Horror Box (Barcelona)

  • Time: 30 minutes
  • Capacity: 2 players
  • Theme: Horror
  • Fear level: Light
  • Difficulty: Medium
  • Recommendation: Unmissable

Check position in our ranking and our detailed rating.

Date we played: June 2018 (2 players)

Excellent game for two people

Catalepsy is a condition characterized by the lack of mobility of the body and a decreasing of cardiac, respiratory and neurological functions to minimum levels, leading to a state of apparent death. It can last for three days, so that the involved person can be accidentally buried alive.

Between 1870 and 1910 there was a general fear of being buried alive, hence mechanisms to be rescued were developed. One of the most popular consisted in a bell above the ground tied by a string to one hand of the supposedly deceased: in this way, the person would ring the bell in case of waking up. As a curiosity, according to some sources, the expression “saved by the bell” takes its origin from here (according to other sources, it comes from the bell sound after a boxing round).

Other mechanisms, for instance, consisted in hoisting flags above the ground or introducing oxygen into the coffin. Even some instructions about what to do if buried alive were published: cover your head with your shirt to avoid breathing earth, kick or use any hard object you’ve been buried with to break the top of the coffin, place earth beneath your body and try to climb up to the surface… However, there is no evidence that any of these measures got to save anyone who was accidentally buried alive.

Luckily, in Horror Box there are people who get to escape. The game has immersion elements since you book online, letting you to customize several important details of your burial (it is highly recommended to do it). The intro is very immersive: one of us, easily suggestible, was about to ring the bell (the equivalent of the “panic button” in Catalepsia) and stop the game before it started. Thank God he didn’t…

Horror Box documented well about the catalepsy phenomenon and you can perfectly notice it in the puzzles (some of them are especially well integrated) and the development of the game. We were very curious to know how they got such good opinions with a 30-minutes game for two people entirely inside a coffin, and we have been delighted by the experience!

After the game ends, you can see some posters of security coffins, newspapers and other documents related to the catalepsy phenomenon. You will also see a great photocall, but unfortunately you won’t be able to take a picture (which we consider very disappointing), neither with their camera nor with yours, since after an update of the personal data protection law they decided to stop doing it.

In summary, an excellent two-people escape room.