A stake was supposed to have finished the Count. Then his tomb was opened and found empty. Tonight the blood moon rises, and only the notes of a long-dead vampire hunter stand between Dracula and the Bride he has hunted for centuries.
In short: In Dracula, an empty tomb and a vampire hunter’s notebook lead you to the crypt of the Count’s undead Bride, and you have until the blood moon rises to stop their reunion. In Van Helsing, the hunter’s final letter passes his relics and his war to you.
For centuries the ending seemed settled: vampire hunters cornered Count Dracula and drove a stake through his heart. Then an archaeological dig reached his crypt, broke the seal on his tomb and found it bare.
What the diggers did find was a notebook, filled in the cramped hand of the famous hunter Van Helsing. Its pages hint that the Count’s death was a piece of supernatural sleight of hand, and the old lore-keepers of Transylvania agree: Dracula never died. He has been moving through the shadows ever since, searching for his undead Bride.
The notebook names the place she was locked away: a crypt somewhere in the graveyard of the Monastery of Brașov. With the hunter’s notes in hand you go looking, and you find it.
That is exactly what the Count wanted. Tonight a blood moon rises, his strength returns with it, and the ritual that would raise his Bride needs one more ingredient: a living sacrifice. Yours will do.
You have sixty minutes, the lantern light and a dead man’s notebook to keep the two of them apart. When the moon reaches its height, it is too late.
The tomb was empty. The notebook was not.
Dracula’s crypt is a monastery graveyard built inside a building: mossy ground, carved stone doors, candlelit sarcophagi and a coffin that bears the marks of something trying to get out.
Photographs of the Dracula set at Escape This Northbridge.
“If you have found this letter, then I have failed. Dracula still lives.” So begins the last message of Van Helsing, the hunter who gave his life to ending the Count, and it is addressed to you.
Beyond the letter lies a fog-bound cemetery of leaning headstones. Beneath it whisper the souls Dracula judged unworthy of eternal life, refused even the rest of the grave.
Armed with the hunter’s sacred artefacts, your team must break into the catacombs, end centuries of the Count’s tyranny and free the condemned, or be counted among them. Van Helsing plays at Escape This Melbourne CBD, rated 7.5 out of 10, for 2–8 players aged 13 and over.
Both rooms are set in the not-too-distant past, so dress as the Count in a high collar, as Van Helsing with a wide hat and a satchel of stakes, or in your best Victorian black. Whatever you choose, wear closed shoes and something you can move in.
Dracula is a 60-minute gothic horror escape room by Escape This at Escape This Northbridge in Perth. A vampire hunter’s notebook leads your team to the crypt of the Count’s undead Bride, and you must keep the pair apart before the blood moon rises. Its companion room, Van Helsing, plays in Melbourne CBD.
They share one gothic world. In Dracula you follow Van Helsing’s notebook into the Count’s crypt in Perth; in Van Helsing, in Melbourne, the hunter’s farewell letter admits Dracula survived him and hands his war to you. They are separate rooms with their own sets and puzzles, so you can play either on its own.
That is what everyone believed. In the Dracula escape room an excavation opens his tomb and finds it empty, and Van Helsing’s notebook, found in its place, suggests the staking was a supernatural trick. Transylvania’s lore-keepers say the Count has been hiding in the shadows ever since.
She is the undead companion the Count has searched for across the centuries. In the Dracula escape room she lies imprisoned in a crypt in the graveyard of the Monastery of Brașov, and the blood moon ritual that would raise her needs a sacrifice: you.
The blood moon is the clock. When it rises, Dracula’s strength comes back and the ritual to wake his Bride can be finished. Your hour in the Dracula crypt runs out as the moon climbs; stop the reunion before then or become part of it.
Van Helsing opens with the hunter’s last letter: he has failed, and Dracula still lives. Among misty headstones in Melbourne CBD, you take up his sacred artefacts, break into the catacombs and try to free the souls Dracula judged unworthy of eternal life, before you end up beside them.
Please do. Dracula and Van Helsing are both set in the not-too-distant past, so come as the Count, as a vampire hunter or in Victorian evening black. Closed shoes are required, and comfortable clothes help.
Escape This designed and built Dracula and Van Helsing itself. Escape This is Australia’s largest escape room operator, with its own escape room design studio and escape room factory.
Book Dracula in Northbridge or take up Van Helsing’s relics in Melbourne. One hour, lantern light and a dead hunter’s notes.
