Night of fright at Shrewsbury prison
If you’re a fan of The Walking Dead, or pretty much anything set in a dystopian or post apocalyptic world, Immersive Events’ Sanctum is definitely for you.
I like all three so managed to drag three scared friends along to Shrewsbury Prison’s newest event on Thursday night.
It is set 20 years after the initial outbreak of a virus which turns humans into zombies, which have now taken over the world.
The only survivors live in secure compounds around the world, such as Shrewsbury Prison, which is also where the virus originated.
Groups come together to set up small communities in the hope of surviving, and visitors to the event are tested in an attempt to be accepted into the group.
As soon as the prison doors opened we were led to an archway where we could see the characters behind the gates in a courtyard, and it was impressive.
So much so, that before we had actually entered the immersive event, my one friend had asked one of the organisers if there was a word she could use to get out if she needed to. Within 10 minutes she threatened to use the word at least three times, but she soon got used to it.
Standing there watching the survivors hold back the zombies really got you into it.
The characters’ acting was faultless, even when we had breaks in a bar area the characters stayed in their roles and came and mingled with us and no matter what anyone said they didn’t break, there was no hint of a smile.
So we entered the courtyard avoiding the zombies and being wary of which “survivors” were helpful and which were dangerous, and were instructed to grab a mattress and make our way onto a prison wing.
We were all on edge and waiting for someone to jump out or something to happen to just wandering around the prison was scary enough to begin with.
We were tested killing zombies with archery skills (I shot two down), there was quite a bit of running, involuntary screaming, and grabbing each other as lights went out and creepy characters loomed.
The event does have darkness, loud noises, zombies with grabbing hands, flashing lights, relatively small tunnels and areas to crawl through, and considering how ridiculously scared my friends were to begin with, we all had a very good night.
