Supernatural escape rooms
Things that should be dead and aren’t: spirits, the undead and the forces that drive them.
Sub-genres
Horror escape rooms by sub-genre
A ghost story and a meat locker are both horror, and they are very different nights out. Here is how the Escape This rooms divide up.
In short: Horrorscape sorts Escape This’s horror rooms onto six shelves: supernatural, haunted house, gory, serial killer, thriller and classic monsters. Rooms can sit on two.
Haunted house escape rooms
One house, two visits, and a ghost who wants you to stay and play.
Gory escape rooms
Meat hooks, cleavers and a dinner menu you are on.
Serial killer escape rooms
Someone has done this before, and you are the next name on the list.
Thriller escape rooms
No ghosts required: a coffin, a cell, a cure and a dunny at dusk.
Classic monster escape rooms
Gothic novels made walkable: the Count, his hunter and the doctor’s creature.
The shelves come from the original Horrorscape guide, which grouped Escape This’s horror rooms by the kind of fear they trade in. Newer rooms have been placed beside the ones they most resemble, and a room can sit on two shelves when it fits both.
Questions, answered
Choosing a sub-genre
Which Escape This horror room is the most frightening?
There is no scare meter, so it depends on your fear. Escape This has called Buried Alive its most extreme room and billed The Possession as its most terrifying, while Cannibal and Meat Grinder lean on gore and Asylum on psychological pressure. For the toughest puzzles rather than the biggest fright, Horrorscape ranks rooms by escape rate instead.
Who are the villains in the Escape This horror rooms?
A cast of eight. The Northbridge Butcher keeps you in his meat locker in Cannibal, and a cook who hunts on the side runs Meat Grinder’s kitchen. The Undertaker nails you into Buried Alive’s coffins, and a cheerful voice on the intercom runs Asylum’s therapy. Cathy, a child ghost, haunts The Haunting and The Possession; Count Dracula waits on his Bride in Dracula and Van Helsing; and Victor Frankenstein wants your help with his creature in Frankenstein Resurrection.
Are the Escape This horror rooms connected?
Several are told in pairs. The Haunting is the prequel to The Possession, which sends you back into Cathy’s house a decade later. Asylum begins with survivors of Buried Alive waking up in a padded cell. Dracula and Van Helsing share one gothic story from the Count’s side and the hunter’s, and Meat Grinder is Escape This’s Melbourne take on the cannibal story it first told in Cannibal, with a different villain. Each room still plays on its own.
What are you racing against in each horror room?
Usually someone coming back. The Butcher returns from shopping for his dinner party in Cannibal, the cook returns to prepare the next service in Meat Grinder, and the voice on the intercom returns in Asylum. In Dracula you have until the blood moon rises, in Frankenstein Resurrection until the lightning moves on, and in Zombie Apocalypse you are finishing a cure before the test subject behind the glass gets through the door. Every one gives you an hour.
Is there a psychological horror escape room?
Asylum is the one. Its tagline is “It’s all in your head”: you wake restrained in a padded cell that smells of bleach while a voice on the intercom promises therapy until you’re cured, and much of the fear comes from darkness, sound and what you imagine is in the cell with you. Escape This runs it in Northbridge, Sydney CBD and Melbourne CBD.
Do the horror rooms scare you with more than what you see?
Yes, with sound and smell too. Meat Grinder opens on concrete under swinging hooks, with blood and bleach in the air and steel sounding somewhere deeper in the building. Asylum’s cell smells of bleach and talks to you over the intercom, and in The Haunting a nursery rhyme plays and a child laughs somewhere in the house. Add controlled lighting, darkness and theatrical smoke in some rooms.
What kinds of horror can you play at Escape This?
Horrorscape sorts the Escape This horror rooms into six shelves: supernatural (ghosts and the undead), haunted house (Cathy’s two visits), gory, serial killer, thriller (coffins, cells and labs) and classic monsters (Dracula, Van Helsing and Frankenstein). Several rooms sit on two shelves at once.
What separates a supernatural escape room from a haunted house one?
On Horrorscape, haunted house means a single building with a ghost in it: The Haunting and The Possession at Escape This. Supernatural is the wider shelf for anything beyond the living, so it adds the vampire rooms, Dracula and Van Helsing, to the two haunted houses.
Which horror rooms should a claustrophobic player avoid?
Buried Alive first of all, since Escape This starts you inside a coffin. Asylum and The Haunting also involve crawling and tight spaces, as does the Melbourne version of The Possession. The Possession in Perth and Sydney, Meat Grinder, Dracula and Van Helsing have no confined sections, according to Escape This.
Should you expect jump scares in an Escape This horror room?
Possibly. Escape This warns that its horror rooms may include jump scares along with darkness, sudden light and sound. If someone in your group has a heart condition or a pacemaker, the venue can tell you which room suits; Escape This specifically flags Asylum in Melbourne on that point.
What if someone panics halfway through a horror room?
They can leave. Escape This fits its horror rooms with panic buttons for exiting early and watches every game on CCTV, so staff know when someone is struggling. Nobody will be allowed to play while under the influence of alcohol or drugs.
Are the horror rooms dark, and do they use flashing lights?
Yes. Escape This runs its horror rooms with controlled lighting, which can mean stretches of complete darkness and flashing light. It doesn’t recommend them for people with epilepsy or light sensitivity; the staff can suggest a better-lit room.