HackSaw, Horror Escape Room in Hawthorn

Horror  •  Hawthorn, Melbourne  •  60 minutes  •  2 to 6 players

The story

You are probably wondering where you are. I will tell you where you might be: the room that you die in. What do the wicked see when they look into the mirror? This is the viral horror room that started it all, brutal and trap-filled, not for the faint-hearted but achievable for teams who love a good horror mystery. Solve the clues, survive the scares, and escape before your time is up.

At a glance

Pricing: $74 per person for 2 players, scaling down to $70 per person for 6. Children aged 9 to 13 are $42 each, with at least one paying adult per room.

Book HackSaw at Hawthorn

Is this theme right for you?

HackSaw is a brutal, trap-filled horror: you wake in a filthy room, a sadistic game has already begun, and the only way out is to work the traps before your time runs out. If you loved the Saw films and Jigsaw's twisted games, the grimy industrial dread, the ticking-clock traps and the sense that one wrong move costs you, this room was built for you. Every scare comes from the set, the lighting, the sound and the story, so it is genuinely frightening without anything chasing you or making contact. It suits fans of gory, high-tension horror who want a proper scare rather than a gentle spook.

Why book with Rush

• Melbourne owned and operated. More than a decade building Melbourne's highest-rated escape rooms, every room designed, built and run in-house.
• A 4.9 star experience. Rated by thousands of players across our venues.
• Bespoke, never off the shelf. Every room is designed and built by our own team, not bought as a kit.
• Handmade and authentic. We work with local artists and restore vintage set pieces, so every room feels real and fully immersive.
• Always being upgraded. Our in-house team is constantly refining the tech, puzzles and sets, so the rooms stay cutting edge.
• Our delight guarantee. If your experience falls short, tell us and we will make it right.

Planning a birthday or corporate event?

HackSaw is one of our most intense rooms. For younger players or a mixed-age birthday, our all-ages room at Hawthorn, The Nine-Nine, is a gentler option. Each room holds up to 6, so larger groups split across rooms at Hawthorn and play at the same time. For corporate team-building and group functions, see our team-building page or email enquiries@rushescapegame.com.au. For birthdays, parties, and hens or bucks nights, see our celebrations page. To hold a date, book a single player as a deposit.

Good to know before you go

• No experience or special equipment needed, just your group.
• Wear comfortable clothing and closed-in shoes.
• This room uses handcuffs, blindfolds and tight spaces as part of the experience.
• Arrive 10 minutes before your start time.
• Players under 16 must have a participating adult in the room, and the room is not designed for younger players.
• You are never locked in and can step out at any time.

Escape rooms in Hawthorn

HackSaw is the room that put Rush on the map, one of Melbourne's most talked-about horror escape rooms and the original of the HackSaw series, now joined by HackSaw: Chapter 2 in South Yarra and HackSaw: Remastered in Chadstone. At our Hawthorn venue on Glenferrie Road, 150 metres from Glenferrie Station, it sits alongside Strangest Thing and The Nine-Nine, so it is an easy pick for a scary escape room in Hawthorn, Kew, Camberwell or the eastern suburbs.

Frequently asked questions

Is HackSaw based on the Saw films?

It is our own original trap-horror story, made for fans of that world. If you enjoyed the Saw films and Jigsaw's deadly games, the grimy traps and the race against the clock, you will feel right at home. Every scare comes from the set and the story, never a live actor.

Is HackSaw actually scary?

Yes. HackSaw is a brutal, trap-filled horror in the spirit of the Saw films. The fear comes from the set, the lighting, the sound and the story. Not from anything chasing you. See the "how scary is it" scale above.

Are there live actors, or does anything chase us?

No. There are no live actors, and nothing chases or follows you. Every scare comes from the set, the lighting, the sound and the story, never from a person in the room with you.

Will anything touch or grab us?

No. It is a hands-off experience. Nothing in the room makes contact with you, and you never need to touch anything you would rather not.

Can we leave if it gets too much?

Anytime. You are never locked in, the door stays unlocked, and you can step out whenever you like. Your games master watches the whole game and can pause or step in within seconds.

I get claustrophobic. Will I feel trapped?

The room does use tight spaces, so it can feel intense, but you are never locked in and the exit is always available, so you can step out the moment you want to. If you would rather skip the horror, The Nine-Nine at Hawthorn is a brighter, all-ages room.

Is it suitable for first-timers?

Yes on the puzzle side, the difficulty is moderate and your games master gives hints whenever you need them. Just know it is genuinely scary, so it suits first-timers who actively want a fright rather than a gentle introduction.

What is the minimum age?

Recommended for 16 and up given the intensity, handcuffs and blindfolds. It is not designed for younger players, and under-16s are only welcome at parental discretion with a participating adult in the room.

How many players do we need?

Two to six. Larger groups can split across rooms at Hawthorn and race head to head.

Getting here & what's nearby

606 Glenferrie Road, Hawthorn VIC 3122. We are on the corner of Glenferrie and Oxley.
150 metres from Glenferrie Station, with Tram 16 stopping at our door (Stop 72). There is free two-hour parking just off Oxley Road.
Get directions →  •  Parking nearby →  •  Restaurants & bars nearby →

Glenferrie Road cafes and restaurants are right nearby. Questions? Email hawthorn@rushescapegame.com.au or call 03 8590 9729.

More rooms at Hawthorn

Other Rush venues across Melbourne

What is a trap horror escape room, and is HackSaw gory?

Yes, deliberately so. HackSaw is a trap horror: captivity, restraint, a countdown and a set built to make you flinch at what you are looking at, not just what you are hearing. If gore is the thing you cannot handle, this is the wrong room and we would rather tell you now.

Trap horror is its own strand of the genre, and it is worth understanding before you book, because it works on you differently to a haunting or a monster film. Supernatural horror frightens you with something that should not exist. Trap horror frightens you with something entirely possible: a person, a room, a mechanism and a clock. There is nothing to disbelieve. That is why it lands harder on people who normally shrug off ghosts, and why it has become one of the most requested horror themes in Melbourne escape rooms.

It is also the horror sub-genre that maps most naturally onto an escape room, because the source material is already an escape room. A trap film is a group of people in a confined space, working out the rules of a mechanism before it finishes with them. Take the fiction away and you have described the format exactly. That is why the Saw and Jigsaw tradition produced more escape rooms than any other horror franchise, and why HackSaw became the room that built our reputation.

The room that started it

HackSaw at Hawthorn is the original. It is the room that made Rush a horror company rather than a company that happened to have a scary room, and every horror game we have built since is downstream of what we learned in it. There are now three HackSaw rooms across Melbourne, and this is the one they came from.

What made it work was restraint in the design sense, not the handcuff sense. There is no live actor in HackSaw, and there is no live actor in any of our sixteen rooms, at any venue, at any time of year. Nothing chases you and nothing touches you. The fear is built into the place: the confinement, the low light, the sound, the sense that the room was set up by somebody who thought about you before you got there.

Handcuffs and blindfolds are in play, and the room uses tight spaces. That combination is the point of trap horror and it is also the thing to know honestly before you book, because it is a very different physical experience to standing in a dark room and being startled. You are restricted, and then you are asked to solve something.

The door is not locked. It never is, in any escape room we run. You can walk out at any second of the sixty minutes and your games master watches the entire game and can pause it or come in within seconds. The fiction is captivity. The fact is a room in Hawthorn with an unlocked door.

Why the trap works as a puzzle

Every horror genre gives a designer a different gift. The haunted house gives you atmosphere. The monster gives you a threat with a shape. What trap horror gives you is consequence, and consequence is what most escape rooms are missing.

In an ordinary escape room a wrong answer costs you nothing but time. In a trap room, the fiction insists that being wrong matters, and that changes how a group behaves. People check each other's work. People argue less and listen more. The countdown stops being an abstract number on a wall and starts feeling like a mechanism winding down. Nothing actually happens to you, of course. But the story has told you it might, and an hour is long enough for your body to half believe it.

The vocabulary of the genre carries all of this before you explain a word of it. Chains, restraints, industrial spaces, rust, a timer, a recorded voice setting out the rules, a test with a moral edge to it, the idea that you are here because somebody decided you should be. Hand a group that set dressing and they understand the stakes immediately. The genre is doing the briefing for you.

The gore is part of that grammar rather than decoration. Trap horror is body horror at heart, and its central threat is that a body is a fragile machine that can be taken apart. Take the visceral element out and the fiction stops meaning anything. So HackSaw commits to it. If you want the fear without the imagery, The Conjoining at St Kilda is our terrifying room with no blood in it at all.

How we rate scare, and why it is not difficulty

Most escape room websites give you one number and leave you guessing what it covers. We rate every room on two independent scales, because they measure different things and confusing them is how people end up in the wrong room.

Difficulty is the puzzles, rated one to five stars. Scare is the experience, rated on four named tiers.

HackSaw is Terrifying on the scare scale and three out of five on difficulty. That combination is deliberate and it makes this the most approachable of our terrifying rooms. The puzzles are fair and readable, which means a group that has never done a horror escape room can still get through it while being thoroughly frightened. If you want the fear without a punishing logic problem on top, HackSaw is where to start. If you want both at once, HackSaw: Remastered at Chadstone is the harder rebuild.

Who this room is for, and who it is not

Age. Sixteen and over. This is not a room for kids and it is not a room for a mixed-age family group. For a kids birthday at Hawthorn, The Nine-Nine is the all-ages option in the same building.

Confinement. The honest answer rather than the reassuring one: HackSaw uses tight spaces, and restraint is part of the experience. If you are genuinely claustrophobic, this is the Rush horror room most likely to be a problem, and The Conjoining at St Kilda is the better choice because it is dark rather than confined. You are never locked in here either, and you can step out at any point, but the room is designed to feel close.

Anxiety and sensory sensitivity. Tell us at check-in. We can brief you on what is coming, keep the lights higher, drop the volume, or have your games master stay in closer contact through the game. It costs nothing to ask and it is far better than pushing through a bad hour.

Language. Our puzzles are deliberately designed not to depend on English fluency. Almost everything is solved through symbols, patterns, objects, numbers and physical logic rather than reading and wordplay. That is a design principle across all sixteen rooms.

Groups. Two to six players. Larger groups split across the three rooms at Hawthorn and play at the same time, which works for birthdays, hens and bucks nights and corporate team building.

Questions people ask before booking

The three HackSaw rooms, and which one you want

The name is shared, the rooms are not. They sit at three different venues and they are three different experiences.

Our other genuinely frightening rooms take different routes to the same place. The Conjoining at St Kilda is a demonic haunting with no gore at all. It's Nightmare at South Yarra runs on nightmare logic and personal fear. The Last of Them at St Kilda is post-apocalyptic survival, tense throughout rather than terrifying. See all our horror escape rooms.

Finding us in Hawthorn

HackSaw is one of three escape rooms at Rush Hawthorn, 606 Glenferrie Road, in the middle of the Glenferrie shopping and dining strip and a short walk from Glenferrie Station. Easy from Kew, Camberwell, Canterbury, Balwyn, Glen Iris, Richmond, Burwood and the inner east, and straightforward on the train from the CBD.

Glenferrie Road is one of the better streets in Melbourne for the debrief afterwards, and most groups need one. Book a later session and stay for dinner.

Sessions run seven days. Two to six players, sixty minutes, instant confirmation and free rescheduling up to two hours before your start time.

See live times at Hawthorn