Room Escape Artist

McFearson’s Funeral Parlor: “Servicing the living and the dead”

Location: Brooklyn, New York

Date Played: May 27, 2026

Team Size: 2-8; we recommend 2-4

Duration: 60 minutes

Price: $45 per player

Ticketing: Private

Accessibility Consideration: There are stairs up to the games.

Emergency Exit Rating: [A+] No Lock

Physical Restraints: [A+] No Physical Restraints

REA Reaction

Over My Dead Body felt like an escape room from a different era. By 2015’s standards, it would have been pretty standard, but more than a decade later, it didn’t hold up.

I will first say that Over My Dead Body was a functional, solvable escape room. Most of the steps of most of the puzzles were clued (but not all). And we solved the game with no hints, so in this regard, it was doable, even if we had to make a few logic leaps.

That said, it didn’t feel like a funeral parlor. The decor was pretty random, with a bit of blood spattered about. It did have a sense of place. It was just a grim-ish scene for solving (mostly random) puzzles.

We enjoyed the surprise reveal, mostly because it had been years since we’ve seen this trope, and in this way, Over My Dead Body was like visiting an old friend. Don’t bring the kids to this one. For a hint to the twist, look for an alliterative phrase in our ERban dictionary.

The team at Coney Escape Room really cares about bringing fun to their community. And based on our visit, it looks like with each game, they’ve figured more things out and leveled up. They are working hard to create joy. While Over My Dead Body offered a collection of puzzles in a semi-themed room, it wasn’t anything more than that, and for us, in 2026, escape rooms need to be more. For a more thematic adventure with better clue structure and more excitement, book Coney Escape Room’s other game, Captain Kidd: The Hangman’s Treasure.

Who is this for?

• Puzzle lovers
• Any experience level
• Players who don’t need to be a part of every puzzle

Why play?

• A nostalgic plot twist

Story

Coney Island’s McFearson’s Funeral Parlor had been serving this community for decades, but recently strange things had been happening within its walls. The owners had summoned us, a team of paranormal investigators, to put an end to the troubles.

Setting

Over My Dead Body had a deeply minimalist set with limited integration of the puzzles into the environment. While there were some interesting props, they rarely played a significant role, and very little of the puzzle interactions breathed life into the game world.

Gameplay

Coney Escape Room’s Over My Dead Body was a standard escape room with a moderate level of difficulty.

While some of the challenge was clued, some of it stemmed from figuring out what was relevant in a barely themed environment.

Core gameplay revolved around searching, making connections, and solving puzzles.

Analysis

➕ Our favorite prop that we interacted with was part of multiple solves.

➖ However, there were a lot of random props in the gamespace, and it wasn’t clear why. Some of the more interesting props weren’t part of puzzles.

➖ The flow was bumpy, in part because there wasn’t any lock mapping to connect puzzle components or answers to inputs.

➖ There was opportunity for additional clue structure for some of the puzzles. We often tried different possible ways to manipulate numbers or letters until something worked.

➕ Coney Escape Room used lighting well to reveal new secrets, such that players were focused on the puzzle, not searching for information.

➖ One piece of tech kept turning on before it was relevant, which was distracting at best, and mildly hazardous.

➕ Over My Dead Body concealed its biggest surprise well, making for a fun late-game reveal.

Tips For Visiting

• We ate a Nathan’s Famous Hot Dogs, an iconic Coney Island restaurant, which is right across the street.
• We took the subway.

Book your hour with Coney Escape Room’s Over My Dead Body, and tell them that the Room Escape Artist sent you.

Disclosure: Coney Escape Room provided media discounted tickets for this game.