Audacious Immersive’s monster mystery entertains, even as its investigation mechanics falter.

Walking into the Van Helsing Society headquarters, the room is alive with a flurry of activity. In the back corner, there’s a queued line for the bar where patrons are buying sodas, mocktails and snacks. The room is packed to the gills with nearly 40 seats filled as the clock approaches show time. (I’m told the cap is usually 30, but eight wait-listers were admitted for this showing.)

While we wait, the esteemed members of the Van Helsing Society mingle loudly around us at their tables, most of who appear to be bickering and taking cheap shots. It’s an early glimpse into who these characters are and possible motivations that might come into play later.

The majority of the show takes place in this main room, which is warmly lit and decorated in a maximalist style filled with historical oddities, magical artifacts and glowing potions. Later, after the opening scene and murder, the set will expand to include the courtyard outside through which we entered the headquarters, as well as the adjoining hallways, both of which are much more bland and sparsely decorated than the main room.

We’ve gathered here at the Van Helsing Society to recognize and honor the organization’s most esteemed donors. The proceedings are led by Maricela Van Helsing (played by Sara Stephenson) and her two supernatural sisters Aradia (Ren Manley) and Diana (Renee Roush) who are all daughters of Abraham Van Helsing (of Dracula fame). Together, the daughters and their father founded the society whose modern day goals focus on “rescue and rehabilitation efforts for at-risk magical beings.”

The remaining characters (i.e. the society’s donors who are being honored) are all cryptids based on real folklore. There’s Aleera Cotora (a former bride of Dracula, played by Liz Porter), her human husband Kristoff Cotora (Jay Treat), and their disgruntled son Vincent (Kai Andrews) who hates his mortal father. There’s also the stylish (and opportunistic) Mothman (Joey Laughlin); La Llorona, who can’t stop talking about bodies of water and drowning children (Amanda Fresquez); and Renfield, the butler who used to work for Aleera (and her ex-husband Dracula). Lastly, a timid and awkward Frog Person named Larry (Rachel Lowman) arrives late and gets the side eye from the rest of the society.

From ceremony to chaos

It doesn’t take long for the proceedings to go off the rail, with outbursts and arguments erupting left and right across the honorees. When one of them suddenly dies, they all clear out, leaving us alone with the sisters to get control of the situation. They decide that we, the audience, must help them probe the surviving members of the Van Helsing Society for information and evidence, since the monsters are much less likely to lie to us than the sisters.

We’re instructed to get up, move around, interrogate the lingering members under suspicion of murder, and look for clues … then bring any we find back to the sisters for their investigation. My group first heads outside to talk to the flamboyant Mr. Mothman and La Llorona. After a few lines of questioning he produces a letter from Aleera rejecting his proposal to invest in a special kind of cryptid-cryptocurrency. I slyly ask if I can keep hold of it, which he allows.

We’re also told that blacklight flashlights will reveal which objects in the headquarters are pieces of evidence, but there aren’t enough for all the groups to have their own, so I’m not sure if the letter will be of use to the sisters’ investigation. While waiting in line to deliver it to them, I ask someone to flash their light on the letter and sure enough, a neon green symbol appears under the text.

The sisters read it aloud, finding it curious but not seeming to reveal any new information or questions from it. We stand nearby as the next piece of evidence is handed over, listening for clues or suggestions of what to do next. We listen as they read bad poetry from Larry the Frog and point out that the paper is covered in something that might be poisonous. We also notice some divorce paperwork on the evidence table with Kristoff’s and Aleera’s names on it.

But when we find Larry and Kristoff in the hallway, our awkward probing on these subjects yields no new information or anything to act upon. We keep trying to find breadcrumbs to follow but they always seem to go nowhere.

I’ve seen other Audacious Immersive shows where audience members are given the opportunity to come up with their own questions to ask characters, but are also given the option to pull one from a bowl if they do not know what kind of questions to ask. This would have been a helpful way to provide more clues and to gently nudge us in the right direction. Not only do we not know what to ask, but when we do manage to think of questions, it feels like they yield no information.

Strong performances anchor the experience

On the plus side, most of the characters are enthusiastic, engaging and wholly entertaining. I especially love the high-spirited fae behind the bar. She isn’t cast as a character, but she adds a lot to the enchanted environment with her funny and flighty expressions. All three of the Van Helsing sisters have distinct personalities — Maricela is prudent and reserved, Aradia is witchy and magical, while Diana is much more literal and aloof than her siblings. The society members each have their own distinctive personalities, too, but Mr. Mothman stands out for his audience improv skills and eccentric behaviors.

Sarah Blinkhorn’s costumes reflect the same maximalist approach as the set, accentuating the characters’ large personalities with equally brazen outfits, like Aradia Van Helsing’s layers of crushed, draped velvet or the Mothman’s feather antennae attached to a top hat with red, circular glasses that mimic an actual moth. And it’s hard to miss Larry — wherever he happens to be — due to his giant, plushy frog head.

It is ultimately a feast for the eyes, but not for the mind. The lack of structure during the interrogation period of the show leaves me feeling confused and flustered. There’s a table full of evidence, but only a portion of which I know the context for. We are supposed to hunt for evidence with a blacklight, but none are available for my group. We bounce between characters and lodge questions at them that sound good in theory, but ultimately get us nowhere.

After 20 minutes of interrogation, we are called back to our seats in the headquarters for a new theatrical scene that culminates in a second murder in the courtyard. We’re supposed to observe this through one of two open windows, but it’s an impossible task for a seated audience of 40 people, leaving most to observe only by sound, not sight. It’s an ambitious attempt at creative use of the space and its layout, but misses the mark in execution.

A mystery too tangled to solve

After another brief period of free-roaming interrogation and investigation, we return to our seats yet again for the reveal of the murderer. It’s a complicated process that involves layers of narrative and unexpected plot twists. It’s fun to finally see it all come together, but it’s frustrating at the same time because the solution to the mystery is so complex that I’m never going to figure it out in the 30 minutes I’m given to do so.

Maybe that’s playwright Cole Johnson’s goal — to surprise me with a series of plot twists I never see coming — but I still somehow feel like I’m set up to fail in my role as murder mystery solver. In my experience, the best immersive shows have the simplest plot lines; unfortunately, this story is anything but simple.

While the individual performances are great and entertaining, this immersive show’s format falls victim to too many cooks in the kitchen (especially my showing, which includes an extra eight cooks) that makes it difficult to physically move around the small space and unintentionally turns evidence gathering into a competition. And with so many investigators turning over their findings to the sisters, what little evidence and alibis I do gather offers me only a fractured view of the larger story.

If you’re attracted to the mystique of cryptid folklore and the idea of the Van Helsing Society protecting them, you might in fact relish the opportunity to directly interact with these magical beings on their own home turf. But if you’re a seasoned puzzle solver who seeks the satisfaction of following a series of clues to arrive at a tidy, final solution, you won’t find it here; these monsters are too messy for that.