Stranger Things officially ended on January 1st, with the series finale selling out theaters across the country as millions of longtime fans said goodbye to the beloved show. Since its debut, the viral series has dominated pop culture for the past decade, gaining a cult following and becoming one of Netflix’s most valuable original IPs. Created by the Duffer Brothers, the series has now evolved into something fans can experience live at Netflix House Dallas.
The fifth and final season the show has continued to become an even bigger Netflix cash cow, with the streaming giant mustering over $450 million to produce the fifth installment of episodes. To add to the hype machine on December 11th, Netflix opened its second and only Netflix House in the world at the Galleria Mall in Dallas, Texas (The first being King of Prussia Mall in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania).
Both locations have unique live offerings across different Netflix IP. Philadelphia offers experiences based on “Wednesday” and “One Piece,” and the Dallas location offers “Squid Game,” and the aforementioned “Stranger Things” experiences. However these experiences are not permanent as Marian Lee Netflix’s Chief Marketing Officer told Cosmopolitan, “They can basically take it down and move it in three to five days.”
The experience is not cheap and uses surge pricing, meaning more popular time slots, such as weekends, can climb as high as $49, while less busy periods may drop closer to $39. (Walk-in purchases are usually cheaper, but the experience could be sold out)
With that in mind, here are some thoughts on whether “Stranger Things: Escape the Dark” is worth the visit.
Game Structure
The experience is set in Season 4 of the show as Vecna begins to wreak havoc in Hawkins. There can be up to roughly 60 participants that are divided into 4 “rescue teams,” and every member is armed with an interactive flashlight and an audio interface with headphones that are masked as a ‘cassette player,’ similar to what Max wears in graveyard in fourth season, which conveys clues and also immersive sound (more on this later).
The experience unfolds across six distinct environments, moving from the Public Library to the Upside Down version of Hawkins, through the Bunker, the Haunted House, and the Dining Room, before culminating in Vecna’s mindscape.
Narrative
The experience plays less like a challenge or free-roam adventure and more like a loose, hard-to-track narrative. You are told you are searching for three characters: Penelope Carmichael, Jason Carver, and the infamous Eddie Munson. In theory, there is an objective. You scan the town with a high-tech flashlight that triggers UV effects and sound cues. In practice, it goes nowhere. You are not actually meant to find anyone, only to move through the space, which undercuts any real sense of urgency or payoff.
That is frustrating, because the sets themselves are the real draw, and there is barely enough time to take them in. The attention to detail is obsessive. There is a full-scale Castle Byers with Will echoing in ghostly whispers, and a near-perfect recreation of Eddie’s trailer, complete with pills, spliffs, and clutter straight out of the show. For a Stranger Things superfan, this is gold. You could spend an entire visit just hunting for references and Easter eggs, and honestly, that is where the experience is at its strongest. The show's unofficial theme song, “Running Up That Hill” by Kate Bush, even makes a well-timed appearance.
Sound Design
Another clear strength is the sound design, which ends up being the best part of the entire experience. Once you put on the headphones, they pull double duty: feeding you instructions from the command center to move from room to room while also delivering immersive, in-ear audio that reacts in real time to your surroundings. Paired with the low ceilings and massive overhead speakers, the sound feels controlled, intentional, and constantly closing in on you. Shining your flashlight on certain clues triggers audio cues in your headphones, turning simple exploration into a setup for well-timed, genuinely effective jumpscares.
The bunker sequence is where all of this comes together. The room drops into near-total darkness, broken only by a flashing red light, while surround-sound speakers rumble beneath your feet. At the same time, your headphones pipe in the hair-raising growls and chitters of a Demogorgon stalking you like prey, amplified as it circles the window. The effect is intense and claustrophobic, less like a haunted house and more like watching The Nun alone in the dark with headphones at full volume. Netflix absolutely nailed this element by pulling real sound effects from the show and repurposing them in a way that feels both creative and deeply immersive.
The Theatrics
The most surprising, and arguably weakest, part of the experience is the use of live actors. The performances are not bad by any means, but when placed next to the immersive sound design and meticulous set work, the acting often pulls you out of the moment rather than deeper into it.
There are only a handful of live performers, and the standout is the mother in the Dining Room. Her performance is genuinely unsettling, with her live voice syncing to the audio in your headphones, though it occasionally lags. She convincingly sells the role of a deranged parent, and after her reveal, she leads you, alongside Penelope Carmichael, toward the final stretch of the experience.
That said, the acting feels largely unnecessary. The experience is at its strongest when it leans on sound, atmosphere, and self-guided exploration. Interacting with actors, especially in groups of more than 50 people, makes it difficult to sustain believability. At times, the performances veer into cringe, though immersive theater is notoriously hard to pull off at this scale.
The finale comes in Vecna’s mindscape, where Penelope confronts a projected version of the villain. It is about as effective as a live experience can manage in that format. Afterward, she guides the group back to the Public Library, where her death plays out behind a window on a screen. Aside from the sharp, bone-crunching sound effects, the moment lacks impact and feels more staged than frightening.
Overall, the experience is a mixed bag, which is not surprising given how many moving parts are involved. The sound design, technology, and live performances all have to work in harmony and when they do, it works. When they do not, it is really obvious.
Is this Experience Worth the Price of Admission?
Short answer: it depends entirely on how big of a fan you are.
If you have never seen the show, it is still a fun box to check, but it feels like watching a sequel without seeing the first movie. You can enjoy the spectacle, but you will likely miss a lot of the context, all while paying the $49 price tag.
If you are a superfan, this experience is made for you. You will appreciate the meticulous attention to detail woven into the sets and the overall narrative, where nearly every room feels like it was built with longtime fans in mind. Netflix’s Chief Marketing Officer corroborated this by saying to Cosmopolitan, “If you're a fan, you want to experience it with a community of other rabid fans."
Beyond that, it also works as a fitting farewell to the series, especially for those who have followed Stranger Things from the very beginning. For that reason alone, it is worth trying at least once…if you can swallow the price.