Lost Souls Alley - Poland

[JoshC.]

As part of my Poland trip, a group of us visited Lost Souls Alley - a scare attraction in the heart of Krakow. This visit deserves its own trip report, and probably a fair amount of rambling pre-amble too...

 

For those who don't know me, I love scare attractions. I haven't visited as many scare parks or done as many attractions as I'd have liked to, but I genuinely love doing these attractions. I've done more extreme stuff, like Face it Alone at Thorpe, other alone experiences and some quite physical attractions. I also know my limits. Any attractions which cause pain is a no go for me. Another no go for me is being force-fed stuff. That sort of stuff goes beyond scaring, and borders on torture / weird kinky stuff. With this in mind...

 

We found Lost Souls Alley online whilst looking for stuff to do in Krakow. It had excellent reviews and seemed really up our street - a 20-30min long interactive scare attraction, based on various scenes from horror films. Due to some translation issues, we weren't wholly sure what to expect, but we visited the place to ask for some extra details before booking.

 

It turns out there are 4 different options / version you can choose, with different "fun", "intense" and "pain" thresholds. 

Pink - Actors do not touch. Mild fun, zero intensity, zero pain.

Green - Actors can touch you, but will not harm you. 100% fun, mild intensity, no pain.

Amber - Actors can heavily touch you, and there will be some pain. Mild fun, 100% intensity, mild pain.

Red - Actors can do anything to you, lots of pain. Zero fun, 100% intensity, 100% pain.

 

Green is the recommended version, but pink is apparently done by an awful lot of people. After confirming what sort of touching actors could do - we were told light grabs, nothing more extreme than say Sub Species by the sounds of it - we opted for Green, and booked a slot for a couple of hours time.

 

The attraction operates a bit like an escape room and a scare maze rolled into one. Each room you have to find something (usually a key or a code) to move onto the next room, but the puzzles are incredibly simple. The first room you have to find a torch to guide you on the way. The pre-attraction spiel of don't annoy the actors, etc, etc was the same as any Merlin maze, and we were in. We were given a safety word, but warned that there must be at least 2 people during the experience at any one time for it to continue (and we were in a group of 3). 

 

The first room is pitch black, and you have to find the torch. Except there's nothing in there until an actor decides to lob the turned on torch at you. You then go through into the next room. An actor dressed as Hannibal sits behind a locked door with just a small hole for you to see him through. Beckoning us closer, he - quite violently! - swipes at one the group's face, and then encourages them to put his hands through a hole next to the door to retrieve a key to escape the room. 

 

Retrieving the key meant his hands were cable-tied (extremely tightly!), and set the actor free. The actor was very rough with the group, putting us in choke holds, slamming us against walls, trying to drag us away, etc. It was full on, and certainly more than we'd bargained for.

 

We went into the next room, which featured a dead body mannequin and again a locked door. The two actors from the two previous rooms were watching us from the room we just left. And at this point - only a couple of minutes into the 20-30 minute experience - I felt super uncomfortable. It was rougher than I expected, and I just didn't know what would happen. And all these feelings were bad. This wasn't a good "what could happen next", this wasn't a good 'scare maze uncomfortable'. This was a genuine fear of safety.

 

I approached the door where the actors were watching, and explained I did not want to continue. The other 2 were happy to continue, and I explained that. I was egged on to say the safety word, which I, defeatedly, said. I'd never said a safe word before. I'd never planned to say a safe word in any scare attraction. This was a personal defeat for me, something which I hated doing, but I had to. After saying the safety word, I was dragged away by an actor (and I mean dragged - they tightly wrapped a hand round my wrist and dragged me!) through the previous two scenes and chucked out the entrance.

 

I thought the rest of my group were going to be fine with the attraction though. Wrong. A couple of minutes later, out they came, having also said the safety word. I don't know the ins and outs of what happened, but the man handling had continued in the room and the room that followed. The actors had clasped their hands around their heads. They were threatened and cornered by an actor with a live taser (stun gun!). We were told that the Amber level featured tasers which could be used on you on a light setting. With the man-handling that had happened already, which was more than we were promised, there was no trust in the attraction any more - they didn't know what level of intensity they had.

 

The woman at the front looked into what had happened. It turns out the Hannibal actor was a bit rougher with us than he should have been. However, the strong grabs, the being cable-tied, and being threatened by a taser were all legit parts of a 'Green' experience. Very full on. In fairness, we were offered a refund, and the opportunity to experience it later, but we had lost trust in the experience. It's a shame too, as the ending featured being chased by a chainsaw into a wall which you have to knock down yourself, and that sounded quite fun!

 

But yeah, this experience really left me shook. I genuinely felt uncomfortable about my safety. Even a couple of weeks after, it still leaves me thinking about it a lot. I can only imagine how I'd have reacted if I was threatened with a taser. And I get why some people react so badly in 'normal' scare attractions now.

 

It's a shame, because this attraction has been going for about 5 years. But they've only recently changed it to include the different intensity levels. And they seem to have turned all but the 'Pink' version into 'how close can we push you into saying the safety word?'. Reading reviews of the 'Amber' version, there was mentions of 'repeat tasering from the second room', 'being tased in the butthole' and being dragged away. That's not scary, it's not enjoyable, it's shocking (pardon the pun!), and nothing more.

 

If you want context for what I'm talking about, checking out their Facebook page. They've got videos from people doing the Green version, and the actors do manhandle them there (we originally thought it was footage from Red!).

 

So I wouldn't recommend this attraction if you're ever in Krakow. There's plenty of other stuff to do there (pinball museum!). But if you really like scary stuff, and you don't trust a scared guy from the internet, have fun and good luck - you're going to need it... 

[J.S217]

Yeah That was an experience a good anecdote but god I am still intrigued at what may have happened if we carried on or if we were put into a group with others