Kayden Ressel - Mastermind and Owner of The Basement Escape Room
It’s impossible to talk about the Halloween season without diving into immersive experiences, especially in Los Angeles. “In LA it’s gone nuts. Everyone is coming up with new immersive things,” Kayden shared. Kayden Ressel is the owner and operator of The Basement: A Live Escape Room Experience with locations in Los Angeles, Kansas City, and Las Vegas. He’s produced high-end escape rooms and immersive experiences for A-list celebrities, Fortune 500 companies, and more.
Originally from South Africa, Kayden grew up in Seattle and moved to LA in 2009 with a friend. His background is in web and graphic design but upon arriving in the city, he began to take theatrical acting classes. “I was always really good at being the creepy killer. Every time I did that kind of thing my teachers and classmates would be like, “you’re so good at that role.” This led us to discussing our preferred way of murdering someone. I was dying to know (pun intended). He’d go with poisoning, if you’re curious.
Kayden made the most of what he was good at and became a scare actor at some of LA’s big budget haunts like Universal Horror Nights and the Haunted Hayride. “I really enjoyed being a scare actor,“ he admitted, “ten people in a row will have zero reaction, then that eleventh person is like a twelve year old kid and they freak out.” Kayden had saved up some money from his acting gigs and began to consider opening a haunt of his own.
After attending a low budget escape room in Vegas for a friend’s birthday, he had the genius idea to combine the idea for a haunted house and escape room to create one awesome immersive experience. “I got home that night and just started drawing stuff and stayed up the entire night. It was the first time in my life that I felt like an idea I had really grabbed ahold of me and said “you’re going to do this,” he proclaimed, “I was determined to make it happen.”
In 2014, The Basement officially opened at its first location in Los Angeles. It was only the second escape room in the city at the time and utilized an empty warehouse space from a friend. Kayden, who is responsible for all of the creative for The Basement, took inspiration from notorious serial killers like Ed Gein and Norman Bates for his characters and locations from video games like Resident Evil. The backyard of the game is very similar to The Courtyard in his escape room.
The premise for The Basement revolves around a character named Edward Tandy — a cannibalistic serial killer with a fine taste for unique electronics, taxidermy, and of course human flesh. Participants have been kidnapped by Edward and must use clues throughout the room (a.k.a. a funnel puzzle) to orchestrate their escape. What makes The Basement different than other escape rooms is that it’s all continuous. “All four of our rooms are part of the same storyline,” he explained, “the fact that it’s sequential gives us a big leg up because people want to come back and play more. They want to know what happens next.”
Along with The Basement experience, immersive fans can also check out The Elevator Shaft – the most technically advanced of the four rooms where you’ll find yourself trapped in a sinister elevator on Edward’s property. Or there’s The Study. You’ve made it past The Basement and The Elevator Shaft and Edward is NOT happy. He’ll make you pay dearly through event and theatrical puzzles. Lastly there’s The Courtyard, their most ambitious room to date. Similar to The Basement, The Courtyard is a non-linear funnel puzzle with multiple paths that must be traversed by different members of the group.
Before Covid hit, Kayden and his team had big plans for their next experience. “We had money saved up to build the next room. The idea was to have the control system for the room be online so that someone elsewhere could interact with the tech of the room,” he shared. Unfortunately, The Basement’s LA location hasn’t been able to operate since March and most of the money that Kayden had saved for the next room has been used to cover rent. He plans to start a Kickstarter for The Basement within the next few weeks to help aid with the costs and will be releasing an app that Kayden describes as an “escape room scavenger hunt all over LA.” Count us in!
“I could talk for hours about immersive experiences in LA,” Kayden chuckled. He reminisced about staying late at the office before Covid to catch his customers enjoying the rooms. “Tt never gets old watching people go through the experiences,” he shared, “the coolest thing is when all of the rooms are sold out and you’ve got four big ass tvs and you’ve just got all of these people doing all of this stuff. It’s an incredible feeling to watch that.”
The Basement is located at 12909 Foothill Blvd in Sylmar, CA, discreetly located across the street from “Taco Bell”, and suspiciously adjacent to “Adult Factory Outlet,” as it describes on their website. Follow @thebasementescaperoom on Instagram to stay in the loop about The Basement’s offerings, Kickstarter efforts, and their impending re-opening.
This post has been a collaboration between Strange Los Angeles and The Making Waves Project for 13 Days Of Strange – a socially distanced, Halloween photo series spotlighting spooky and strange Angelinos. Visit our homepage for more
.Written by Brittany Rice
Photography by Robiee Ziegler
