TEENS

Angelina Jolie Celebrated Shiloh Jolie-Pitt’s 13th Birthday in an Escape Room

Where the threat of a cannibalistic serial killer loomed large.

May 29, 2019

Marc Piasecki/Getty Images

To mark the milestone of Shiloh Jolie-Pitt‘s 13th birthday, Angelina Jolie expanded her enviable variety of family activities—from attending art openings to sandboarding—even further. On Monday, the pair paid a visit to an escape room in Los Angeles—and not just any escape room: The Basement, where Jolie-Pitt apparently spent their first day as a teen, touts itself as the number one escape room in the country. (Given the ambiguity over Shilon’s gender identity, we’re using they/them pronouns.)

If you’re unfamiliar with the computer-game-inspired concept, IRL versions of which began popping up in Japan in the mid-aughts, visitors pay to be locked inside rooms for a set amount of time, which they spend attempting to crack the code of puzzles and mazes that will allow them to escape before it’s too late. In the case of the Basement, that apparently involves “touching things, moving things, opening things, (occasionally crawling through things) etc.,” as well as encountering live actors, under the looming threat of a cannibalistic serial killer descending upon them when their 45 minutes are up.

According to several reviews on Yelp, where the Basement has five stars, each of its four “experiences” are not for the faint of heart. “You start The Basement off with a cloth over your head and because of that you have no idea what you are getting into. It is dark everywhere and you only have a single flashlight to get you through the room. You can hear screaming in the distance and as a result you are on edge throughout the whole experience,” wrote one visitor named Ian. “You are bombarded by sounds of footsteps coming from above to remind you of the serial killer that awaits your failure. Can’t forget the alarms that go off every 15 minutes reminding you of the deadly gas that is ready to be released.”

From the look of it, Jolie-Pitt couldn’t wait to give it a go; they went on the very first day they were eligible, seeing as visitors are required to be at least 13 years old. And, seeing as visitors under 17 are required to bring along a parent or guardian, Jolie, noted fan of thrillers and now full-on cool mom, appears to have given her complete support—even though the Basement, to use the venue’s words, is located “suspiciously adjacent” to an adult entertainment store.