Escape Rooms are one of the hottest new trends, with new rooms popping up all over Southern California. The idea is simple: you are trapped in a room and must solve a series of puzzles before the time runs out. But you aren’t doing this alone, you have a team with you that usually ranges from 4 to 12. You must rely on them to find clues, keys, or cryptic messages and then use them appropriately on a given puzzle. This can range from finding a key hidden in a drawer and using it on a lock to locating different playing cards hidden throughout the room, finding a letter on each, and unscrambling all the letters to form a word–and then knowing where to use the word. Thus, it shouldn’t be surprising that some Escape Rooms market themselves as team building exercises, focusing on trust, communication, and problem solving skills.

So it also shouldn’t be surprising that some Escape Rooms have adopted the theme of horror in their escape room (if you’re looking for the Harry Potter Escape Room, this isn’t the article for you).

Three of such Escape Rooms sat on a panel on Sunday, August 9th of ScareLA: The Basement, Trapped in a Room with a Zombie, and Captured L.A.

The Basement is the scariest of the three, with two rooms currently (The Basement and The Boiler Room). It tells the story of a cannibalistic serial killer, Edward Tandy, who has kidnapped you and your friends, and has graciously given you 45 minutes to escape his basement. The lights are dim, the basement is dirty, and you might not be alone down there. The Boiler Room picks up the story with the “bad ending”. For those who fail, some are eaten, but others are dragged by Edward’s assistant, Toby, into the boiler room to be compacted with the trash. Hope you aren’t claustrophobic!!

Trapped in a room with a zombie is pretty much exactly as it’s name implies: you are trapped in a room with a zombie. However, as the time increases, so does the chain that the zombie is on. Luckily you are aided by Professor Von Guttenberg to find your way out.

Finally, in Captured L.A., you must escape from an anti-technologist. This limits the puzzles and removes all technology from the game. It also will have two identical rooms, so you can face off against your friends in separate rooms and find out who can escape first.

Now that you are acquainted with the rooms, you can see that horror Escape Rooms are put in a tough place: they want to be scary enough to appeal to horror fans, but they also need to appeal to mass audiences because they are open year round–not just Halloween. So are these Escape Rooms actually scary? Well let’s take a look at The Basement’s website. From their FAQs, it says:

Is THE BASEMENT scary?
No, the story line as to why you’re in the room is of the horror genre, but we wouldn’t classify this as a “scary” experience. Feel free to see what others said on our Yelp Page for more insight into the experience.

But is that the full truth? Maybe not. Kayden Michael Ressel of The Basement revealed to the panel “Yes, The Basement is scary”, but they don’t want to alienate their full audience via their website. The horror influence can easily be seen at their booth, as a girl was chained to a wall with the words “Help Me” written in blood. The booth also had a fun, yet creepy mini game, in which four contestants had to get on their knees, reach their hands through the bars into an unknown, dark, yet gooey, slimey bucket to find a key–each key representing a different reward.

The Basement also boasts the lowest success rate of the three, currently being 12.38% of teams escaping, while Trapped had the highest (hitting 35%). So how do these rooms balance a low success rate while still getting people to return and not become frustrated with failing. Trapped in a Room handles this aspect by walking the players through what they couldn’t solve, but also, uniquely, identifying what role each person took on–whether it be the leader, the follower, the organizer, the tinkerer, or so on. This helps with the team dynamic and boosters self confidence. The Basement takes the opposite route. They tell you nothing. But they do suggest you come back. And on your repeat visit, you can request to have the room altered to a variant version. Items will be moved, rooms will be rearranged, and puzzles will completely change. Whatever is down there with you may also change as well. It’s a brand new experience. So even if you got close the first time, the second time will still provide a challenge to repeat customers.

Next, people were dying to know what was next. Trapped in a Room is working on a second room entitled Still Hungry. They collected data from all of their locations to see what made people react, and used that to make this new room. Captured L.A. is finalizing the two identical rooms to allow for competitions. And The Basement is opening The Study on October 7th. This will boast engineering feats, with bookshelves (I’m assuming they will move) and be a very physical room. This also adds the third chapter to the Edward Tandy story line, as each room gives Kayden the opportunity to reveal more of his story.

Lastly, the question was asked: “what makes for a good Escape Room team?” It was unanimous that communication was the key. When you find an item, tell people you found an item, and put it in the center of the room. When you find a lock, tell people you found a lock, and ask if anyone has a key. Communication literally is the key. Kayden explained that you can be vapid and still escape as long as you have communication. Then he followed this up with my favorite quote of the weekend:

“The human brain is a really powerful thing… even if you don’t know how to use it” -Kayden Michael Ressel