Well, hey there, precious Void of mine. I am here to give you a bitty break from book reviews and throw some sweet, sweet life at you. By that, I mean I wanna take a second to tell you about something I hold near and dear to my heart. And no, I’m not going to go on another You tangent.
Date night. I want to talk about date night.
I am one of those introverts that craves human interaction from specific people. Specifically, my fiancé. Pre-Covid, whenever we would do a date night, it would always involve the same thing. Routine. It was routine date night. Dinner. Movie. Bam. Done-zo. In a word: boring. It cost a shit ton more money than what either of us wanted to spend, and while the predictability was comforting, it was also the complete opposite of exciting.
You get the picture.
Pre-Covid we didn’t get to do a whole lot because while we live in a sizable town, it’s run by a council of rich white dudes who want things to stay the same as they were back in the fifties, but lamer.
Then Covid happened, and everyone had to stay inside. Our date nights were now homecooked meals and Netflix. Cheaper, but still grossly routine.
Most introverts find peace in the same old same old. I, unlike them, get horrendously anxious. However, there wasn’t a choice, so what can you do.
Fast forward a bit, we get the Rona and are stuck inside for two weeks unable to smell or eat or do much of anything but lay around and wait for it to run its course. I plenty of unhealthy phone time scrolling endlessly through Facebook, waiting for something to happen. I’d seen ads before for mystery puzzle boxes, but one called Hunt-a-Killer would show up most often. I’d seen their Blair Witch box before, but I was bored, so I decided to do something I never like to do (why? so I can feel like I’m outsmarting the system?) and clicked on the fucking ad.
Void. I’m glad I did.
Hunt-a-Killer is your typical mystery box, but the Blair Witch edition is special because 1) it deals with horror tropes and 2) it’s episodic. That means multiple boxes on the same mystery, babyyy. The Blair Witch has six episodes, which means six whole months of date nights that don’t involve watching a screen and letting our brain rot away (also for someone who talks about tv rotting your brain as much as I do, I sure do love to sit in front of the tv for binge sessions).
In The Blair Witch, you are a detective helping Rosemary Kent find her son, Liam, who went missing in the woods. What starts out as a simple case though soon evolves into something more sinister, more supernatural, than she would have ever believed.
This box not only follows the lore for The Blair Witch; it expands it tenfold. In each box you receive pamphlets and maps and pictures and books and more. It’s much more involved than I would have ever imagined. My favorite piece so far has been a creepy carving of a tall figure. I opened it up and literally said, “Nope,” and promptly zipped it back up. Damn thing gives me the creeps. Not only do you receive the box every month, but you also periodically get emails from Rosemary with new information, like pictures or links to podcasts. At the end of each episode, you are given a website to a tip line where you answer the question that came with the box, and when you answer correctly, you get to listen to a clip from Rosemary with clues as to what will be included in the next box.
Anyone who’s followed the movies and the game will recognize the easter eggs scattered throughout the documents you receive. I, for one, ADORE the first movie. I watched it well after its release, but even though technology has advanced since its making, it still gave me chills. I think I’m right in saying that it is the pioneer of the found footage horror genre, and nothing made since has ever succeeded in capturing the charm and terror that those film students caught on their camera.
We are currently on box four and have box five on standby since our work schedules have been all over the place. The Hunt-a-Killer boxes have something we both enjoy: Andrew likes the puzzles, and I am here for the lore. We have had to use their spoiler-free hint site twice for puzzles in episode three because we just weren’t grasping what they wanted, but even though we cheated (or at least what I consider cheating), it still was a rewarding experience when we came to the answer.
I think if I could change one thing about the monthly boxes, it would be to have the option to slow down shipments. I say this because there is an option to receive the next box early if you solve the puzzle and want to move on. I like getting the emails from Rosemary in the small batches, and I feel like when I get the next box before I have solved the one I’m on, it takes away from the experience. It’s like Rosemary, baby, cut it the fuck out and slow down, let me solve your son’s disappearance on my own time. 😉
If this sounds like a fun time to you, you should definitely check them out. I’m not being sponsored to write this or anything like that; I just know when I’ve found a good thing and this is a good thing. There’s options for monthly episodes or all-in-one kits for a fun dinner-party style experience where you want to solve the whole thing in one go. You can find them at http://www.huntakiller.com. These boxes are soooo worth the money spent!
Manda Kay Writes 