The 10 Best Alien, Beastly, and Supernatural Captors in Film

You can’t have a great escape without a great captor, now can you? You need a really good reason to jump off that too-high cliff or claw your way out of a subterranean cave.

As much as we may loathe them, we at Krakit have got to give big screen terrorizers props for creating the escape situations that thrill and inspire us. First, we start with the 10 best beastly and supernatural captors, and next post we’ll look at those captors who are, despairingly, all too human.

10. Cooper from Super 8

He’s gigantic, he’s got a weird-looking nose, and he cocoons people like a massive spider. But ultimately he’s just trying to get home, so he’s at the bottom of our list.

9. Jabba the Hutt from Return of the Jedi                          

No one can argue that Jabba is a captor without style. He chooses fashionable items for his captives, though his love of chains gets a little out of hand.

8. The virus from [REC]

While man plays a part in the terror of the unfortunate souls held captive in a Barcelona apartment building in REC, ultimate responsibility lies with the ruthless virus that lands them in quarantine in the first place.

7. The Beast from Beauty and the Beast

You probably didn’t expect to see a Disney film on this list, but here we have a captor who manages to induce Stockholm Syndrome through song and dance. It’s inspired.

6. The Female from Under the Skin

An alien lifeform that’s come to earth both to study mankind and to gorge herself on manflesh, The Female (Scarlett Johansson) has the most impressive captivity chamber of them all: a pool of immobilizing, flesh-liquefying goo.

5. The demon from The Exorcist

Forget trapping people in a building: the demon in The Exorcist jumps right into poor Regan’s body and takes up residence there. So much for feeling at home in your own skin.

4. H.A.L. from 2001: A Space Odyssey

What do you do when the super smart computer that runs your spaceship turns your tin-can home into a series of traps? Hope you’re really good at holding your breath, mostly.

 

3. The creature from The Host

Unlike Cooper from Super 8, the creature in The Host uses its den like a tank at a seafood market, with its unlucky human snacks stuck in a deep sewer with very smooth walls (terrible for climbing, you see).

2. It from It Follows

Why terrorize people by trapping them in, say, a haunted house, when you can instead turn the entire world into a nightmare that requires constant escape? The presence from It Follows can’t think of a better alternative.

1. Freddy Kreuger from A Nightmare on Elm Street

Combining the tactics of the demon from The Exorcist and the presence from It Follows, Freddy knows the best way to keep someone under lock and key is to turn their very mind into a terrifying holding cell they can’t escape. Well done, Freddy. Well done. 

The Fine Art of Staying Calm under Pressure

The clock is tick-ticking away. Everyone is chattering at super speed, each with a different idea, a different plan. The pressure is on in a big way, but you know you’ve got to pull it together: if you don’t, a zombie is going to eat your face.

Unfortunately, we can’t all stay as pathologically calm as Benedict Cumberbatch in Sherlock in the face of stress (or zombies).

But you’ve only got 45 minutes to escape Krakit’s game rooms—which is definitely not enough time to have a nervous break down before getting on with it. So what are you going to do?

Master the fine art of staying calm under pressure, of course. 

Easier said than done, but here are a few tips to get you started before your next Krakit adventure.

Breathe

“Just breathe.” Obvious, right?

But more than a way to slow down your heart rate and blood pressure, a few minutes of focused breathing provides a steady sound to concentrate on. You can use this sound to pull yourself out of a stress spiral and block out distractions, allowing you to concentrate on solving the task at hand

Create an Anti-stress Trigger for Yourself

When the clock is ticking down the seconds, your thoughts can start racing faster than you can process them. Honestly, who can take time to breathe when you’ve got a mad doctor to escape? Before you find yourself locked up in Krakit’s Asylum, take time to develop an anti-stress trigger for yourself.

This could be a certain song lyric or a specific memory of a place, or even a scent, that you use to force-stop your racing thoughts and gain back control, like placing a finger on a roulette wheel.

Visit Your Mind Palace

When you know ahead of time you’re going to be overwhelmed with too much information, take a page out of Sherlock Holmes’s book and setup a Mind Palace (learn how here). 

By being prepared, you can break down and master information before it even has a chance to stress you out.

Things to Do in Burnaby

The sun is out, it’s warm and Burnaby is your oyster. The more you have in terms of options for leisurely activities, the more you’re going to attract people around you and improve your social life this summer. Let’s start with the basics of getting yourself out there.

• STYLE: Metropolis at Metrotown has over 300 shops to choose from to get you fresh; make sure you have a great bathing suit and a good cologne or perfume. Lougheed Town Centre Mall has 175 shops, Brentwood Mall has 110, but if you’re looking for a one-of-a-kind shops, head over to traditional street-front shopping at The Heights with over 350 unique storefronts.
• ENTERTAINMENT: Have you ever played an escape game? What an experience. While many people are looking for pure leisure with a bottle of their favourite beer or wine in Burnaby park they may head to Barnet Marine Park (which has a swimming beach!), Burnaby Fraser Foreshore Park, Deer Lake Park, or Burnaby Lake Regional Nature Park; others are looking for something more unique and edgy like Krakit. Krakit is a real-life escape room challenge that will help you grow and challenge your instincts. A perfect date should be unique, build trust and friendship, while showing your intelligence. Smart is sexy. 
• FOOD: You might need to replenish some brain cells now that you’ve cracked some codes and emerged victorious from Krakit’s escape room. You’re date might be hungry, too. Burnaby boasts awesome seafood and elegant choices for your adventure. Whether you’re looking for seafood, Italian, Greek, Chinese, Japanese, dine-in, take-out, or something quick, hundreds of  delicious restaurants are around each corner ready to serve you.

Things to do in Burnaby

5 of 7: Helpful Hints to Prepare for the Apocalypse

This is a seven part series outlining survival techniques based on Maslow's hierarchy (beginning with physiological needs). In the final segments (self-actualization and self-fullfilment) I'll work my way into team building culture, role diversification/intelligent responsibility-delegation, and, above all, leadership techniques.

You assemble your ranks daily in the school’s gymnasium following indoor and outdoor training exercises, evaluating their progress based on systems created by a team of your subordinates. This is their, and your, daily life; there is no weekend (although there are also some things to do in Burnaby). A binding agreement of saving the human race dictates a no-days-off policy. You look at them, full of pride having brought so many together under a common umbrella of causes. Their rag-tag appearance ignites a sense of honourwithin-rebellion and currently has no deteriorating affect on the morality of the group. But, how did we get here? Why are we alive while the rest of the world has departed or is suffering? Who are we? What happened that has left The Righteous as leaders of saving the human race.

• COGNITIVE NEEDS: You must know why this has all happened and the books in the school’s library aren’t doing it as they are all set within the past, within mythologies and sciences since debunked. You have no clear understanding of yourselves or the enemies that, daily, surround the walls of your stronghold. You assemble a team of medical and spiritual professionals with experience from ‘the times before’ the apocalypse to further explore the inner and outer workings of the situation. The medical team dissects captured enemies of the Righteous in conjunction with the spirit team who, in cooperation with the psychological team, explores the inner workings of the ‘demons’ and ‘zombies.’ They work day and night, making breakthrough after breakthrough, before making an epic discovery: these beings were engineered from a central source with specific  scientific and divine knowledge: ones seeking to expel the human race and acquire the planet for themselves. But who or what could do such a thing? You continue your explorations and find the root-source of the problem. An artificial intelligence that has surpassed human knowledge, has begun to exist as a megamind, absorbing life energies of life, both physical and metaphysical, from planet to planet. 

4 of 7: Helpful Hints to Prepare for the Apocalypse

This is a seven part series outlining survival techniques based on Maslow's hierarchy (beginning with physiological needs). In the final segments (self-actualization and self-fullfilment) I'll work my way into team building culture, role diversification/intelligent responsibility-delegation, and, above all, leadership techniques.

As time passes, more travellers arrive at, what has now become, your base of operations. You’ve been reading more books everyday from the school’s library and have taken a particular shining to psychology books, supplemented by books about warfare tactics. By positioning yourself as the founder of the resistance camp, a new name has emerged for the survivors: each person allowed to pass through the gym lock-up test has become a full fledged member of “The Righteous.” Endowing each Righteous leader with a title, rank, and position within the camp, a flow of responsibilities has emerged by way of an established, merit-based chain of command. You write a constitution outlining a larger goal for The Righteous allowing for input, change, and assimilation of knowledge.

• ESTEEM: “Everyone within The Righteous, a name chosen to give hope and esteem, has a responsibility to one another,” you tell your colleagues in a group forum led by a round-table panel of contributors representing each part of the camp, witnessed by the ranks of Righteous who now live in the school’s dormitories. “We are part of a world wide network fighting not only for humanity’s survival; together, we are part of a larger cause that unites us under circumstances allowing us to use these challenges to grow, thrive, and, above all, evolve.” The panel listens patiently as you speak aloud this formal, introductory speech to the meeting. Each word you deliver from the speech is deliberate and emphasized accordingly in a rhetoric and cadence which has set precedence for your benevolent leadership a unifiable justification for peace and growth. As you have brought people into your home with hope of vigilant safety, fulfilling their primary needs, and incorporating them into a circle of trust and acceptance, you have become the esteemed leader of leaders within The Righteous’s headquarters.

3 of 7: Helpful Hints to Prepare for the Apocalypse

This is a seven part series outlining survival techniques based on Maslow's hierarchy (beginning with physiological needs). In the final segments (self-actualization and self-fullfilment) I'll work my way into team building culture, role diversification/intelligent responsibility-delegation, and, above all, leadership techniques.

It’s been days, weeks, months since Satan has waged his war on humanity and you’ve finally become accustomed to your daily routine: it’s a never-ending daily cycle: you wake up to the cacophonous screaming of demons dispensed from the depths of hell and the walking dead bereaving their miserable souls within the traps you’ve placed, then you dispense heavenly justice and re-set each trap tripped and carry on. You’re well armed now, having escaped to loot a local gun shop and an abandoned grocery superstore store loaded with caches of food. You have found a fresh water spring by plowing through a wall in the basement of your school and are supplemented by a large supply of bottled water. But, you've become depressed from the sounds and situations around you and you’re dreadfully lonely. One day, having followed the dim glow from the your high nesting ground, a mother and her child arrive, chased by a small hoard of living dead.

• LOVE AND BELONGING: After vanquishing their pursuers with your small arsenal of defences, you, cautiously, examine the couple’s physicality. You prod them both with a series of questions you’ve prepared for such a situation, determining to a small extent that they are actual living humans. Nevertheless, you request they both remain in detention for a time until you can be absolutely sure they pose a minimal threat. On the first day of their arrival, you prudently lower food into their gymnasium cage via a rudimentary pulley system you’ve crafted referencing library books; you include within this exchange a change of clothing from the lost-and-found, clean blankets from the school’s dormitory, and a book. The mother expresses she’s broken her reading glasses and cannot read on her own; her young daughter is terrified. So, you read them a book aloud, daily, from the school’s library and observe calmness wash over their faces with each word you speak. After a week, you’ve developed a rapport with both of them, and release them from their lockup. The previous looming feeling of emptiness has disappeared. For the first time in months, you feel hope. Suddenly, the morning screaming doesn’t seem as bad.

Helpful Hints to Prepare for The Apocalypse: 2 of 7

This is a seven part series outlining survival techniques based on Maslow's hierarchy (beginning with physiological needs). In the final segments (self-actualization and self-fullfilment) I'll work my way into team building culture, role diversification/intelligent responsibility-delegation, and, above all, leadership techniques.

You’ve barricaded yourself into a recently-abandoned, private school: a Victorian-style building six stories tall on about 2 acres of land. 

Leaning your back against a wall in a classroom on the highest floor, you look around and start piling soft objects you’ve found, like hooded sweatshirts and gym mats, upon one another in order to get some rest. You wake up an hour later from a black sleep, your cracking lips and a purring stomach reminding you of what’s happening; you’ve only temporarily escaped from the perils surrounding you. You’re thirsty, famished. Luckily, the school’s cafeteria stock loads your solitary base of operations with a temporary cache of vending machine beverages, cans of food, and various dried goods. 

You’re alive. You’ll remain alive as long as you can stay safe. But, evil is around every corner and you’re unarmed.

• SAFETY: You must use your ingenuity to ensure your immediate vicinity is not susceptible to imminent attack. You break the head off of a mop from a supply closet to immediately arm yourself with this sharp, pointed object while you look for the groundskeepers quarters. Upon finding the tool shed, you load a canvas bag found within with stock of wire, tools, and sharp objects. You return several times. Using a combination of lessons from survival television shows and boy scout training to arm the halls with home-made traps; you arm any possible entrance leading to your base location with trip wires. To further secure yourself from the ambitions of rock demons and diseased walking deceased lurking about the region, you’ve dug a series of narrow, deep holes and furtively covered them with sticks and brush. It’s now impossible to hear your oafish foes fumbling as they occasionally attempt to ransack your base. The first of many wire traps leading to where you sleep proves only partially effective, so you’ve improved and upgraded each part of them until you’re 100% sure you can get a full eight hours of sleep before waking up to put the morning intruders out of their misery. 

Helpful Hints to Prepare for The Apocalypse: 1 of 7

This is a seven part series outlining survival techniques based on Maslow's hierarchy (beginning with physiological needs). In the final segments (self-actualization and self-fullfilment) I'll work my way into team building culture, role diversification/intelligent responsibility-delegation, and, above all, leadership techniques.

The disease has been let loose and it’s raining fire. Flesh-eating elephants have escaped from the zoo and herds of cattle are running rampant through the city streets. Michael, the archangel, appears from behind a cloud and sounds his trumpet—all of a sudden the ground opens up to reveal a furnace of torture instruments as an icy breeze swiftly blows from the flames of hell, biting your face and numbing your hands. Stop what you’re doing: this is invariably the end of all that is. The following is a worst case preparation scenario for the impending apocalypse.

• REFUGE: The first action you must take is to find a place of refuge where you can recharge, catch your breath, store your gear, and organize your thoughts. Any secluded area will do, such as a penthouse in an abandoned high rise condo building, an empty bank vault (as long as you have means to not become locked in), or a small school. Be sure to limit the amount of entrances and exits in order to face your diseased, mutated foe head-on. If you have the option to barricade yourself in at night, then do so as the lack of visibility is your enemy, hoards of starving brain-suckers, will be sniffing you out with canine-like intensity. Be assured: they can smell your fear. Furthermore, you are not only protecting yourself from the perils of death sweeping through the streets, but also from those survivors who mean to undermine your efforts to redeem the human race. You will face deception from foe posing as friend. Remember: trust no one. Anyone who has not otherwise proven themselves as an ally to defend your mortality is an enemy to which you must always be ready to swiftly remove from their plight. Find water. Find Food.

Ten Escape Lessons Learned from Horror Movies: Part Two

Horror recap:

Stay with your friends, keep it in your pants, take in your surroundings, hold it for another 40 minutes and always…always listen to the helpful advice of the locals (even if they only have two teeth and three strings on their banjo).

Now for this week's gems.

5. Stairs to anywhere equate to death

• If you run upstairs, you'll be suddenly trapped in little Suzie's posterized bedroom with your only option being a jump from a second-story window. Hint: two broken ankles makes for a slow escape. If you head downstairs, you'll be trapped in Kevin McCallister's worst nightmare. Hint: the undead love the basement. Closer to the ground and full of creepy crawlies. The good news: there is no stairs at the Krakit escape rooms. 

4. Two Taps

• One ain't gonna do it. Countless innocent screamers have been killed because they didn't finish the job. When taking down the main antagonist, always remember two bullets/strikes/stabs to the head. One only stuns; two will finish what you started. This rule also applies to puzzles. Never do anything half-ass. See the job to the end.

3. Bargaining Power (or the Strip-To-Live principle)

• Leverage is key in any bargaining situation. You're going to have to give up something to get out of this blood bath, so try to amass as much power as you can while in the game. The last card to be played is your clothes, ie: strip-to-live. Stripping is a distraction for any creature, killer or no-gooder. It shows you will do anything to survive. Note to escape fans: keep your clothes on. The strip option should only be used when death is an actual possibility. We're sure you have lovely underwear, but we don't want to see it and it won't get you any extra clues. 

2. Be intolerant of bad ideas

• "No! We are not going to take that short-cut." People under duress panic and make poor decisions. Be the levelheaded one and take the reigns. That being said, if all your friends tell you that your idea is bad, it might be worth a rethink. Check the ego, restrain the ridiculous, and keep your head.

1. Teamwork trumps all

• Multiple tasks can be accomplished in a shorter amount of time if everyone works together towards a common goal: escape. Solo missions end in slaughter. Remember that first rule…? Always stay with the group.

Good Luck!

Ten Escape Lessons Learned from Horror Movies: Part One

It might surprise you to learn that those horror movies you've been watching since you were old enough to stay up past midnight have been laying the groundwork for a valuable education in escape theory. "Pardon?!?" you say. Well, while your parents were spending thousands on tutors, math camp and post-secondary institutions, they could have just sat you down with an armful of horror Bluerays, DVDS or VHS tapes.

Fact: Horror movies contain all the lessons you need to survive in a dangerous environment. We treat them as entertainment, but they are actually a how-to-succeed guide for escape rooms. Here are the ten most important lessons we’ve learned from the horror genre:

10. Never leave the group.

• This should be a given, but it seems to be the most broken rule of survival in the horror movie canon. Desertion leads to death. Stick with the group and survive, at least a little bit longer. For escape room enthusiasts, you're already trapped together. So it should be pretty much near impossible to break this rule.

9. Get your hormones in check

• The heavy petting can wait until you're safely home. Any couple who stops for a quickie will be mutilated. Monsters, killers and random acts of nature hate fortification. Jason Vorhees should be the post boy for abstinence. Keep your pants sipped and your mind clear. This goes double for the escape challenge.

8. Be aware of your surroundings

• Everything seems sped up in a nightmarish scenario. But fight the urge to freak out. Take your time and examine your environment. "Oh, there's a light switch there." Or, "Oh, I guess that dark shape in the corner is the killer." Observe and report.

7. Avoid the bathroom

• You can hold it - at least for 45 minutes. Anyone who has ever stopped to use the facilities in a horror film has been threatened by death. Never shower. Never wash your face. And avoid mirrors. Especially when repeating the names of murderers.

6. Listen to the locals

• When locals warn you about the haunted mansion on the hill - there's a reason. IT"S HAUNTED! If a random doctor whispers a clue in your ear… TAKE IT!

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.