When it comes to horror escapes we are always intrigued to see what is on offer. Escapologic has 8 rooms in total in their repertoire and can be found just off Castlegate, a short stroll from Nottingham Centre and at £80 for a group of 4 its also great value for money. Now being held captive with devious puzzles and a time limit is always fun but when you add scares into the mix, well this is why we do these things. And 13utcher at Escapologic Nottingham does it so damn well. The backstory told us of a couple "Max and Anna" that went missing and we were following in their ill-fated footsteps after hearing screams within from the street. Now it was our time to be trapped in the Butchers Lair, A dark and dank chamber resembling a personal abattoir. Of the hour that you have in Butcher, it takes very little time for the anticipation and trepidation to build causing some guests "we were told" to safeword in the first 5 minutes. So how did we fare...
Potential Spoiler Warning - Read on at your own risk
Once you are taken to 13utcher the atmosphere starts to set in. Your surroundings soon change from the cheery carnival/freakshow-esq facade of the check-in reception and switch to an eerie dark damp chamber with a wall of old plastic flaps serving as your entrance.
It is here that you will have your usual H+S speech. Leaving this room you head down a dark corridor until you walk into the first room of 13butcher, a small and slightly claustrophobic room, one final speech about the backstory of Max and Anna and now comes the warning that the Butcher can come back at any time and it is in your best interests to hide if they do.13utcher is an 18+ Room and also comes with a safeword of your choosing, Ours was Custard Mouse, this may seem dramatic but when immersed in this new nightmare world it soon becomes understandable as to why this has been put in place. Once the door shuts the game is full of scares. From the psychological unknown of sacrificing your hands into darkness or other places to the totally unwarned arrival of the titular Butcher. Rest assured our group was full of diehard horror fans who are no strangers to the industry but more than once we found ourselves running to try and find somewhere to hide or caught out by Escapelogics fantastic use of light or rather darkness should we say. When you play 13utcher use your time carefully like your life depends on it cause it does! Anytime the Butcher enters the game your most likely going to find yourself in the dark and completely unable to carry on whatever you are trying to solve. We will say in some instances it can seem a little unfair of your time being taken up but the tension it builds is palpable. The only let down and believe us it is splitting hairs is that when we failed the game... yes we failed but was so so close to finishing was that there was no payoff with the butcher, If at the point of failure the lights had gone off and the Butcher had come in one more time seemingly to kill us off that would have been the icing on the terrifying cake but instead it was just our game master. Don't think for one second we are putting the game down because honestly, that's the only thing we found that we would change. Everything else in this room is absolute bloody "pun intended" perfection and we hope and pray Escapelogic try to out-do 13utcher in the future for scares because rest assured we will be there!
13utcher is one of 8 Rooms at Escapologic Nottingham and Escapologic also have a location in Leicester too. You can check out all their rooms on the website. https://www.escapologic.com/