Murder Mystery Maniacs

I bought one of their scenarios online for a party I hosted at my home in Los Angeles.
It was a very expensive story considering how many mistakes were in it. ($ 10 per person.) Several people were advised to interview characters that didn’t exist, and the reveal sheet also had a non-​existant character in it.
Also, since everything was just printed on crappy computer paper, I could have printed it myself and distributed the materials earlier if they had just sent me a PDF instead of snail mailing it.
I won’t use them again.

I want to put a shout out to Murder Mystery Maniacs. I have used this company for several private events in the last 6 years and each time I was more than satisfied. My friends have a blast creating their costumes ahead of time and getting into character to mingle with their friends. If anything, it is a great way to socialize in a different way than heading to the bar and getting plowed. Although I highly recommend cocktails at your MMM party as it loosens your friends up to really get into character. The highlight events for our group have always been my brother’s annual Halloween parties. They deck their house out in the theme they have chosen and work with the company directly to customize a party for their specific group of friends. Every year we have a great time and meet new people. I would recommend this Murder Mystery Maniacs to anyone looking to try something different and hoping to work with an established company that will assist you in any way possible.

We planned a private event with Murder Mystery Maniacs for our office holiday party. We have a lot of picky people in our office, and everyone had a great time!
The actors were fun and interactive, and they led us through it along the way. I would definitely recommend it!

Where to begin, where to begin… they get one star by default.
To save you time with my lengthy article below, AVOID like the plague. Even though I already spent $ 30 on a ticket through Groupon with my friend, I would have just not shown up. Literally the entire evening I wanted to drive a nail through my skull. I hope nobody paid the standard $ 60 for ticket. You’ve been hosed.
When you first get there, the bar, Cuna, looks like the 80s were really rough on it. It’s not terrible, but definitely does not set the stage for a murder mystery. They escort you to one of a few big tables were you will be sitting on top of a perfect stranger– they packed 10 of us around a table that would normally fit 6. And the night has begun…
They recruit a few people from every table to play some part and make you were some ridiculous hat/​glasses/​boa. So in essence, you’re paying these amateurs to have audience members do the work. And most of these people have no clue what is going on or what they are to do. This goes on about the entire time and all the while you either don’t know what the hell is happening or parked at the bar, like me.
In between all of the commotion you are served a salad and main entrée, of which you are able to select from two. The salad actually wasn’t bad and looked appetizing. The main entrée however was a train wreck. You could chose between a pasta or BBQ chicken. My friend had the BBQ chicken and it consisted of a grilled chicken breast with BBQ sauce dumped on it on top of fake mashed potatoes. The pasta had absolutely no taste, but at least looked way better than the chicken. Not to mention, the chicken came out 20 minutes before the pasta dishes. The wait staff was horrendous. They had three people working. And i think it was the same three people that were also doing the cooking. When we finally received our food, we all had empty glasses and to get more water in under 20 minutes was out of the question.
The only nice thing was that the drinks were on the cheap side… trust me, you’ll need a drink or five.
If you can, I’d ask Groupon for my money back.

I happened to LOVE the show! I always go for audience participation kind of events. It helps to break up the monotony of everyday dinners and drinks. (OK, not everyday, I can’t afford it, but you know, once a week). Just like Bye Bye Liver, I love when you can enjoy a show and see other peoples’ reactions at the same time! It looks like some of the previous reviewers had issues with volume, the venue, and food. But they seem to have things ironed out and I’d recommend the show!

Who did it?! I didn’t do it! Did you? I think it was the maid in the Library with the candle stick…
I think I have the correct Unilocal site but it is a MYSTERY as to why all of these people are giving it such low stars. It was at Cuna so hopefully I have the right one, but it’s a MYSTERY. I also had the Groupon and thank god for that. Normal tickets I think are a little steep for the show and what you get for dinner (drinks are on your own tab).
Not really knowing what to expect I was a little nervous when I counted nearly 30 people in the room and only two guys to host it all. The two were already in character and doing a great job at that. Next, the two host went around picking people at random to play characters. *** Not everyone get’s to play*** I got picked to be a lead but my date didn’t get chosen at all. This ended up ruining the night for her. It was completely boring from her perspective which I can totally see. Groups that weren’t involved just talked to themselves.
The two hosts help move the story along and throw in some cheesy humor. They hand you a bio and give you instructions, the rest is up to you. There are two intermissions when appetizers and then dinner come out so you can actually eat. You also have to pay very close attention, it’s easy to miss what is happening in the show (which clearly a lot of the other reviewers did). The show is supposed to run about two hours but ours did around two and a half.
I total enveloped myself in the role which was a blast, I was almost in every part of the story. Got a few laughs and cheers which won me the best actor award (certificate awarded) for the night. I personally had fun and would do it again. Other then getting more people up and involved I think they did a great job. I just don’t care for the price.

Like several Unilocal reviewers, I bought the Groupon for this experience, so I didn’t spend full price on this evening. However, I had a really good time with the Murder Mystery Maniacs; the actors were funny and the audience was too. My husband had a good time too, and he got to play a character in the mystery, which was fun. We’ve done murder mystery dinners in small groups with friends and those are easier to follow and more fun, but this was a good time and gave us a chance to get out and meet different people. Plus, the Maniacs do private or smaller parties, so this gives you a chance to try them out, and if you like it, you can get a more personalized experience on your own.
Just to give a explanation of how it works:
This is a murder mystery dinner with audience participation. There are two or three actors who play some «main» parts in the show and keep things moving, but most of the parts are played by guests at the dinner, including the part of the murderer.
Upon entering the restaurant you will be seated and will be given brief instructions to read. Shortly thereafter one or more persons in your party will be given a part to play. They’ll be given a costume and more detailed instructions.
Generally, the «mystery» is divided into 3 «acts.» During the first act everyone gets to know the characters and the setting. People introduce themselves, by mingling around, while in «character» and the actors tell you where you are and what is going on, i.e. set the «scene.» At some point the actors will probably have every character introduce themselves via microphone so that everyone has a chance to learn who is at the party. Sometime during the first act the murder will occur. During the second act people are trying to figure out who did it and why, again by mingling around with the characters and asking questions, listening in, etc. During the third act, the most revealing information will come out and there should be enough information spread around that people can figure out who did it and why.
The people playing characters are given information to spread around and information to attempt to solicit for each act, which is how the «clues» are given out. Specifically, each character has a sheet of paper for each act, and on the sheet for «Act One,» they page explains who they are, what they know, and what they want to know, and who might have good information, and instructs the character to walk around spreading the information they know, and talking to people who might know more information about the killer. The other guests don’t have any of this information and just must mingle about and try to learn the good information for themselves.
The amount of fun you have with the game will largely depend on how comfortable you are interacting with complete strangers. Also, the amount of people playing could vary widely depending on how many people attend that night. This will also largely impact the amount of characters available to play and ability to mingle. I think we had about 40 – 60 people our night, which was a lot, but still small enough that people could get around and talk. Any larger might have been a problem. We went on a Tuesday night, which probably helped by giving us a bit of a smaller crowd.
All in all, I thought this was fun and I would do it again.

Oh my fellow Groupon Lovers we have made a terrible mistake…$ 60 dollar tickets for the low, low price of $ 30 which includes the dinner and show… sold! How wrong we were.
To begin with the Unilocal system does not allow for a zero star, so MMM this one star is being generous.
I don’t know where to even start with this cluster f** of an evening. To begin with MMM thanks for having us sit for an hour when you passed out costumes to 15 of the 60 attendees, carefully screening for the ones that were illiterate, devoid of personality, socially backward, retarded or drunk. Very little was explained to these poor chumps about what their performance duties for the evening were to entail so you can hardly blame the actor-​victims for the rest of the evening.
The whole performance was reminiscent of a high school/​wait scratch that… junior high drama club project. Only a 9 year old or a mentally handicapped person could actually have enjoyed that evening. Hard to follow is being generous. I just couldn’t believe what was unfolding. My mouth was agape as the evening progressed. The audience appeared to be uninterested and uninvolved right from the beginning. The feedback on the sound system was another awesome addition to the environment.
Food was marginal as I expected, as well as the service. But that is to be expected with Dinner Theatre. The zero stars includes to review on either.
I don’t really have any advice on what to do about your Groupon purchase, if they sold 2000 of these they are laughing all the way to the bank, take my advice and give it to someone you don’t like. Don’t waste your time, and for the love of GOD don’t pay $ 60 for this train wreck.
I do like the way they messaged in that they were taking suggestion for improvement.

I’m not even sure where to start with this trainwreck. I was sucked in by Groupon and my naïve assumption that it would be kinda cheesy but ultimately entertaining, a la CLUE. Instead, I got a disorganized event misrepresented as Dinner Theatre that was actually Dinner Amateur Improv– as performed by our fellow clueless audience members. Must’ve been that amazing Groupon copywriting, but I had the silly idea this would be led & performed by actual actors (of which there were only 2). No offense to the actors– who really hammed it up with the paltry material they had– but I felt awful that my friend who missed the Groupon actually spent SIXTY DOLLARS on this!
Everything was so mismanaged and cheesy that it’s kind of hilarious in retrospect. Let’s start with the pacing: terrible. We were told to mingle with the «characters» (all audience members drafted into playing the 20-​odd roles, who had NO IDEA what they were doing) for a good 45 minutes, before the actual program began. Mind you, it’s 7:45 PM now (on a weeknight, when most people who buy $ 30 – 60 dinner theatre tickets work 9 – 5 jobs).
Now onto the food: Cuna offered a special menu with add-​ons we could buy to supplement the package we’d already bought. As the hours wore on with no food in sight, it became clear this was a calculated move to push their $ 6 «special» cocktails and keep the bar tabs flying. At 8:00, salads started to appear. And yet, somehow we didn’t get ours until 8:45. How does it take 45 MINUTES to pass out the SAME EXACT SALAD? The salad was decent enough (mixed greens with olive oil, red onion, raw zucchini, and a chunk of red bell pepper), but having waited so long, it was hard to enjoy. Then we got the appetizer add-​on we had ordered in the stupid hope that we’d have something to snack on while waiting. By this point, we were so delirious with hunger and boredom that we didn’t even care about the half-​hearted «acting» going on around us (not that we could hear it through the scratchy microphones anyway.)
Finally, at 9:30 PM (although the program was supposed to run for 2 hours), we got our Pecan Chicken – essentially dry fried chicken with a dollop of mashed potatoes. To Cuna’s credit, they got these out to us in record time. Although the poor gals next to us who chose the pasta didn’t even get their plates until 10:00 (after the program had ended and most of the audience left!)
I’m just at a loss as to how a professional collaboration could go so badly… there were easily 3 – 4 servers hovering around to bring drinks at any given time, but only 1 or 2 on food. Meanwhile, the rest of the restaurant was empty. As for the «entertainment»…I guess this might be fun if you’re a sloshed yuppie with no acting background or concept of good theatre, who really, really wants to show off. If not, well…

Our group of 10 used the Groupon we purchased back in June this last Friday night at Cuna with the Murder Mystery Maniacs dinner theater. It was such a unique and fun night! Something different in the city.
I got to «play» an 80 yr old woman who was married to a 40 yr old lawyer, the son of the deceased, who was played by my buddy.
It got a little slow at times, but overall it was such a fun time with our friends, acting like different characters– it was hilarious.
The food at Cuna was great! We had an option of a fresh house salad or spinach artichoke dip. and the main entrée was pecan crusted chicken or vegetable pasta. Both very flavorful.
The waitress was attentive with drinks too.
Recommended!

A group of 7 of us got groupons thinking it was a fun night out — not so much. They didn’t have enough characters (they book more people then they have spaces), so 2 of us just had to sit there. The food was blah and they didn’t let us sit together. I wouldn’t do this again unless it was free — and maybe not even then.

We went to Cuna for the Murder Mystery Dinner experience. The whole thing was a little hard to follow. There was too much going on at once to be able to keep up with what was going on. Additionally, there were so many people in such a small space that it was hard to hear what was going on.
The good: It was our first experience with a Murder Mystery Dinner and we did get a few laughs out of the whole thing.
The bad: $ 60 bucks?! The food wasn’t THAT great, and the Murder Mystery portion wasn’t THAT entertaining to justify spending $ 60 per person. Our waitress looked freaky and could hardly smile — and it was pretty much just her trying to serve 40 of us that participated in the dinner.
Would I do it again? Probably not through Murder Mystery Maniacs. I HAVE to imagine there are better experiences out there.

Went here for a groupon/​murder mystery dinner that I actually was really excited about (think Saved by the bell).

The murder mystery show was a little hard to follow. The main actors that were leading the group discussion don’t really explain to people what you are to do, and how things work. The other thing is, the room could get loud and it became hard to hear the main actors.
Most people were dressed up in character, they gave everyone props and a little bio of who you were but it got confusing. Some people didn’t bother paying attention and I think that throws people off. I think there could be some major improvements to the show and the venue… because the idea is fantastic. Maybe it runs a little smoother if this was a private party where many people know one another? It was just difficult to eat and pay attention, or go to the bathroom, or pay the parking meter!
I think the concept could be a lot of fun, and maybe with a little more enthusiasm and organization, it could be fun.

This was my first time at a Murder Mystery Dinner. I was really excited to see a Groupon and I love to watch murder mysteries so I got one for myself and my bf. I choose one the day before my birthday, a Friday night.
It was pretty fun — both my bf and I were picked to play roles and got to wear the costume pieces that came with and had our binders with our character information to read about. We had a pretty good time even though I’m definitely not much of an actress and I am very soft spoken.
The microphone the main characters was carrying around to interview us wasn’t working properly. They did their best to repeat what everyone was saying but I was sort of lost. It was hard to get around the room to talk to all the characters and I wonder if the people sitting down had any idea of the secrets, etc. the rest of us were finding out. It was also really hard to find time to eat or even use the bathroom — I definitely did not have too much to eat but the food wasn’t that good anyways (that is all on Cuna).
Overall we had a good time and the hosts were very nice. It was a bit expensive though and I wish I would have known more about what was going on so I could have had a good guess at the killer.