I Was Drunk and Alone in the ‘Backrooms’ Escape Room

Multiple mistakes were made the day I walked into the Backrooms Immersive Experience.

Some context before we dive into my own personal foibles. To celebrate the upcoming release of Backrooms, a new A24 horror movie based on the Internet mythos of the same name, Breakout Philippines has set up a Backrooms-themed escape room at Shangri-La Plaza. For those of you who’ve heard of the urban legend, and maybe seen one or two of director Kane Parsons’ YouTube videos paying homage to it, then you’ll know that the Backrooms are the stuff of nightmares: long, sickly yellow hallways that stretch on forever, rooms that appear and disappear at a whim, and a gaggle of cryptids always following behind, waiting for you to make one wrong step. 

The Backrooms are notoriously difficult to escape from (at least, if you believe the legends). Fans have dedicated hours-long videos to deciphering the rooms’ origin stories, as well as how to quickly break free from them (The Film Theorists’ survival guide video offers the most logical exit route). As someone who spent most of her teenage years scouring YouTube videos, Reddit threads, and Creepypasta posts on just the Backrooms, I thought that I was more than prepared to break out of a Backrooms-themed escape room. I couldn’t have been more wrong.

My Solo Backrooms Escape Room Attempt

For starters, I’d made the mistake of shooting back shots of gin at 12:00 p.m., just two hours before I was meant to step into the escape room. In my defense, these shots were free, and it would have been incredibly rude of me if I hadn’t accepted them. But they were strong, perhaps a little overly so, and I found myself wobbling just a tiny bit as I made my way to the mall. 

My second folly was assuming that I would be joining a group of escapees. I pulled up to Breakout on my own, and a smidge too inebriated to really be thinking about solving puzzles. I must confess, I was hoping to play the quiet, mysterious solo player who teams up with a batch of overeager attendees who could figure out all the escape room’s riddles for me. I would have helped from time to time, and I was prepared to make soft, encouraging noises to nudge the group to victory. I am, after all, a team player.

Instead, though, I was immediately told that I was the only escapee booked for the 2:30 p.m. slot. “It’s not so hard,” Adrian, the staff member manning the reception desk, told me, “and there aren’t any jump scares yet. And 20 minutes lang ‘yung runtime, so you’ll be okay.” This did little to assuage the fear beginning to bloom in my chest. I’d read enough stories about the Backrooms, and I’d just rewatched the film’s trailer. I started to wonder how large the escape room could really be, and if I shouldn’t have gotten a day drunk going, and if I should have brought a friend with me. These are the mistakes usually reserved for people in horror movies, but alas, it was too late for me. I began to spiral.

What to Expect Inside the Breakout Room

Things were running late at Breakout. Too many fans had signed up for the Backrooms escape room, and so I had to bide my time in the lobby while I waited for my turn. I could hear people screaming and banging on doors, demanding to be let out. Granted, they may have been partaking in different escape rooms, but that did nothing to calm my nerves. I was in the midst of my despair when my name was finally called.

If I’m being completely honest, I barely remember what the puzzles were. After being blindfolded and led down a dark corridor (again, my poor nerves), I was left alone in what appeared to be the start of the escape room. I won’t spoil the experience for you, but I will say that it stays true to the source material, so be prepared for the usual, acid-yellow Backrooms aesthetic. The speakers surrounding the rooms also play a loop of static, mixed with an ominous array of notes and clicks that had me wanting to leave the room A-S-A-P.

Are the Backrooms Puzzles Hard to Solve?

Unfortunately, I was very slow at solving the puzzles. On a normal day, I’m already not the best at solving group-based puzzles, but on my own, I was horrendous. None of the hints were making sense to me, and I spent most of my 20 minutes waving at the security cameras to try and get a Breakout staff member to come and just give me the codes. Adrian had to come in four times to push me in the right direction. For most of these visits, he found me sprawled on the floor, talking to myself and pawing at anything movable in the rooms. For a solid five minutes, I thought a plastic palm tree was the key to everything. 

Needless to say, I did not “escape” the Backrooms escape room. On my way out, Adrian gave me a pity clap and let me know that this June, there’ll be an hour-long version of the room where solo players will be placed into groups (gasp!) and the puzzles will be much harder to solve. Considering how I’d barely solved a single puzzle in the easy version of the escape room, I’m not sure why Adrian needed to tell me this last bit. Shame permeated through every fiber of my being as I stepped back into the Breakout lobby, where even more Backroom fans were impatiently waiting for their turn. If this hadn’t been a make-believe scenario and I’d actually slipped into the hallways of the Backrooms, there is little doubt that I wouldn’t have made it out alive. I would have succumbed completely to this alternate dimension, and I would have accepted my fate.

The Backrooms Immersive Experience, courtesy of Breakout Philippines and CreaZion Studios, is currently running until June 7. Backrooms begins screening in cinemas nationwide on June 3.

Frequently Asked Questions