You’ve blown my mind.
Impressions:
Things were off to a bad start with nearly two minutes of watching janky frame rate CGI cars on a CGI highway. But I still got a laugh out of things when they were trapped in a room with shackles and death ceiling thingies with no way to escape except a bunch of keys. This was the harrowing puzzle that baffled them for multiple minutes, that keys could be used to open locks. And then, the keys had to be passed to the next person. Which it then had to explain that because they fought over them, there wasn’t enough time to save everybody anymore. I think you could have probably found another three to four minutes had you A.) Remembered that you had a bunch of keys slightly earlier, or B.) Began passing the keys before you explained to everybody the concept that keys can be used to open locks.
Which is a long paragraph disseminating pretty much a single scene just to illustrate how godawful the pacing of the show is. This didn’t need to be a double length episode. I’m not sure there was enough content to be a twelve minute episode. The very quiet sound design is somewhat atmospheric, but I don’t know that you can assume that’s intentional. Same with all the distance shots of everybody losing their faces. Then there’s also the whole elevator schtick where it gets completely ridiculous, introducing in one breath that they need to dismember themselves, and dismemberment will be reversed right after. Immediately after that, they discover a secret extra rule that three people have to die, so just kill one anyway. It’s so dumb. I’m pretty sure the appeal of stuff like Squid Games or Saw is the character drama, not corny-ass escape rooms where the puzzle is keys go in locks or mawking at the camera for maximal melodramatic effect or explaining how something bad could happen, but didn’t, but remember, it could’ve. Even when it does, it’s nonsensical, like the first death from an extremely delayed dart gun aimed a few feet away from the trigger. Director, what are you doing? I also kept waiting for some surprise reveal about the constantly ticking up numbers, but I’m pretty sure that was just the ‘chapters’ of the LN, which shows just how little effort was put in anywhere. “What if torture, but maids” is not an escape room concept. Nor a show worth watching, especially this unanimated.
