Review: The Briefcase by ScreamWorks

Image: ScreamWorks

Back in 2022, ScreamWorks burst onto London's immersive scene with Bloodbath - a boundary-pushing horror experience set inside a serial killer's house that had guests being force-fed, chased and physically restrained. It was an intense and divisive experience that was unlike anything else available in London at the time, and, according to ScreamWork's founder, Gary Stocker, so realistic that at least one reviewer initially refused to enter the building for fear of their life.

In the following years, ScreamWorks continued to produce immersive experiences that lean heavily into horror. Their 2023 show, The Ghost Hunt, revolved around the bloody murder-suicide of the Luff family and had guests exploring multiple rooms and floors by torchlight, encountering former residents along the way. Subsequent productions, including Open House and Granny, have all combined escape room elements with extended periods of tension and scares, repositioning ScreamWorks as one of the city's standout immersive theatre/escape room producers.

Their latest escape experience, The Briefcase, which runs out of ScreamWorks' Bethnal Green home, is a departure from their horror roots but retains all of the trademark inventiveness and originality the company is known for. The premise is simple: groups of up to 6 players are tasked with breaking into an abandoned building, retrieving a briefcase (the contents of which are a mystery), and escaping before the hour is up.

Lasting just over an hour, The Briefcase has no live actors but places teams at the centre of the experience and plays out like a crime caper as guests work their way towards extracting the experience's eponymous briefcase.

Image: ScreamWorks

Along the way, groups come up against a series of wildly inventive puzzles that must all be solved in creative ways, an elaborate and claustrophobic maze that needs to be explored on hands and knees, moral choices that'll no doubt test friendships, and, like in any good heist film, a finale that flips everything that came before it on its head.

We've enjoyed many of ScreamWorks' previous productions, and The Briefcase is no different. Highly engaging and wonderfully original, this new escape experience continues ScreamWorks' streak of one-of-a-kind production and shows that they can still pack a punch, even when they're not trying to scare their participants.

Image: ScreamWorks

ScreamWorks has always had a unique approach to onboarding, avoiding the familiar setup of game masters greeting guests on arrival. In The Briefcase, the experience begins outside of the venue and requires guests to take a leap of faith by climbing into the back of an unmarked van close to the venue - details of which are sent to guests on the day of their booking. Inside, a CCTV camera pointed directly at guests scans the van's interior as a pre-recorded voice instructs guests to lock their phones in a safe on the floor and provides instructions on how to break into a nearby house.

While seeing a group leave the back of a van and attempt to enter a boarded-up house would likely be cause for concern to anyone looking on from the petrol station opposite, for those taking part, it's an immediate introduction to the world of the experience and throws guests straight into the action.

Image: ScreamWorks

With the building breached, The Briefcase takes on a more traditional escape room format in its opening rooms, with keypads and combination locks standing between teams and their goal. As is typical in ScreamWorks experiences, there's little in the way of a clue system for those who are struggling, and certainly nothing that would break the experience's immersion, so don't expect a voice of god to give you a hint if you're really stuck and wave your arms at the cameras.

Inside the Security Office, teams need to reset a breaker to restore power to the building, which powers up the building's CCTV system and RFID locks. Environmental clues and hidden items are scattered throughout the space, which keeps the majority of the group occupied while others work on the breaker. A reveal on the room's TV screen once the power is restored effectively ramps up the tension as groups scramble to progress deeper into the building and gain access to a locked apartment on the building's first floor.

As has been the case with previous ScreamWorks productions, The Briefcase places a heavy focus on making all of its spaces feel lived in, and the most unassuming pieces of set dressing often prove to be of massive importance.

Image: ScreamWorks

After progressing further into the abandoned building, The Briefcase requires a member of each team to break away from the group and move on their own through a network of tunnels on their hands and knees. With a blindfold and headphones on, they're given instructions by the rest of the group via a joystick that transmits pre-recorded audio instructions. Strong teamwork is essential here, as the team member on their hands and knees has nothing but those instructions to guide them through a complex maze with dead ends and multiple wrong paths.

With the team's guinea pigs eventually emerging elsewhere in the building, teams must communicate via a two-way video system from here on out. There's a moral decision to be made for each team's solo player in isolation, which is livestreamed to the rest of the group, who are unable to weigh in on what they should do and watch on powerlessly.

With the briefcase on a nearby table, all that stands between the group and freedom is a four-digit code. To work it out, both halves of the team need to exchange information via the cameras in both rooms. Depending on how well teams can communicate, this may well prove to be the most frustrating part of The Briefcase, as teams desperately try to convey information to each other through the video link, but some abstract thinking can ease the frustrations if both halves of the team are aligned.

Image: ScreamWorks

The show's conclusion sees groups emerge from the abandoned house and return to the unmarked van. It's only then, when all is said and done, that the true nature of The Briefcase reveals itself. It's an impactful rug pull that echoes Netflix's Black Mirror and successfully recontextualises everything groups have just experienced.

While The Briefcase isn't the most elaborate experience ScreamWorks has ever put on, it's an engaging hour that provides some innovative puzzles for teams to work through. Given the typical level of scares and dread prevalent in their other work, The Briefcase is a great entry point for those who have always been curious about the company but have been apprehensive about just how intense their experiences typically are.

When we first visited ScreamWorks back in 2022 for Bloodbath, we commented that it was one of the most intense experiences on offer in the capital at that time. While they're set to debut a walk-through horror experience later this year that'll no doubt terrify, this brief departure from horror shows that, regardless of genre, their work still surprises and entertains.

★★★★

[Tickets gifted in exchange for an honest review]

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Screamwork's The Briefcase runs until 30th August in Bethnal Green. Tickets are priced from £40.00 per person. For more information and to book tickets, visit screamworks.co.uk