(Milan) “Is it here to make 45.6 billion won?” ($ 47 million). For Stefano, a 42-year-old Milan doctor who admires the ultraviolent South Korean series Squid Game, fortunately, dying is just a game.
Along with about fifty other candidates to the thrill, he signed up that evening to a escape game (escape game) organized in a hangar near Milan, in the north of Italy, from the universe of this planetary success series.
Released in September on Netflix, Squid Game features 456 South Koreans who compete in children’s games to hit the jackpot, risking their lives, for the sadistic pleasure of “VIPs”, anonymous wealthy people who pay, as at circus games, for to see men and women die by confronting each other in more cruel jousts than the others. At the end of the trials, the last survivor wins the jackpot.
But here, we do not shoot live ammunition, we do not kill. Participants collect a mask to protect their faces and don a t-shirt with a number to identify them.
“I took the 13, bad luck! »Despairs Viola Nicosi, a 23-year-old saleswoman. “The series fascinated me and I was looking for a game to find the atmosphere! », Explains her friend Laura Tatolo, a 27-year-old waitress.
Adrenaline
PHOTO PIERO CRUCIATTI, FRANCE-PRESS AGENCY
Participants collect a mask to protect their faces and don a t-shirt with a number to identify them.
Enigma Room, a Milanese company specializing in escape games, quickly sniffed out the right deal. “It was supposed to be an event for Halloween, but it worked so well that we continued,” explains Anna Kovalova, one of the partners.
As with the series, their success was accompanied by a wave of criticism. “We received emails from outraged parents,” she says. Access to the game is prohibited for under 16s. This Sunday in November, the atmosphere is good-natured: the players, aged 20 to 45, came as a couple or with friends.
Once equipped, they discover the 1,500 m hangar2 where they will cross swords. In the background, the disturbing drums of Way Back Then, one of the musics of the series.
PHOTO PIERO CRUCIATTI, FRANCE-PRESS AGENCY
Six events – including the terrible tug of war over a precipice – are linked for two hours.
“Get in line! Shouts a soldier in a red jumpsuit. Frontman, the game master, appears. He fires a shot in the air. Silence. “You are there to satisfy the VIPs, this game was organized for them,” he recites, pointing to two masked characters sitting in a corner.
The introductions made, the first game begins. It is “1, 2, 3 sun”. Anna Kovalova plays the terrifying robot doll from the first episode. Rifles in the shoulder, the soldiers shoot those who move. Obviously, the weapons are fictitious, the bullets are marbles. “We aim where it doesn’t hurt,” slips a soldier.
Six events – including the terrible tug of war over a precipice – are linked for two hours. The final duel dedicates the number 15, Federico Alemanni. “We found the atmosphere, the adrenaline of Squid Game », He rejoices.
The price is commensurate with the stake: here, no giant piggy bank containing millions, but a free entry for another game.