In short: Every question about Buried Alive: the Undertaker, the coffins, claustrophobia and safety, the 18+ rule, two-player bookings, prices, records and where to play in Perth, Sydney and Melbourne.
Buried Alive is a two-player horror escape room by Escape This. Each of you wakes in a separate wooden coffin, buried by a villain called the Undertaker, and the pair of you have 60 minutes to solve your way out. It is strictly 18+ and plays at Escape This Northbridge in Perth and Escape This Sydney CBD.
The Undertaker is the unseen villain of Buried Alive. He put you in the ground, his laugh is the last thing you remember hearing, and the coffins are the board for his latest sadistic game. You never need to face him; you need to beat him.
No. Buried Alive has two coffins and each one holds a single player, so you and your partner start the game apart. Players say that brief feeling of being on your own in the dark is the scariest part, and the puzzles only fall when both of you pull together.
Expect restraints. Reviewers describe their gamesmaster fitting blindfolds and handcuffs as Buried Alive begins, and the original Buried Alive site says both players are chained and locked inside their coffins. Every restraint is part of the puzzle, and the panic button is always within reach.
Yes: Asylum. Buried Alive’s original site names Asylum as its sequel, another extreme horror room that pushes further into madness. Asylum plays at both Buried Alive venues, Escape This Northbridge and Escape This Sydney CBD, so the two can be booked back to back.
Only in the nightmare it starts from. The 2010 film Buried follows one man alone in a coffin; Buried Alive puts two players in two coffins with an hour of puzzles, a gamesmaster on hints and a panic button. Its villain, the Undertaker, belongs to Escape This.
Taphophobia: the fear of being buried while still alive, which grew in the 18th and 19th centuries alongside inventions like the safety coffin. Buried Alive is built on exactly that dread. If the word describes you, this is the one Escape This room to skip.
Each Buried Alive coffin measures 200 cm long, 70 cm wide and 50 cm deep. That leaves room to lie down and move your arms, but not to sit up. Escape This advises anyone taller than 6′5″ (about 196 cm) not to play.
Very. Escape This bills Buried Alive as Australia’s most extreme escape experience: you are sealed in a coffin in near-total darkness, with flashing light and jump scares possible. It is meant to frighten. If you are unsure whether you can handle it, Escape This’s own advice is not to play it.
Buried Alive is rated 8 out of 10, among the hardest grades Escape This uses. The puzzles are complex in their own right, and working them lying down, in the dark and apart from your partner adds pressure. The gamesmaster still sends hints whenever you ask.
No. Escape This doesn’t recommend Buried Alive for first-timers, because the intensity can overwhelm people who haven’t played a standard room yet. Start with a lighter adventure, such as Pirates or The Wizard’s Chamber, and come back to the coffins once you know how escape rooms work.
Dark enough to matter. Buried Alive uses controlled lighting with periods of complete darkness and some flashing light. Escape This tells anyone afraid of the dark, or with epilepsy or light sensitivity, not to play.
There can be. Buried Alive may include jump scares as well as confined spaces and darkness. If anything about that worries you, raise it with the gamesmasters at check-in or call the venue before you book.
Up to 60 minutes. Arrive 15 minutes early for lockers and the briefing, and allow about 15 minutes afterwards to steady your nerves, so a Buried Alive visit runs to roughly 90 minutes. Pairs who dig out early leave sooner.
Buried Alive costs $59 per player Monday to Thursday and $65 per player Friday to Sunday, at both Northbridge and Sydney CBD. Since every booking is two people, that is $118 or $130 for the pair. Sydney’s listed prices exclude public and school holidays.
Online is quickest: choose Northbridge or Sydney CBD on this site’s booking page, pick a free session and Buried Alive is confirmed instantly. You can also call (08) 6118 0286 for Northbridge or (02) 9173 8535 for Sydney CBD.
Buried Alive only ever takes two, so a bigger group takes turns in the coffins or splits up. Escape This’s multi-room booker lets the rest start another room at the same time, and Asylum, Cannibal and The Possession all play at both Buried Alive venues.
For the right couple, yes. Escape This highly recommends Buried Alive for date nights, and its two-player format has made it a pick for anniversaries, Valentine’s Day and even proposals. Just be sure your date actually wants to spend an hour in a coffin first.
Yes. Escape This gift vouchers cover Buried Alive in Perth and Sydney, and they’re sold on escapethis.com.au. It makes a memorable 18th-birthday present, as long as the person receiving it and their plus-one are both 18 or older.
No. Buried Alive holds exactly two players and every session is one booking, so the only other person underground is the one you brought.
Buried Alive’s original site lists three shirts, I Survived, I Died and I Cried, sold in store at Escape This Northbridge for $19.99 to players who have been through the room. Ask at the front desk after your game to check they’re still stocked.
18. Buried Alive is strictly adults-only at every venue, with no exceptions, and staff may check ID if you look young. Under-18s cannot play or come in as spectators.
Exactly two. Buried Alive has two single-person coffins, so it is never played by one person or by three. Each booking is one pair.
No. Buried Alive is built for a pair, and the puzzles need both coffins working together. Bring one other adult, someone you trust in the dark.
Effectively, yes. The Buried Alive coffins are 200 cm long inside, and Escape This advises players over 6′5″, roughly 196 cm, not to attempt it.
It helps a lot. Buried Alive’s story, cues and clues are spoken in English, and there is a moderate amount of reading. Escape This suggests at least one of the pair, ideally both, be comfortable in English.
Experienced escapers who are relaxed about their own self-preservation. Escape This made Buried Alive for players who have tried everything else and want more, and its advice to anyone hesitating is simple: if you are unsure, don’t play.
No. Buried Alive is designed to induce claustrophobia: you lie in a closed coffin roughly half a metre deep, often in the dark. Escape This tells anyone with claustrophobia or a strong aversion to enclosed spaces not to play it.
Press the panic button. Buried Alive has panic buttons for leaving early, both coffins are on CCTV the entire time, and a gamesmaster will get you out. Nobody is trapped for real.
No. Buried Alive involves climbing into a coffin, lying down and crawling, so it isn’t suitable for wheelchair users or anyone with mobility difficulties. Escape This runs accessible rooms and will help you choose one.
No. Escape This says categorically not to play Buried Alive if you are pregnant, because of the confined space, the crawling and the intensity.
Escape This advises against it. Buried Alive switches between complete darkness and flashing light, and players with epilepsy or light sensitivity are told not to play.
No. Buried Alive uses no smoke effects, so asthma and other breathing conditions don’t rule you out, although the closed coffin can feel stuffy to anxious players.
Yes, with support. Buried Alive’s narration and clue system are audio, so a player who is hard of hearing relies on their partner to relay what’s said. With only two people and separate coffins, talk it through with the gamesmaster first.
Clothes you can lie down and wriggle in. Escape This recommends outfits suited to moving in an enclosed space for Buried Alive, and says skirts and dresses are not a good idea.
No. Phones, smartwatches, cameras and any recording device stay out of Buried Alive, and lockers are provided for valuables. A phone torch would spoil the darkness anyway.
Save it for afterwards. Anyone under the influence of alcohol or drugs is not allowed into Buried Alive. Northbridge’s bars are right outside for the celebration, or commiseration, once you’re back above ground.
Buried Alive plays in Perth at Escape This Northbridge, 48 Lake Street, where the room first opened, and in Sydney at Escape This Sydney CBD, 630 George Street. A third set of coffins opens at Escape This Melbourne CBD in March 2027.
1 March 2027. Buried Alive is coming to Escape This Melbourne CBD at 259 Collins Street, the venue where Asylum, its sequel, already plays. Prices and session times will be released when bookings open; until then it runs in Perth and Sydney.
Northbridge, going by the records. 38% of pairs dig out of Buried Alive at Escape This Northbridge, compared with 60% at Escape This Sydney CBD. The coffins and the Undertaker’s game are the same; the results are not.
47% of the 2,490 pairs who have been buried in Buried Alive made it out inside the hour. By venue: 38% at Northbridge and 60% at Sydney CBD.
A team of 2 holds the Buried Alive record: out of the coffins at Escape This Sydney CBD in 27:54, using 0 clues, with 32:06 of air to spare.
Close to it. Measured by escape rate (fewest pairs getting out), at Escape This Northbridge it has the 4th-lowest escape rate of 9 rooms (38%), and at Escape This Sydney CBD it has the 2nd-lowest escape rate of 9 rooms (60%).
Escape quickly, with as few clues as you can. Each venue ranks Buried Alive pairs by escape time, fewer clues breaks a tie, and a photo appears only if both of you agreed to it at the venue.
Players say so: Buried Alive averages 4.97 out of 5, and 244 pairs have left five stars. They write about racing hearts, being restrained and separated in the dark, and gamesmasters who set the mood before the lids close.
Escape This designed and built Buried Alive itself, coffins and all, and first opened it at Escape This Northbridge. Escape This is Australia’s largest escape room operator, with its own escape room design studio and escape room factory.
A comic, fictional work log that Escape This writes for the website in the voice of Horace, the night groundskeeper who looks after the Undertaker’s two plots and finds them dug up from the inside every morning. Horace and his cat are invented for the diary and don’t appear in the room. It is safe for work; Buried Alive itself is strictly 18+.
Not a word of it. Horace has never seen inside a session and writes only about soil, weather, the pairs at the gate and the house rules. Read the whole logbook before booking Buried Alive and the Undertaker’s puzzles will be exactly as hard as their 8 out of 10 rating.
No. Horace is a separate, made-up character who tidies up after the Undertaker and has never seen him at work. The Undertaker, Buried Alive’s villain, keeps his own comic diary at theundertaker.com.au, where Asylum’s intercom voice and Cannibal’s Butcher are his alter egos. The two diaries refer to each other but share no text.
The openings. Escape This’s booking records give Buried Alive’s first night at Escape This Northbridge as 5 August 2021 and at Sydney CBD as 28 March 2025, and list Melbourne CBD from 1 March 2027; Horace’s entries for those days carry those dates. The rest are picked for the story.
Roughly once a month through 2027, after a night shift. Each entry appears on the Buried Alive site on the date at its top, so there is usually a new tally from the plots when you come back.
Book Buried Alive at Northbridge or Sydney CBD. Exactly two players, both 18 or over.
