You have been captured by a crazed man who wants revenge on human society for the death of his twin brother. Previous victims have been kidnapped, tortured, dismembered and killed. And now it could be you! Clues are only obtained by you making a sacrifice. This room is not for the weak! Are you brave enough to take part?
	90 minutes
	3-6 players
	Very difficult (19% success rate)
	£15 per person
	Hornchurch, London
	roomlockdown.com
	Played by Daiman, Jenny, Paul, Bharath
	June 2018
	Failed to escape
	This room is no longer open

Theming

6/10I guess you could argue that it looked authentic; a grey, concrete room where you’d typically expect these kinds of shenanigans to go down but it just wasn’t a very interesting space. I think what made this worse for me was the inclusion of some cheap and tacky-looking props that are probably better off being ditched.

 Daiman

8/10With an extreme escape room, you never really know what you’re going to get. The company put us in overalls and we were told to wait for the host. The host was excellent and went straight into character where he remained until the end. Whilst I’m not sure what the correct theming is for a torture room, the entry to the experience, the moments you encounter during play and the clue system is so epic that this game will stay with you.

Jenny

9/10From the moment the game starts, you are made to feel uncomfortable and vulnerable as you are blindfolded and guided somewhere. I’ve been to quite a few ‘scary’ escape rooms and other events in my time, but I’ve never actually been scared as I know nothing bad will happen. But here, I encountered genuine fear! We were so afraid to ask for clues as you get punished for every one you ask for. This meant we only suffered a few of their punishments which I was a bit disappointed about. But when we found out afterwards what we missed out on, I was quite relieved that we did miss them!

Paul

8/10When they say extreme, they mean extreme. This room is definitely a level above normal escape rooms. There are a good mix of tortures and some will test your pain factor. One of our team got escorted away for a torture, with the rest of the team getting to watch it all unfold on TV. At the start, we were blindfolded, hooded, escorted into the room via an elaborate route and handcuffed to the wall. At times it was hard to breathe through the hood. You weren’t handcuffed for too long. The room was quite small and had a grotty feel which kept in well to the theming.

 Bharath

Puzzles

5/10These were a mixed bag – there’s some searching along with the obligatory padlock combination hunts with nothing being particularly special. Some of the tasks were deliberately difficult by design – the USP of this room was that requesting a clue required a sacrifice. If you never needed a clue, you would almost completely bypass the ‘extreme’ part of this game so it feels like certain moments are designed to stump you. However, everything that we encountered was fair enough once we’d been given the explanation, even if we wouldn’t have made that connection ourselves.

 Daiman

6/10Extreme rooms are always about the experience and are are normally lacking in puzzles. We lost almost 25 mins on this one puzzle that stumped us for ages. Even now I know the answer I still struggle with the clue. That being said after this stumbling block we did fly through the puzzles but ran out of time. This room is difficult namely due to the psychology of it, but I did feel they surprised us with the quality/difficulty of the puzzles.

Jenny

5/10The games take a bit of a back seat here as a lot of time is spent on the fear side of things. This means there aren’t a ton of puzzles, and what there is won’t wow anyone that has done a few rooms before. You need to hunt for a few things and solve some standard escape room logic puzzles to get combinations for padlocks.

Paul

5/10The puzzles itself were not that demanding. We got stuck on a lock that we had never seen before. This took a lot of our time. Once we got past this point we started to whizz through the puzzles but unfortunately there was not enough time to finish. To get a clue you had to endure a torture.

 Bharath

Enjoyment

9/10Maybe somewhat sadistically, I had a lot of fun in here – the inclusion of genuinely testing ‘punishments’ lent the game a level of authenticity that I haven’t experienced before. This wasn’t an ‘invisible’ killer that we’d never see returning to his lair, this character was present and would inflict uncomfortable trials upon us. It sounds weird but having actual motivation to escape a room was refreshing!

 Daiman

8/10With a torture room you’re probably not meant to enjoy the experience instead you’re probably supposed to be terrified. However I loved the rooms intensity so much so we refrained from asking for clues to prevent us from having to do dares, little did we know the torturer would still come in and punish us in other ways. These were bearable and the greatest highlight was watching our fellow team mate being tortured on TV! The host really made this game and added to the fun level.

Jenny

9/10I’ve never looked forward to an escape room as much as I have this one as I was so intrigued as to what they would do. But I worried that I was hyping it up too much and would end up disappointed, especially as it was only £15. Thankfully my fears were unfounded! Even with the actual pain I received, I really enjoyed this unusual experience. But the best bits were obviously watching the others suffering instead of me!

Paul

7/10What I enjoyed here is the extremity of the room, the tortures are physical and are meant to push you. The games master was in the room at times wearing a hockey mask. He was there to taunt you and put you on edge and at times I think he did well. There were times that team members were escorted out of the room to play mind games on everyone.

 Bharath

Value

9/10It’s a 90 min experience for £15 with a live actor and a very unique take on a clue system. Probably one of the best value rooms I’ve ever played.

 Daiman

9/10At £15 pp this room was extremely great value. The experience is great fun and will stay with you for a while. Highly recommend this room to everyone!

Jenny

9/10£15 is an absolute bargain for a 90 minute experience. I worried that it would be cheap for a reason, but thankfully I was wrong as it actually lived up to its ‘not for the weak’ billing. Their website mentions that this is a special price as the room is new and it looks like it will go up to £22 at some point. But even that is still a good price.

Paul

8/10This room is all about testing your limits. The value can be found in the intense experience itself rather than the standard escape element of the room. At the price you pay per person, it’s definitely worth it.

 Bharath

The good

It’s a super unique experience – the threat of (simulated!) torture adds a pressure like nothing else. It obviously won’t be for everyone but its a great way of seeing how your team acts under legitimately stressful conditions!

 Daiman

This game had such a niche idea with the punishments which really made you think about requesting help. The actor in the room was really great and I really enjoyed seeing our team member get mashed!

Jenny

This is the only scary activity I’ve been to that is actually scary! There is a very real chance of feeling fear and maybe even actual pain. I was the unlucky goat who was taken away to another room to receive the most painful punishment whilst the rest of the team were in hysterics as they watched me suffer on CCTV!

Paul

What made it for me was seeing one of the team endure quite a tough torture. I liked also how on edge you were for a lot of the time.

 Bharath

The bad

For me, the game hinged on the clues/punishment aspect. Everything else about the game was very standard. If you’re going for gameplay over the experience, it probably isn’t worth bothering with.

 Daiman

For me I feel the puzzles could have been better. However everything else was great.

Jenny

We were lead off to our fate in groups. I was in the last group and we had to stand around in the lobby for quite a while with nothing to do. The puzzles aren’t anything to write home about. The captor was pretty mild mannered – they could have upped the intensity further by having them be a bit more aggressive. If you have fears, this may not be the room for you. As they quite rightly say, this is not for the weak!

Paul

On the puzzle that we spent far too long on, the games master should have seen this and helped earlier in my opinion. Instead he was more interested in getting everyone to endure the same torture. With the type of room it was, I would liked to have seen more mind games and I would have liked to see more of the tortures take place within the game rather than at a clue stage.

 Bharath

Overall scores