While Rachel is taken to safety, the rope snaps, and Nate is pulled under the sand to his demise. Among the other things in the area are a mannequin with seashells on her eyes, along with another mannequin that looks like a little girl. The group finds an opening through a fridge in the nearby crab shack to the next room, but Zoey finds an alternate route through a hole in the lighthouse. Uncertain of which path is the right one, Brianna takes the one through the fridge while Rachel and Ben follow Zoey. Ben apparently doesn’t make it in time and falls into the sand. Zoey and Rachel make it through the lighthouse door and get out.

As they exit, Zoey blames herself for Ben’s apparent demise. Rachel tells her not to feel bad and then reveals to her that she cannot feel pain or any kind of sensation, so Minos probably picked very dangerous games for her. They then hear noises that seem to come from outside, leading them through a manhole that apparently takes them back to downtown Manhattan. However, Brianna emerges and reveals they are still trapped. Rachel finds burns on Brianna’s back from acid rain, as the challenge here has the room set to a timer where acid rain will pour after the clock runs out. The ladies run for cover as they try to find the clues to their survival. They find a phone booth and an umbrella that provides them with brief protection until the door to a cab opens. Zoey makes it in, but Brianna and Rachel do not make it in time before the acid rain gets them and burns them to death.

Zoey is taken into what looks like a child’s bedroom. She finds a diary among other clues from earlier rooms, which belongs to Sonya. She finds a quote spoken to her by Amanda, and sure enough, Amanda herself, alive and well, comes out of the room. She tells Zoey that Minos kidnapped her daughter, Sonya, and would give her back if she helped design the puzzles that the group has been pulled into. Ben turns out to be alive but is trapped in a room that will fill with water unless Zoey agrees to be the new puzzle master. She refuses, and water begins to fill the room. The glass is too tough to break, so Zoey finds an exposed gas line and pulls it out with Amanda’s help to burn the metal on the cage and expand it enough to break the glass and free Ben.

The police later find the three survivors, as well as the bodies of the other four victims. Their statements are taken, and a detective brings Zoey back her mother’s necklace. The authorities have been tracking Minos for some time and are conducting raids across the country to bring them down, and they are working to locate Sonya. Thinking their ordeal is finally over, Zoey decides to finally fly home with Ben.

On the plane ride home, Zoey starts to feel like it was too easy for them to have made it this far out of the game alive. When she gets up to use the bathroom, she sees a woman that she believes is her therapist, but is not the same woman. However, she is carrying all the same things that she previously said were “clues”. Soon, a voice speaks to Zoey over the intercom, revealing that Minos is in control of the plane and that the game is over when they say it is.

Zoey and Ben are still traumatized from their experience in the escape room, but they plan to take down the whole Minos organization after tracking their location to Manhattan. They soon find themselves trapped with other survivors from previous escape rooms - Theo, Nate, Rachel, and Brianna - after Minos tricks them into coming together.

Theo is electrocuted in the first car, while Nate is pulled under sand in another room. Brianna and Rachel are killed by acid rain before Zoey discovers the games were developed by Amanda, believed to have died during the last game but actually survived and is being blackmailed by Minos to design the games because they kidnapped her daughter Sonya. Zoey and Amanda work together to help free Ben, leading to authorities cracking down on Minos and working to bring them down.

On the flight home, Zoey and Ben realize that Minos made it easy for them to get out and that they are still trapped in one of their games, only until Minos decides when to end the game.