It is that time of year. When all the immersive companies get out the torches and the spider webs and inform you that you have an hour to stop El Diablo from consuming some souls.

This time round we gather at the CoLab Factory, previous home to Jay Gatsby and his drugstore. There are still traces, ghostly marks of JG on bars or slightly too swanky pool tables.

But we aren’t here for a Charleston. We are hunting a ghost. We are ushered in by the Reverend Stanley Park. He has put out notices on local churches for brave souls to enter a former asylum for soldiers suffering from PTSD. One of the inmates had been murdered but it had been hushed up and now this demonic ghost wanders the halls. For reasons known only to the afterlife, it is blinded but listening out for intruders. It’s up to us to go down there and find out who dunnit and how…dunnit.

We are all given small glass vials of colourful liquids to “represent the Holy Trinity” by the priest. Through mixing this cocktail we are informed that we are now offered some protection from the restless demon. This of course does beg the question of what if we didn’t pay the extra fee for the drink? Would we denied this blessing? Did we literally buy our salvation?

We head in pairs into the dark to find clues and bring them back to be examined. Armed with a radio, a tiny torch and a couple of small bells. If we are cornered, throw the bell and the ghost will be distracted. Of course you can’t hear a bell when everyone is screaming. Also, for a show where we must be silent they give us a radio to blare out our location. At one point another group just started playing music through their radio and I watched a woman slide under a table in terror.

There is fun to the game listening out for the scream of the ghost echoing around the warehouse. Is he here? Upstairs? Do I split from my party or do we dash into a cupboard?

I am unsure WHAT would have happened if we had been caught. I assume bad things?

My companion decided he was going to start doing the screams for himself and enjoyed watching the terror.

Was I scared? I was worried about falling down the metal stairs and there are moments of things being motion detected where I started. I’m not a screamer though so the idea of being quiet while scared worked.

A highlight for me was at one point my group was ambushed and I was forced to run by myself. I darted into a side room, finding the final missing piece of the puzzle. I was then forced to hold my breath and stand in a corner as the creature slowly slinked into the room. Only then could I creep out and try and find my team.

I also discovered I am probably going to be the first to die in the film as I kept finding a clue and then going “We should keep looking. That was too easy.”

Outside of the creeping about in the dark, the narrative and puzzle is weaker. To the extent that we solved a major puzzle piece in the first twenty minutes. “Well that’s not possible” states Park. It was possible and it was right. The ending also made me wonder if we had missed a major document as well as featuring an abrupt introduction of theatrical lighting which exposed the makeup of the ghost rather harshly.

But the performer playing the Good Rev did a very good job at dealing with the variety of challenges thrown at him including me yelling “ARE YOU A GHOST!? BECAUSE IT’S LIKE THE POLICE! YOU HAVE TO TELL US IF YOU ARE!”

THAT SAID, there, to my knowledge, is nothing akin to this going on in London at the moment. Sure, there is the London Dungeon or London Bridge Experience but for the game of being chased around a warehouse by a shrieking demonic ghost it is unique. It seems more akin to the more akin to American Haunted Houses which is an aspect of performance I feel is missing in this country. To have that pure animal scare of running and hiding in the dark while being hunted.

If you want to have some fun dashing and dodging by torchlight and doing your best to not fall down some stairs this is worth it. But don’t expect a deeply interactive story.

And don’t fall down the stairs.

We don’t need two ghosts.

Silence wraps its run on Oct. 31st at CoLab Factory space in London. Tickets start at £15.00.

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