Stranger Things: Escape the Dark

Rating: 4/5 - Despite "escape" in the name, this is a theatrical haunted house with some mild jump scares. I love haunts though, so I really enjoyed it despite only watching the first season of the show (this takes place around season 4-5). There are no puzzles or challenges, you mostly just walk through and look at things. I do like the headphone idea, the audio is location specific and is synced to things that happen around you and provide instructions/voice-over. The flashlight idea was decent, shining them on things will trigger effects, but you only use them in the first part of the experience. Overall the sets looked fantastic, fairly high budget with an epic finale scene. There is a lot of tech, dramatic moments, and easter eggs for fans of the show. There were multiple really good actors that added to the immersion. You go in as 4 groups of 10 people, but eventually all 40 people come together. It is a lot but they designed the experience to handle that group size decently. I feel like this high quality of experience would fit right in at a theme park.

This was an immersive experience, leaning towards a low scare haunted house. There were a few live actors who were okay…most of the experience is you being ushered from room to room to go through a stranger things-related story (aligned with season 4). I’m usually very jumpy and easily scared but did not find this scary. You are in a group of 40 people who are split into 4 groups of 10 but for most of the experience you are waiting for 40 people to go in and out of rooms. Production design was great, sound was great, visual effects were fun. Overall it was fun for a stranger things fan but may not be worth it for people who are not.