Experiencia Escape (Madrid)

  • Time: 60 minutes
  • Capacity: 2-6 players
  • Theme: Horror
  • Fear level: Light
  • Difficulty: Easy
  • Recommendation: Skippable

Check position in our ranking and our detailed rating.

Date we played: October 2020 (4 players)

Good idea, disastrous implementation

Julia has been trapped in the movies of a horror film festival at the Gran Theatre for 20 years… you are the only ones who can save her.

But we don’t know if you should be eager to. Probably not. At least according to our experience, it was a long time since we played such a bad escape room. There is only one good point in the game: the decoration of one chamber, producing a nice effect when entering in. But that’s all. Really.

The rest of the decoration is between decent and shabby (far beyond cabling in sight), and even if the illumination positively enhances the atmosphere, the global effect goes completely down due to the presence of the actors, with a pathetic acting that, truly, sows doubt about whether they are trying to scare you, laugh at you, or meet the minimum and go home as soon as possible. Believe us when we say that we tried to immerse ourselves into the game, but it was one of those times when it’s not even possible. In case that wasn’t enough, one of the actors (who remained during some time in our room) didn’t seem to be ashamed of having the WhatsApp notifications sound on and turning to read and reply messages. You can judge which kind of immersion you may get under such conditions and which fluency the game can have.

Puzzles are scarce, extremely simple, not surprising at all, and poorly or not integrated. When introducing a repetitive mechanic, usually successful in horror escape rooms, they do it illogically. Even the introduction, performed in a cinema ticket office, is not immersive, when it would be really easy to implement a reception by an attendant who, playing a character, sells the tickets and simply takes the players to their seats. On the other hand, the plot doesn’t go further than the simple premise you can read in the website.

We think that the idea is good, but the implementation is disastrous. They come to our mind those escape rooms that, in spite of opening in 2020, do not take any risk, meet the minimum, and, even if they won’t remain in the memory of anyone, at least don’t negatively surprise. Although we did not end with an unpleasant aftertaste, the game offers an experience of very low quality but not spoiling your day: we enjoyed the group activity and taking a picture at the end, and nothing cast a shadow over our post-escape meeting. The game masters were polite and correct.

Summarizing, Atrapado en el Cine would need a huge revolution in order to be a competent escape room.

UPDATE 23/04/2021: The room has been closed for improvements and reopened. We don’t know about the changes they implemented or the final outcome.