With a blind fold on, I was lead onto the killing floor of a slaughterhouse. All around me, I could hear the muffled voices of my friends, anxiously awaiting whatever came next. I was asked to place my hands in front of me, as they were handcuffed together. I give a little tug, and realized that I was also shackled to the floor.

“Welcome to Room 1974,” a voice said over the loudspeaker, as our experience began.

No, this wasn’t some new immersive haunt, meant to push our limits. Instead, it was Slaughter, the newest room from Escape Hotel in Hollywood. But I’ll be damned if I didn’t feel like I was about to enter BLACKOUT again!

Don’t let the opening scare you away, though. Sure, it may be a little scary to be handcuffed and blindfolded before entering the room, but your vision is returned to you pretty much immediately. But then, you and your friends have to figure out how to not only get free of your chains, but also get OUT of the room before the resident butcher returns.

Since its opening last year, Escape Hotel has really set the bar for incredible theming when it comes to escape rooms, and Slaughter is no different. Going from a nice, lush hotel lobby to a killing room floor is jarring transition, and it is really cool how well the design team immerses you into the environment.

Not only is the room itself a marvel to look at (and probably the closest thing you’ll ever get to being in a SAW film), but the tone itself is top notch. The music and sound effects that are playing, along with a video that triggers later on, REALLY add to the overall tension. We honestly felt that, at any given moment, the butcher who resides in that room would be back, and tear us to pieces. It definitely upped the ante, and made us a little more frantic in our escape.

What I liked about Slaughter is that forces the team to work together to get out. Sure, this is the basis for literally every escape room, ever, but everyone being chained to the floor all around the room really does hone the point of “You’re not getting out of this unless you can communicate.” It is a good way to get folks into that mindset, so once they DO escape from their bonds, they can continue to work together in order to get out.

As per usual, the puzzles range from what you’d typically find in an escape room (with a few twists) to some excruciatingly hard “physical” bits that we couldn’t get to work juuuust right and needed to get some assistance with.

But that theme is common in the Escape Hotel rooms I’ve done so far: there is always ONE puzzle that we know the solution for, but it’s incredibly hard to actually accomplish. We do enjoy the challenge, of course, but a slightly easier method might serve the room better, and help teams move along quicker.

That said, we had absolutely no problem with how the room went overall. The progression of puzzles made sense, and each one was a blast to solve, with each of us getting our own “Aha!” moment. This was a linear puzzle room, and despite the fact that there was 8 of us, we never once felt that someone was just hanging around, not doing anything. Each puzzle required all of our brains to figure out, and taking multiple parts, often around the room, to accomplish.

When this group does escape rooms, we often get pretty competitive. We yell and scream at each other to get things done, and it’s a strategy that works surprisingly well. So, when the owners of Escape Hotel spoke to us BEFORE we started that no one had successfully beaten the room yet, we took that as a challenge.

Unfortunately, after our hour, we did not emerge victorious. However, we did learn that we got further than anyone else had so far, including the employees, so that made us feel good! We were 90% of the way done, and would have escaped if we just had a few more minutes to solve the final bit.

Overall, Slaughter is a great addition to the Escape Hotel family, and definitely one of their more challenging rooms. Add the creepy atmosphere, and you have one hell of a game.

For more information on Escape Hotel Hollywood, and to book your reservation, visit them online at: escapehotelhollywood.com