HackSaw: Chapter 2, Horror Escape Room in South Yarra
Horror / Thriller • South Yarra, Melbourne • 60 minutes • 2 to 6 players
The story
I trust you are wondering where you are. While your location is not important, what these walls offer is: redemption, if you earn it. The furnace is already burning, and in one hour this house will ignite. You believed you were free, free from your guilt, your shame, the consequences of your lies. I am always watching. You have one hour. Find redemption, or face true justice.
At a glance
Suitable for: Teens and up; younger players welcome at parental discretion with a participating adult. Contains tight spaces.
A tense Saw-style thriller rather than outright horror. The pressure comes from the set, the sound, tight spaces and a ticking clock, not from gore or anything chasing you. Difficulty and scariness are separate: the puzzles are a real challenge, the fright is suspense rather than terror.
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: Chapter 2 at South Yarra
Not ready to lock in the whole group?
Hold your preferred time with a single-player booking ($100 a room), which secures the room while you round up your team. Everyone else pays the difference when you arrive. Booking is instant, and you can reschedule for free up to 2 hours before your start time.
Is this theme right for you?
HackSaw: Chapter 2 is a Saw-style thriller: you wake in a house rigged to burn, a voice offers you redemption if you can earn it, and the clock is ticking. If you liked the Saw films and Jigsaw's moral traps, the grimy sets, the ticking-clock tension and the twist of having to earn your way out, this room is for you. It is the next chapter in our HackSaw story, and it plays more as a tense thriller than outright horror: the pressure comes from the set, the sound and the countdown, not from gore or anything chasing you. It suits people who want suspense and a race against the clock rather than a full fright.
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: Chapter 2 is one of our more intense rooms. For younger players or a mixed-age birthday, our family-friendly rooms at South Yarra, Monsterz, Cluemanji and Game of the Dragon, are a gentler option. Each room holds up to 6, so larger groups split across rooms at South Yarra 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.
- There are tight spaces in this room that cannot be avoided.
- Arrive 10 minutes before your start time.
- Players under 16 must have a participating adult in the room.
- You are never locked in and can step out at any time.
Escape rooms in South Yarra
HackSaw: Chapter 2 is one of six escape rooms at our South Yarra flagship, a two-minute walk from South Yarra Station, and the South Yarra chapter of our HackSaw series, alongside the original HackSaw in Hawthorn and HackSaw: Remastered in Chadstone. If you are after a Saw-style or horror escape room in Melbourne's inner south, it sits with our other South Yarra rooms It's Nightmare, Secret Agent Man, Game of the Dragon, Monsterz and Cluemanji. Easy to reach from the Melbourne CBD, Toorak, Prahran and Windsor.
Frequently asked questions
- Is HackSaw: Chapter 2 based on Saw?
- It is our own original trap-thriller story, made for fans of that world. If you enjoyed the Saw films and Jigsaw's moral traps and countdowns, you will feel right at home. It is the second chapter in our HackSaw series, and it plays as a tense thriller rather than outright horror.
- Is HackSaw: Chapter 2 actually scary?
- It is more a tense thriller than outright horror. It is a Saw-style, trap-filled escape built on suspense, tight spaces and a ticking clock rather than gore or constant scares. The pressure comes from the set, 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. Everything 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 that cannot be avoided, so it can feel close, 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 it, Game of the Dragon and Cluemanji at South Yarra are brighter, all-ages rooms.
- Is it suitable for first-timers?
- Yes. It is a solid challenge, but no experience is needed and your games master gives hints to keep every team moving.
- What is the minimum age?
- Suitable for teens and up, and younger players are 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 South Yarra and race head to head.
Getting here & what's nearby
160 Toorak Road, South Yarra VIC 3141. Please enter via 147 Osborne Street.
Metres from South Yarra Station, with trams running along Toorak Road and Chapel Street.
Get directions → •
Parking nearby → •
Restaurants & bars nearby →
Chapel Street and Toorak Road are on the doorstep for food and drinks before or after your game. Questions? Email southyarra@rushescapegame.com.au or call 03 9972 8021.
More rooms at South Yarra
Other Rush venues across Melbourne
St Kilda: Alice in Wonderland, The Conjoining, Treasure Island, The Last of Them | Book St Kilda
Chadstone: HackSaw: Remastered, Mission:Possible, Da Vinci Down Under | Book Chadstone
Is HackSaw: Chapter 2 scarier than HackSaw, and do I need to play the first one?
No to both, and the first answer is the useful one. Chapter 2 is a thriller rather than outright horror. It sits one tier below the other two HackSaw rooms on our scare scale and it is the one you can bring somebody to who wants the tension without the gore.
That makes it the most misunderstood room we run. People see the name, assume it is more of the same, and either book it expecting to be traumatised or avoid it because they think they cannot handle it. Both are wrong. HackSaw at Hawthorn and HackSaw: Remastered at Chadstone are Terrifying, visceral and built to frighten experienced horror players. Chapter 2 is Intense: real pressure, a burning clock and genuine tension, without the imagery that makes the other two a hard no for a lot of people.
And no, you do not need to have played the first one. The story picks up from it, and knowing where it came from adds something, but Chapter 2 briefs you on everything you need and stands entirely on its own.
Why a sequel had to be a different kind of fear
Horror sequels have one obvious failure mode, and every franchise falls into it eventually: escalation. Whatever the first one did, do more of it. More blood, louder scares, higher stakes, until the thing that made the original frightening has been sanded flat by repetition and the audience is watching a series of events rather than feeling anything.
The alternative is to change what the fear is made of. Chapter 2 does that. Where the original works on captivity and dread, this one works on pressure and time. The furnace is lit. The house is going to burn. You are not trying to escape something that wants to hurt you, you are trying to finish something before the building finishes first, and that is a completely different feeling to be inside for an hour.
It changes how a group behaves, too. Dread makes people go quiet and careful. Urgency makes them loud and fast, and it punishes them for it. The most common way to lose this room is to move quicker than you are thinking, which is the most honest thing a fire can do to a story about redemption.
Where the tension comes from
There is no live actor in this room, and no live actor in any of our sixteen rooms, at any venue, at any time of year. Nothing chases you. Nothing touches you.
There is also no gore. That is the deliberate line between Chapter 2 and the other two HackSaw rooms, and it is the reason this one works for a much wider group. Everything here comes from the set, the sound, the confinement and a clock that will not stop, rather than from anything you have to look at and wish you had not.
What it keeps from the original is the thing that makes trap fiction work as an escape room in the first place: consequence. In an ordinary escape room, a wrong answer costs you time and nothing else. Here the story insists that being wrong matters, and that changes a group. People check each other. The countdown stops being a number on a wall. Nothing actually happens to you, obviously, but an hour is long enough for your body to half believe otherwise, and a burning house is a very legible way of saying so.
The room uses tight spaces that cannot be avoided. That is worth knowing before you book, because it is the one element Chapter 2 shares with the harder two. You are never locked in, in this or any room we run, and you can step out at any second while your games master watches the whole game.
How we rate scare, and why it is not difficulty
Two independent scales, because they measure different things and confusing them is how people end up in the wrong room. Difficulty is the puzzles, one to five stars. Scare is the experience, four named tiers.
HackSaw: Chapter 2 is Intense on the scare scale and four out of five on difficulty. That is the interesting combination in the set. It is the least frightening of the three HackSaw rooms and equal hardest, which means it is the one that rewards a strong team rather than a brave one. Groups who want a serious puzzle challenge and can do without being terrified while they solve it should be booking this one.
Who this room is for, and who it is not
Book it if: you want tension and a hard puzzle without gore, you have a group with mixed tolerance for horror, you are planning a work team building session that needs pressure rather than fear, or you have played the Hawthorn original and want to know where it went.
Pick something else if: you specifically want to be terrified, tight spaces bother you, or you have younger children in the group.
Age. Teens and up. This is the HackSaw room a confident older teenager can play, which the other two are not. For younger players or a family group at South Yarra, Monsterz and Cluemanji are the all-ages rooms in the same building.
Confinement. Honestly: the room uses tight spaces that cannot be avoided. If you are genuinely claustrophobic, this is not the right room even though it is the least frightening HackSaw, because the issue here is the space rather than the scares. You are never locked in and you can step out whenever you want.
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.
Language. The 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, across all sixteen rooms.
Groups. Two to six players. South Yarra is our flagship with six rooms, so a large group can split across several and play simultaneously, which is what makes it the venue for bigger birthdays, hens and bucks nights and corporate bookings.
Questions people ask before booking
Do I need to play HackSaw first?
No. The story continues from the original but Chapter 2 briefs you on everything you need. Having played the Hawthorn room adds context and nothing more.
Is it as scary as the other HackSaw rooms?
No, and deliberately not. It sits at Intense rather than Terrifying. Real tension and pressure, no gore, no imagery designed to disturb you.
Is it gory?
No. That is the main difference between this room and the other two. If gore is your limit, this is the HackSaw you can play.
Are there live actors?
No. Not here and not in any of our sixteen rooms, at any venue, in any season, including Halloween.
Is this good for a work team building session?
Better than most horror rooms, yes. The pressure is real and it exposes how a team communicates under a deadline, without putting anyone through something they did not sign up for.
What is the hardest room at Rush South Yarra?
Chapter 2 is four out of five, level with It's Nightmare, Secret Agent Man and Game of the Dragon. Our five out of five rooms are at Chadstone.
The three HackSaw rooms, and which one you want
The name is shared, the rooms are not. Three venues, three genuinely different hours.
| Room | Venue | Scare | Difficulty | What makes it different |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| HackSaw | Hawthorn | Terrifying | 3 / 5 | The original. Most approachable puzzles, full horror intensity. The best first horror room. |
| HackSaw: Remastered | Chadstone | Terrifying | 4 / 5 | The rebuild. Tighter, harder and more relentless, with a decade of technique behind it. |
| HackSaw: Chapter 2 | South Yarra | Intense | 4 / 5 | The sequel. Pressure and a burning clock instead of gore. The one for mixed groups. |
If you want the terrifying end instead, The Conjoining at St Kilda is a demonic haunting with no gore at all, and It's Nightmare here 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 South Yarra
HackSaw: Chapter 2 is one of six escape rooms at Rush South Yarra, our flagship venue at 160 Toorak Road, entered via 147 Osborne Street, two minutes from South Yarra Station and the Chapel Street end of town. Easy from Prahran, Windsor, Toorak, Richmond, Albert Park, Port Melbourne, St Kilda and the Melbourne CBD.
Six rooms in one building means the biggest groups we take, and the widest spread of themes, from this to family adventures. Chapel Street and Toorak Road handle the rest of the evening.
Sessions run seven days. Two to six players, sixty minutes, instant confirmation and free rescheduling up to two hours before your start time.