Month: October 2016

Massachusetts Escape Room List

Below is a list of the Escape Rooms and interactive adventures that I’ve played organized in order of MY favorite to least favorite in each city.

Note: I especially enjoy horror, paranormal & magic themed escape rooms, so my preferences may be different than yours. Feel free to tweet me questions. 

Foxboro

5 Wits *Adventure

Boston

Boxaroo: The Magicians Study

Boda Borg *Adventure*

Trapology: The Drunk Tank

RIP these games are no longer around

Escape Room Salem – Dracula’s Tomb (Salem)

Wicked Escapes: prison game

HAUNT – Hysteria at Connors Farm – Massachusetts 

Hysteria at Connors Farm

3 stars out of 5

I had high expectations for Hysteria after hearing so much about this event from locals and reading so many great things about it online (including Bloody Disgusting and Hauntworld Magazine) so I was especially disappointed by my experience. To be fair I was only able to experience the actual haunt, although I know they also have a non-spooky cornmaze and zombie paintball.

When we purchased our tickets we were told it would be an hour wait for VIP and closer to two for general admission, but it ended up only taking 20 minutes to get into the haunt as VIP. We were placed in a group of about six people to walk through, however within a few minutes we were backed up into the worst “conga line” I’ve ever experienced. At least at a haunt like Universal Halloween Horror Nights when you get stuck standing in the haunt it is visually stimulating and the actors have been trained on how to continue to do their jobs as effectively as possible also it’s not that long, but here we spent the majority of the next 20 minutes or more standing completely stopped looking at nothing but corn with a handful of actors doing their best but not really sure what to do. There were a couple of stand out actors that shined even as we stood around waiting to move forward such as the monster with the especially long arms and the spider victim, but for the most part I felt bad for the monsters. The set and props were fine for a home haunt. The different scenes didn’t seem to connect and none really stand out in my memory.

HAUNT – Scream Zone – California 

Scream Zone 

3 Stars (of 5)

Walking through this Halloween carnival made me feel a teenager in a 1980’s slasher film. Scream Zone doesn’t appear to have updated their carnival style in the past few decades.

The haunted hayride was a bit sad, lacking strong sets or theming and most notibly actors. There were about three actors per scene that worked their tails off running from the front to the back to the front of the wagon repeatedly screaming, grunting, banging the sides with props such as hockey sticks. There were two attempts  at a large effects during the ride, but both fell flat mostly due to timing. The disappointment of this attraction was compounded by the long hour plus wait times to ride.

KarnEvil was much better than the hayride. It’s a walk through carnival themed haunted house. Clowns laughed and scared as our group wandered through a maze within the haunt for several minutes lost and ending up back where we started repeatedly. After getting through that section of the haunt it was quick and the “final scare” was nonexistent. My husband and I actually walked back in the maze because we thought we’d accidentally exited through an emergency exit. Overall though the attraction was fun and one large clown made it very memorable.

House of Horror was brilliant. We had a blast. I loved the maze within the walkthrough and the effective use of darkness at times. The decor was a strong attempt, certainly no Universal Studios, but it got the job done. It had a rather cliche ending, but it was so much fun and the actors were so dedicated that we didn’t mind.

Zombie Bootcamp sounded like a lot of fun if I was wearing tennis shoes and 10 years younger. I didn’t feel like running from zombies after a long day, so we didn’t do Zombie Bootcamp.

Escape the Monkey cage was a fun experience we came across on our way out of Sceam Zone. It was a 6 minute live mini escape room for a $3 up charge. My husband and I waited about 30 minutes in line to play. The first three groups didn’t escape. The couple in front of us escaped just in the nick of time. We blew through in 2 minutes, but we really enjoyed it! We’d already played three full length escape rooms earlier in the day before the haunt so it was a fun way to end the night.

There is free parking and you can walk around the grounds at no cost. Each attraction has its own ticket or you can do a combo. There were a couple of food trucks and drinks available. It did get a bit chilly, so I recommend bringing a sweatshirt or you can buy one there.