Summertime and the Escaping Is Easy: 10 Summeriest Escape Films

Blake Lively trying to escape an overachieving shark in The Shallows

Whether your fancy is horror, adventure, thriller, or kid friendly, there’s a summertime escape film for you. After you’re done picking up tips from these 10 flicks, you can test out your own escape prowess at one of Krakit Vancouver Escape Game’s four themed rooms.

1. Cabin in the Woods (2012)

Though a great watch in any season, summer is the perfect time to revisit Dana and her compadres as they try to outwit and escape the lineup of horror film monsters set upon them by a twisted crew of reality TV show makers.

2. The Great Outdoors (1988)

John Candy, an oversized steak, creepy twin girls, a misunderstood bear, and an epic cave escape scene. What’s not to love about this summer classic?

3. The Descent (2005)

Talk about your summertime outing gone wrong. When a spelunker thinks she can spice up her friends’ day by taking them to an undiscovered cave system, she really just goes ahead and ruins the whole spelunking season.

4. The Beach (2000)

Richard (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his pals think they’re escaping civilization when they set out to find a beach that’s rumoured to be paradise on earth. Cut to poor Rich trying to escape the hellscape it becomes.

5. Homeward Bound (1993)

The Seavers family think they’re going off on vacation, but their two dogs and cat think they’re heading off forever. The three pets escape the ranch they’re meant to be chilling at and embark on a crazy dangerous journey back home to San Fran.

6. Deliverance (1972)

Decidedly not one for the kids, this classic film is set in the backwoods of Georgia, where four city slickers think they’ll have a nice summer getaway. Nope. Just nope. Their main objective soon turns to escaping the woods with their lives intact.

7. The Hills Have Eyes (19777)

Wes Craven’s dusty desert-set slasher flick takes a similar turn to Deliverance, where a nice family vacay turns into a desperate bid to escape a landscape they don’t know and a group of people who are none too friendly.

8. A Perfect Getaway (2009)

This overlooked thriller is set in luscious Hawaii, but unfortunately for the two couples (including Steve Zahn and Milla Jovovich) who are hiking through the beautiful terrain, some psychopaths are killing people on the trail. And, yep, you guessed it: their perfect holiday getaway turns into the perfect “run for your life”-type getaway.

9. The Shallows (2016)

It’s not an escape game any of us would like to play: outwit and wait out a bloodthirsty shark while standing on a teeny tiny rock in the middle of the open ocean. Blake Lively takes on the challenge with aplomb.

10. Super 8 (2011)

A group of ambitious kids plan on spending their summer making a noir-inspired flick. They end up spending it dodging supernatural events and escaping the clutches of a big ol’ alien. Comme ci comme ça.

Get your own summer escape on by booking an escape room challenge for you and your friends here.

Top 5 Jump Scares in Film History

Here at Krakit Escape Room, one of our favourite things in films and in our escape games is the jump scare. Why? Because it’s the best part of being a horror fan—it’s what we’re all waiting for and simultaneously what we’re all dreading.

The music starts to get all intense and screechy or, alternatively, everything drops dead silent. And then—WHAM. It’s got you. Because there are two essential parts to any good jump scare: the build up and the actual scare. One just can’t exist without the other.

Below we list our top five perfectly built up and perfectly executed jump scares. (Spoilers ahead!)

5. Alien (1979)—Dallas’s death in the air vents

In Alien, it’s the ping, ping, pinging of the motion tracker that builds much of the suspense the franchise is known for. And this scene is no exception. Nostromo captain Dallas crawls into the pitch-black vents in an attempt to force the xenomorph into the airlock, and then out into outer space. We watch, breathlessly, as the pings of his tracker getting ever more frequent.

Unfortunately, the alien has the upper hand in the dark, cramped space of the air vents, popping up out of the blackness to end it all for Dallas, in one of cinema’s classics jump scares.

4. It Follows (2014)—The bedroom scene

A primary reason It Follows has been named one of the best horror films in recent years is it’s perfect use of music to build up tension. It uses a classic screeching horror score in combination with dead silence to pull off some masterful scare jumps. This scene, where a tall man suddenly enters Jay’s bedroom, is one of the film’s best.

3. Mulholland Drive (2001)—Diner dream scene

Though more of a thriller than a horror, David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive has one of the most perfectly controlled jump scares out there. The very simple yet incredibly eerie build up—during which a man tells another man of a strange dream he had about the very diner they’re sitting in—is what makes this one of the best.

The slow switch from reality to dream and the two men’s incredibly tense walk from the diner to the alleyway behind it—to see if the dream holds true—means that absolutely anything that awaited them at the end of that walk would have the audience jumping from their seats.

2. The Descent (2005)—The night vision scene

The Descent doesn’t just have a few choice jump scares, but actually employs the jump scare formula throughout the entire film. The “atmosphere” comes courtesy of the labyrinthine and claustrophobic cave chain the protagonists are stuck in, and the “scare” comes courtesy of the creatures that are down there with them, just waiting to pop out.

The creatures’ first appearance, in the night vision scene, is just the cherry on top of a perfectly nerve-wracking film with several acutely scary moments.

1. The Shining (1980)—Danny’s tricycle ride

This granddaddy of all jump scares has an incredibly long build up and a flawless payoff.

We watch little Danny Torrance take the most terrifying bicycle ride in history, with every corner he turns becoming more and more stressful. With one major false start at the middle that makes the audience drop its guard too early, the scene’s grand finale—the sudden appearance of the Grady twins—is almost more than a viewer can take.

At Krakit, we employ live actors to spice up our eerie atmospheres with a right good scare. But remember, the jumps you get at Krakit Vancouver Escape Room are all in good fun! There’s never any real danger.