TOMB at 5WITS

186 Brookline Ave., Boston, MA (around the corner from Fenway Park)

By subway, take the MTA's Green Line to the Fenway stop.
If you travel by car, parking is available across the street at the AMC theaters.

While there are some loud sounds, moments of darkness, and semi-creepy effects, the tone is fairly mild. All but very young and highly impressionable children should be able to handle it. However, kids under the age of 7 or so will probably not have the game skills or patience to appreciate the attraction. Tweens will love it.

About's Go New England guide, Kim Beckius, visited TOMB with me and posted a wonderful review of the attraction.

Imagine a highly sophisticated walk-through haunted house (minus all of the hatchet-wielding zombies and gore) crossed with a cool interactive museum exhibit and you begin to get a sense of this one-of-a-kind attraction.

Taking some cues from the Mummy and Indiana Jones oeuvre, TOMB casts guests as archaeologists and sends them into an ancient catacomb in search of a professor who mysteriously vanished. An ill-tempered Pharaoh (hundreds of years in limbo can make you quite ornery, apparently) claims responsibility for the poor professor's demise and promises the same fate for the group unless its members successfully complete a series of challenges. In order to please the Pharaoh (and move from room to room), guests must work cooperatively to solve puzzles, discover hidden clues, and pass tests like reproducing a string of musical tones a la the old hand-held game, Simon. Along the way, TOMB serves up lasers, water screen images, a booming soundtrack, black-light effects, and other theme park trickery.

The stakes are pretty high: Groups that fail the Pharaoh's challenges "die" and get shuttled down the "death corridor" without experiencing the attraction's finale. But like intrepid videogame jockeys--and in many ways TOMB resembles an immersive PlayStation environment--guests can power back up by purchasing another ticket, getting back in line, and giving it another whirl.

5WITS is the name of the venue. TOMB is the interactive presentation now playing. The attraction's developers say that they plan to develop new shows, and move the adventures around to a series of venues. Providence, RI, may be the site of the next 5WITS location.