After a run at San Diego’s Without Walls earlier this year, Night Watch has made its way to LA just in time for Halloween. Bee’s Knees’ (spearheaded by immersive vets Sara Biel and KJ Knies) first show is a thriller/horror movie that takes place in a cargo van and casts the audience as overnight security guards. It’s a clever piece of immersive theatre that takes advantage of the team’s production design skills to craft a taut 30-minute thrill ride.
The setup is relatively simple, you’re a security guard for a laboratory and you’re replacing the previous security guard who’s gone missing. The role setting for this is clear before you even buy a ticket, with the ticketing website made to look like a Craig’s List ad while also ensuring you have information about the show. There are a couple of in-world communications during the lead up to the show. This isn’t anything major, but the flavor and clarity strike the right balance of playing in the Night Watch world without risking confusion for attendees.
The show proper is for one to four people, and sees the audience enter a surveillance van decked out with monitors, computers, and other surveillance paraphernalia. The goal is simple, keep an eye on things until morning, but of course the lab you’re guarding has been handling some creative experiments. Much of the show unfolds through communications with J (Jenny Curtis during my show, though the role is triple cast), another security guard on the same beat in a different van.
J was friendly with the audience’s predecessor, and develops a similar rapport with you during your shift. It may seem at first that J is a sort of hint system to help you play Night Watch, but the relationship with J is the meat of the show. To give weight to what happens during your time in the van, Night Watch has to quickly establish J as a character, with wants and needs, and build that rapport with the audience.
Relying on some clever little beats and a strong performance from Curtis, I bought into the friendly relationship with J pretty easily. Much of the show is a conversation with J, which also allows for a good amount of play between audience and actor. The choice to lean into this format rather than going puzzle heavy is a good one and fits with a long lonely night in a surveillance van.
The rest of Night Watch does see the audience dealing with the van in various capacities over the 30-minute or so runtime. Sometimes you’re watching the monitors, sometimes you’re logging what you’re seeing on a computer, and sometimes you’re poking around to figure out what exactly you’re guarding. This is all layered in with solid production design and some clever effects that help accentuate the thrills in the show.
And the thrills do come! Once the audience learns what’s going on, the intensity level goes up quite quickly and a number of pieces all come together to get you on edge and wring out a jump scare or two. Even if you can guess what’s coming your way, the confined space of the van and the effects help everything land.
If there’s a weak point to the show, it’s in how quickly it rushes through a few reveals and a major beat near the end. The show is firmly in the horror genre, so it’s important to keep the tension at the right level, so the pacing is understandable, but there are a few elements that could use a little more breathing room to even out the pacing a bit. Plus, parts of the van feel a little underutilized during the show, and I felt like I wanted a few more minutes to look around and get my bearings.
Night Watch is an exciting debut for Bee’s Knees, and I’m looking forward to seeing where they go next. The choice to take things in a slightly more unusual direction, along with a lot of other things about the show just work. The current run is sold out, but if you’re looking for some non-theme park horror this spooky season, keep an eye on the wait list. The decision to set this in and around a van rather than a brick-and-mortar location may also make it easier to bring back!
Night Watch runs Oct. 9 - Nov. 1, 2026 at Hatch Escapes, 1919 3rd Ave., Los Angeles; tickers are $90-120
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