Review: The Room - Live Escape Room LA

RATING: 5 Keys RESULT: Win REMAINING: 8:17

You knew better than to wander around in those woods. You knew better…

Story

Dwight Carpenter was born the son of Ted Carpenter, a backwoods simpleton, and Wendy Loomis on a quiet morning in 1968. Wendy had the unfortunate displeasure of crossing paths with Ted while she was a counselor at the nearby summer camp. All the counselors were slaughtered and consumed by Ted, except Wendy. Ted kept her caged up in his workshop in the back of his secluded cabin. Sometime after Dwight’s birth, Wendy found a way out of the cabin and never looked back, even for Dwight. For she knew that if anyone ever found Dwight, she would become a social outcast. As the years passed, Dwight started to have more questions about his mother and her whereabouts. Ted always told his son that his mother left them to go live a life of sin in the city.

Every night before they could devour their day’s hunt at the table, Ted always ranted about how their victims were divinely brought to them. Their appearance was God telling Ted it was their time to go. For the whole world was rotten, but that of Dwight and Ted. When Dwight was fifteen, he saw his father as a threat and knew he could fall prey to him any second. He loved his father dearly but was worried that his aging mind was getting the best of him. To be safe, Dwight scattered clues throughout the cabin that only he knew the solution to. This fear of his disappeared on one fateful evening in 1985 when a group of hunters accidentally shot and killed Ted, mistaking him for a deer. Fueled by grief and rage, Dwight finally saw the world as his father did. Those hunters became the first of Dwight Carpenter’s many victims. Will you join them?

Steel bars completely encase the latest captives of Dwight Carpenter. Only an hour remains before he returns to enjoy the spoils of his most recent hunt. The survivors must find their way out of the cage and dissect the clues that Dwight himself had assembled to protect himself from his father in the event that he was captured, that is, before he took the old man’s place as caretaker of this horrifying cabin in the woods. It’s time to act quickly or end up the main course at a backwoods dinner table.

Scenic

New arrivals to this cannibal’s den find themselves in a cage-like cell, with only a beyond-disgusting toilet adorning their quarters. On the other side of the cage stands a rotting, yet still seemingly working, meat freezer – not preserving the usual cuts, however.

Once prisoners make their way into the main den of the cabin, the unsettling sense creeping through each of them does anything but dissipate. Long-deceased rodents and mildew dress each corner of the room, while scorch marks, blood, and tears line the walls, carpet, floors, and window frames. If one didn’t know any better, this house would be presumed abandoned years ago. Even the recently expired corpse of Ted Carpenter awaits the escapees.

From the moment the captives begin their escape to the instant they reach freedom once more, they are fully and beautifully immersed in this twisted, dilapidated terror of a house. The Room Live Escape Room LA finds success in all dimensions of the scenic design of this experience, even going so far as to create an entirely outdoor setting in a completely indoor space. Each individual aspect feels creepier than the one before, inducing a spiral-like fall into madness as the enslaved seek an exit.

Puzzles

In The Cabin, the puzzles are both plentiful and varying. Rarely are there similar locks, keys, or combinations. All of the puzzling within the experience fits right into the storyworld presented by The Room – Live Escape Room LA. Each clue or hint that is uncovered is perfectly in place and nuanced, as if a soon to be insane captive had elaborately designed each of them right under his father’s nose. Every puzzle intensifies the immersion for the so-called visitors, maintaining a heightened tension and anxiety throughout the journey.

Dwight Carpenter created this maze of challenges to escape the grasp of his father, if need be, and escapees must use their creativity, scavenging abilities, and teamwork to dive into the mind of this rough country psychopath in order to find freedom once more.

Overall

The Room – Live Escape Room LA is an incredibly unique and pleasantly surprising escape venue. It presents itself as the premier “mom-and-pop” style escape company in northern Los Angeles in the best possible way. The attention to detail, authenticity, and love that has been shown in the creation of The Cabin is on par with any of the best we’ve seen. Escape lovers can feel free to add this experience at The Room – Live Escape Room LA to their short list of Los Angeles “to-dos.”