Escape from Vancouver: 5 Best Detective Series Filmed in Hollywood North

There are plenty of reasons why Vancouver and the Lower Mainland are a great place to live for escape game fans. Along with some truly great and challenging escape rooms, Vancouver plays to host to many, many film sets—including the type of detective series we puzzle fans can really sink our teeth into.

Here are the top 5 biggest and best detective television series filmed in Vancouver. Happy hunting for all of the filming locations!

5. MacGyver (1985–92)
A classic to be sure, but MacGyver is the lowest on our list because the scientific knowledge this secret agent uses to get out of jams is a little too far-fetched for our logical puzzle-loving brains. Filming locations include the Steam Clock in Gastown and Coal Harbour.

4. Arrow (2012–)
Arrow is also fantastical, but it’s set in the DC Comics superhero universe, so we’ll allow it. This crime series is based on the character Green Arrow, who also appeared in the series Smallville, also filmed in Vancouver. Filming locations include the Vancouver Art Gallery and Gastown.

3. 21 Jump Street (1987–91)
While Johnny Depp played an undercover cop at an American high school, it was actually often New Westminster Secondary School that he and his gun-toting colleagues were hanging around. Other filming locations include, you guessed it: Gastown.

2. Psych (2006–14)
Now here’s a show right up Krakit Vancouver Escape Game’s alley: Psych follows a young sleuth
who uses his amazing powers of logic to solve crimes, while letting the precinct he works with think he has psychic powers. Nearly all eight seasons were filmed in Hollywood North, including locations at the White Rock Museum and Archives and Jericho Beach.

1. Da Vinci’s Inquest (1998–2006)
For once, Vancouver got to play the rarest of all things: itself. This well-loved Canadian detective series follows Dominic Da Vinci, a mountie turned coroner who still has a finger in the justice system. Filming locations include: anywhere, since the producers didn’t have to hide any noticeable landmarks.

Put on your detective hat (a deerstalker, no doubt) in one of our four themed escape games. Book here. 

Halloween Escape Games: 11 Best Haunted House Films

Here it is: October—the most wonderful month of the year. While we at Krakit Vancouver Escape Game are no stranger to horror movie marathons, this month is for going all out on spooky flicks.

In honour of our Haunted House for the Halloween season (book online here—no lineup required!), we’ve put together a list of our favourite haunted house films.

Like our escape rooms, there’s something here for everyone, from kids to adults, from newbies to horror film freaks, and from unshakeable, unspookable stalwarts to those who will only watch from between their fingers.

First, the classics:

1. House on Haunted Hill (1959)

When someone offers you an obscene amount of money to stay in a haunted house, there’s probably a reason the reward is so large. Especially if the person asking is horror king Vincent Price. Remember to just say no.

2. House (1977)

In this Japanese cult classic, a girl and her six friends go on a trip to her aunt’s house in the countryside. It’s full of fun things like totally non-dangerous wells, clocks, pianos, and kitty cats.

3. Poltergeist (1982)

If you insist on putting a housing development on ancient burial grounds, you’re probably going to have a problem. Not least of all with your electricity and cabinetry, as it turns out.

Next up, the gore fests:

4. Thir13en Ghosts (2011)

The title alone lets you know that this is the silliest film on our list. But if you’re looking to be grossed out while you get your haunted house fix, the 13 incarcerated ghosts of this film will help you out with that.

5. Amityville Horror (2005)

Like Thir13en Ghosts, this Amityville Horror is a remake of an older film. But the remakes have much better special effects—and in this case, the added bonus of a shirtless Ryan Reynolds. A purportedly true tale of a family who moves into the site of a recent mass murder to find the killing isn’t quite over yet.

For those who like it a mite more psychological:

6. The Woman in Black (2012)

Blood and gore not your thing? The film version of the stage play of Woman in Black has tense moments galore, as a city lawyer travels to the countryside—and a massive old house—to escape his painful past. Unfortunately, he finds his future is actually to be a whole lot worse.

7. The Conjuring (2013)

Yet another purportedly real family has the misfortunate of moving into a rickety old house that holds a lot more than they bargained for. In this case, the family has the added bonus of encountering not just a ghost, but a ghost witch. Bad luck.

8. Stir of Echoes (1999)

This under-the-radar '90s thriller might just be the most psychologically tantalizing story on the list, as Kevin Bacon masterfully pulls us into his character’s unwinding as he becomes obsessed with one particular ghost—and one particular house—after being hypnotized.

And last but not least, for young and old alike:

9. Casper (1995)

Kids these days might not care who Christina Ricci and Devon Sawa are, but it’s not too late to teach them. Bonus points for cartoonish CGI that has stood the test of time.

10. Monster House (2006)

Like the eponymous house itself, this film is somewhere between a haunted house film and a monster flick—but it’s such a good time we’ve added it to the list anyway. Three teens set out to prove that the house next door is a-a-a-live!!

11. Beetlejuice (1988)

This entry on our haunted house list should be self-explanatory, but in case not:



Book your slot at Krakit Escape Game’s Vancouver haunted house—on for the Halloween season only—here: http://bookeo.com/krakit

Escape Games: The Legend That Is Frank Abagnale Jr.

Escape Games:
The Legendary Frank Abagnale Jr

What’s more impressive than outsmarting law enforcement—time and time again—through nothing but your own fast thinking? Being that quick on your feet when you’re just fifteen years old.

We’re sure that solving escape games are no tough feat for Frank Abagnale Jr., who, although he is now a trusted American security consultant, is best known for his time as a teenage con.

Despite his criminal career ending at the tender age of 21, Abagnale remains one of the most famous imposters in history. He took on eight different identities—from airline pilot to medical doctor to lawyer—before he was arrested. Made famous in the movie Catch Me If You Can, played by Leonardo DiCaprio, Abagnale’s tale of hijinks and narrow escapes is one of those true stories that most definitely is stranger than fiction.

Not only did he—as a teenager—work in a hospital for nearly a year in addition to clocking upwards of a million miles on commercial flights, he also managed to escape police not once, but twice.

His first escape from the authorities happened on a runway at JFK, where he scaled a fence and went by rail to Montreal. Unfortunately for him, a Mountie recognized him and sent him back into US custody. Abagnale’s second escape happened from within a prison—by convincing them he was an undercover police officer.

Ah, must be nice to be blessed with a platinum tongue.

Abagnale’s legendary con streak eventually came to a close in 1969, when he was incarcerated for five years. These days, at the age of 68, Abagnale works for the authorities, as a security consult who stops the kinds of crook he used to be. (You can read more about his current work in this recent TechCrunch article.)



Though we at Krakit Vancouver Escape Game certainly don’t commend criminality, we can’t help but be impressed by Abagnale’s extreme quick-thinking confidence and aptitude for escape.

Test out your own wits by attempting to break free of one of Krakit’s four themed escape games. Book here: http://bookeo.com/krakit.

Right Twists and Wrong Turns: Jim Henson’s “Labyrinth” Turns 30

It’s hard to believe, but it’s true: this month, the ever-popular film Labyrinth turns 30 years old. Unsurprisingly, it’s an old favourite with the folks here at Krakit Vancouver Escape Game.

Starring a very young Jennifer Connelly, the film follows the somewhat tempestuous teenager Sarah as she attempts to rescue her brother back from Jareth, the Goblin King (the unforgettable, late, great David Bowie)—who she sort of accidentally maybe gave her baby brother away to.

It’s hard to say what’s most memorable about the film. Is it Sarah’s insanely gigantic ball gown, the Goblin King’s many song and dance numbers, or perhaps the image of one dog using another dog as his steed? When it comes down to it, it’s really the Labyrinth itself that sticks in the brain: the sprawling, constantly changing, dangerous and tricksy maze that dominates the entire story.

Here are some of the best wrong turns the Labyrinth has to offer.

The Oubliette

Though she just wants to get away from the creepy hands that compose the walls of the hole she has fallen into, Sarah never should have instructed them to send her downwards.

The Fireys’ Forest

After she becomes separate from her gigantic furry friend Ludo, Sarah unfortunately runs into the domain of the Fireys, who are convinced her head can come off just as easily as theirs.

The Bog of Eternal Stench

An act of kindness—kissing her reluctant helper Hoggle after he saves her—lands Sarah and company quite suddenly in the Bog of Eternal Stench. Luckily, Sir Didymus and Ambrosius are there to help them get back on track.

The Junk Yard

For a split second, Sarah gets to think her experience in the Labyrinth has all been a dream. Until the walls of her room come crashing down, and she realizes she is, in fact, in the middle of a trash heap.

The Escher Staircases

It all comes to a head when Sarah finally confronts Jareth in his castle—and finds herself in a vertigo-inducing mishmash of staircases straight out of an M.C. Escher drawing.



Love labyrinths as much as we do? Check out this previous post on real-life labyrinths and mazes before booking your own escape adventure at one of our four escape rooms, here: http://bookeo.com/krakit.

The Escape Game Phenomenon

"Escape the Room" real-life challenges are becoming hugely popular around North America. The movement started in Asia, spread to Western Europe and popped up on the west coast in the last year or so.

The room challenges come on the heels of a widely successful online gaming genre where gamers must escape a certain set of parameters with only a limited amount of clues. The offline version is now eclipsing the popularity of its predecessor, as more gamers choose to do their sleuthing in person rather than from in front of a screen.

One of the major benefits of the 'real-life' experience is the social interaction. Sure the new console platforms come with helo-grade communication headsets, but they don't compare to the experience of climbing around a room with your friends, shouting out directions and laughing the whole time.

Jerry, from South Carolina, may come up with a few 'zingers', but Rich, your oldest friend, will always have you laughing the hardest. Especially when he references your high school awkwardness.

For parents, the escape rooms present an environment that is more controllable than the Internet. It is free of creepers (the two-legged kind) and online bullying opportunities. But the most encouraging thing for parents is the promotion of problem solving in a setting outside of the classroom. Kids get to work through the required tasks and ask for clues if they need them, so they don't get overly frustrated. They get to use all their education at once, to solve actual problems. And who knows, maybe one day they will be trapped in zombie apocalypse.

Some media analysts speculate that the immersive escape experience is an intermediate step between full-on virtual reality and the motion capture experience supplied by console apparatuses like the Wii. Technology can't quite offer the virtual experience console games tease us with. The analog purity of the first-person real-life experience is much more enticing.

But maybe the biggest draw is society's new desire to de-tech, especially after a long workweek staring at screens. The escape rooms provide a tech cleanse of sorts, where participants can turn away form their mobiles, detach from their social media platforms and tune back to the thrill of real life experience.

If you haven't tried this latest craze, you really owe it to yourself to give it a whirl. Vancouver's top rooms are at Krakit. Come try one of the four escape puzzles and unplug for an hour of fun.