Review: Halloween Season Escape Rooms - Part 3
This is part 3 of our 2024 review of Halloween season spooky and scary escape rooms. Part 3 has recommendations for some of the escape rooms we have played that lean into the horror or intensely scary moments. We review these scary escape rooms in this posting - the first room is intensely scary from start to finish - the second room has intensely scary elements, and the last room listed does not get intense until the final sequence. We recommend the rooms:
Malum - Barcelona, Spain
The End - Zoetermeer, Netherlands
Akasha - Barcelona, Spain
Malum - Krematorium Escape Rooms Experience - Barcelona, Spain
Malum, by Krematorium Escape Rooms Experience is a game which can be played in different modes - you tell them in advance how much scare you would like and they can vary the darkness and the acting.
We played the game with the full scare treatment and had a blast. I should say as far as actually being scared in escape rooms go - for us it somewhat like being ticklish...either you are or you aren't and there's not much skill in that. We don't seem to get scared in escape rooms and perhaps we are missing out on some of the fun...but we can appreciate the scenarios and immersion which presents scary situations.
“Abandon all hope those who enter here – an ancestral evil dwells behind the doors…” This is what we learn from the website about this experience - our task will be to investigate the evil and try to overcome it.
Why do we recommend this room? The standouts here are the immersion, the set - and most of all an outstanding use of lighting to control the game flow and the story-driven narrative. I cannot think of any escape room which has used lighting more effectively.
Malum - like ALL escape rooms we played in Barcelona does not have a check in lobby in the traditional sense. The experience has already started when you arrive on the street in front of the address you are given. You are expected to show up at your appointed time at door time - through a garage - find the door in the back - ring a buzzer. Where a voice will come over the speaker and give you a final warning. When the door lock was released we could access a small room. Our first task was to gain further access to the experience.
I won't say too much but we were told to enter and stand in the circle and then don't move. We did as instructed...we were not alone.
I won't say much more to avoid giving spoilers, but there were puzzles and techniques in the traditional sense of escape rooms. And this is the only area where the experience fell a little short for us - as there were opportunities for more elegant puzzle techiniques. Malum is about the set and the immersive story.
The set which comprised indoor spaces and effectively designed "outdoor" spaces, opened before as we explored and solved puzzles. The set is huge—I was told it is 400 square meters—so that's over 4,000 square feet. Krematorium's use of lighting made the immense set seem even larger than it was.
Krematorium's use of lighting was stunning. We were sometimes limited in our movements by an occasional complete blackout of the set, which caused us to stop moving. We enjoyed anticipating what was in store for us when the lights came back. It was impressive how Krematorium seamlessly coordinated our movements, the actors' movements, and the lighting to drive the story, like a conductor of a symphony with all parts coming together.
The actors were engaging and clearly enjoying taking us on the journey. Their English language skills were excellent. Our only complaint is that the volume was too loud and became a bit oppressive.
We are told that there will be another escape room experience here and we will look forward to that the next time we are in Barcelona.
The End - Dark Park, Zoetermeer, Netherlands
The End by Dark Park in The Netherlands is an outstanding room! It was rated number 65 in the world on the TERPECA 2023 list.
The experience starts in a funeral parlor - complete with a display of caskets, coffins and accessories. Please note that the room is recommended for adults 18 and older.
We have played several Dark Park rooms and there sets are world class. The End is no exception - the opening set of a funeral parlor is very convincing and has much to offer, look and explore. This part is a traditional escape room with fairly traditional puzzles.
The End moves to the next level when you make your way out of the funeral parlor and into the main story. Before you leave the funeral parlor, you will have some idea about the world you are going to explore.
Dark Park considers this experience to be immersive theater - and we agree!
The End is now bookable by 2 to 6 players. When we booked the experience, the minimum was 3 players. They allowed us to play as two with advance notice -- there was one time that the game mechanics required at least 3 players and we were blown away by the fun way Dark Park handled this dilemma when we realized what was happening. They now apparently don't require special arrangements for a team of 2. We think teams of 2 to 4 are ideal.
This is an actively scary room - but we had a great time, thanks in large part to the great performance of the actor who played the game with us. This game has a variety and large number of puzzles which felt organicly integrated into the story line. We highly recommend playing this room - but we also recommend exploring the full information about the room on Dark Park's website and to keep in mind this is an actively scary room with a live actor.
Has the first vampire returned? Is she coming for you? To be admitted, you have to show the mark of the chosen few (fortunately, you will be provided the mark in advance!). This is not an all-out horror room, but it definitely has some intense and actively scary moments that will not be fun for all who don't like these intense moments. It is not a spoiler to tell you that this a tomb raider event, and we had a blast when Akasha returned and was chasing us. Up until this point, this is a passively scary room and considerably less intense than other rooms. But we did want to make this clear as this final moment may be too intense for some - as mentioned we enjoyed it! We were literally in a tomb raider movie or video game. Escape Barcelona built in several truly cinematic moments.
Escape Barcelona designed this room with the look and feel of movie set. There is a lot of physical activity like climbing, crawling and dealing with tight spaces.
As usual for Barcelona, Akasha: Tomb Hunter is about the immersion, the set and the experience. We recommend this room for all of those reasons. Akasha: Tomb Hunter had more puzzles than most of the escape rooms we played in Barcelona.