PSYCHOPATH’S DEN

A review by Tanya Howard

You know the instant the door slams shut behind you – bad things happen here. Evil is Omnipresent. Heart thumping terror builds relentlessly as each nerve shredding minute creeps past. Can you escape a. dreadful fate, or will you become another blood stained, or blood drained, statistic?

Amid the gore caked instruments of torture, hemmed in by the blood spattered you must keep your wits as sharp as his scalpels to avoid his clutches – he is very close, somewhere in the shadows. Only by solving his crazed, fiendish puzzles can you, quite literally, save your skin. Complete with a real crematorium and gallons of O-neg this is the ideal escape experience for lovers of horror and adrenaline fuelled frights.

Psychopath’s Den is clearly a serial killer themed escape room, and from the description of the room we had fully worked ourselves up to the point of freaking out by the time we arrived at Aim Escape, based near Aldgate. The room has a maximum capacity for five people but there was four of us as one of the girls had to cancel last minute.

Before entering the room we were given a backstory from one of the Games Masters of how after a night out a man followed us home, the last thing we remember is a blow to the back of the head before waking up in the blood stained, chain lined room with just a flashlight to see the empty room, bar one filling cabinet that won’t open.

Who knew that in an empty room it would be so hard to find clues, essentially we learnt that we are better in a filled room with an overload of options because it’s easier to lock onto something and work out what it relates to. It was in the first room that we all jumped the most, and we even had a screamer (not the best thing when she does it right next to your ear and it’s piercing).

Rather than just the standard locks with keys or number combinations the puzzles in Psychopath’s Den were a bit more advanced. Yes, these still featured but there was also riddles, math equations, the need for steady hands and a bit of strength. We did get frustrated at points wondering what was even left in the rooms for us to work with to complete the next puzzle or find the next key and a few swear words may have slipped out.

After 44 minutes we completed the final puzzle, complete with another complete freak out moment all round, and were released from the room with 16 minutes to spare. We were all pretty chuffed with our escape time, the quickest I’ve ever done an escape room is 56 minutes so I’m clearly becoming an expert, or maybe I just had a really good team.

Despite a number of jumpy moments, and yes the scream, the room wasn’t as bad as we thought it would be but we all really enjoyed it. It was a well thought out room and I have to say I’d love to see inside the minds of those that come up with the tasks and themes. The tasks were fun, thought provoking and different to the previous escape rooms I’ve taken part in which was great.