Escape the Night

Season one

The Savant (Joey Graceffa) inherits an estate from a distant dead relative and invites ten guests, all of whom have been set to act in persona of a character from the 1920s, to attend a 1920s fashioned dinner party. In order to enter the estate, all guests invited have to act and wear attire from the 1920s. Once all there, festivities begin, and later all settle down for the dinner party. At the dinner, the Renegade (Shane Dawson) suddenly becomes ill and collapses from being poisoned. In his death, it was revealed that the Renegade was sent by a group known as the Society Against Evil to defeat the house. With his death, the rest of the guests have to perform challenges in order to retrieve artifacts before sunrise in order to return to the present. To find the artifacts, the guests must solve puzzles the house presents to them in order for them to continue. Once they have found an artifact, they must vote for two guests to participate in an elimination challenge. There, the losing guest is eliminated from the show via "death". This is the standard format for the episodes, as there are variants where guests simply vote on who is eliminated, others have the guests work together in the elimination, where failure meant a specific elimination for a guest.

Halfway throughout the series, it is revealed that in order to truly defeat the house the remaining guests have to free the spirits of the previous owners by doing their unfinished business. This is done via solving puzzles and voting guests for elimination; otherwise, there is no difference between this and the first half. In the final episode, one or more guests must solve puzzles and succeed challenges to defeat the "Wicked One" seen in the cold openings, complete the vanquish spell with the artifacts and bury them before sunrise to "Escape the Night". The winning guest's leave the house and travel back to 2016.

Recurring

Paul Chirico as Arthur, head of staff.

Katia Hayes as Sarah, the maid.

David Hutchison as Marvin, the groundskeeper.

Development

In October 2015, YouTube announced YouTube Red, a paid subscription service that would allow streaming videos ad-free, downloading videos for offline usage, and present new exclusive original series for YouTube Red subscribers. At the time of announcement, ten various series were announced for 2016, including the Untitled Joey Graceffa project, which was set to be produced by Brian Graden Media. The series began filming near Valencia, California.

On June 15, 2016, Graceffa released the trailer for his original series entitled Escape the Night, which was set and released on June 22, 2016 with two episodes going live. When interviewed after production, Graceffa commented that the idea behind Escape the Night was inspired by an episode themed around murder mystery appearing on television show Lizzie McGuire, and closely related to the 1985 film Clue. Furthermore, Graceffa shared his experience with filming the series, expressing "It was a really fun concept to put together," additionally mentioning, "And it was an idea that started small and ended up into something much bigger."

On October 17, 2016, it was announced by Susanne Daniels, global head of content for YouTube, at MIPCOM that Escape the Night would be renewed for a second season.

Progress chart

     The guest won "Escape the Night".     The guest survived this episode without being voted upon.     The guest was chosen for possible elimination, but survived.     The guest was chosen for possible elimination, and died.     The guest died in an earlier episode and doesn't appear.