Round Two of our murder mystery NYC tour brought us to Beardslee Castle for a murder mystery dinner performed by ACME Mystery Company. This one is quite a bit out of NYC and is actually located upstate, but luckily, my boyfriend’s family lives in the area and invited us stay with them for the weekend so that we could check it out!

My boyfriend Jeremy grew up near enough that he had been to the castle before and said we were in for quite a treat. I loaded up the website to purchase tickets and HELLO, they were only $45 a piece. That’s basically HALF of what Truffles charged. Granted, this isn’t an actual NYC murder mystery, but still — a totally reasonable price for dinner and entertainment anywhere.

Jeremy and I rolled up to the castle super excited, because you can’t really find a better atmosphere for a murder mystery than a castle. It was lovely, with authentic looking decor and friendly and welcoming staff. We were brought into the performance area and were seated with a few other small groups to fill up a larger table. They all seemed to be nice people and Jeremy and I chatted with a couple until the show started.

I could tell right away that this performance was going to have more of an emphasis on comedy than murder mystery, not that that’s necessarily a bad thing. The actors were dressed in somewhat cheesy costumes that looked like they’d been through a lot. The actors themselves were decent, but one in particular looked rather bored. It was a shame, because the other actors were putting so much into their performance.

When it came time to eat, we were served family style, which you don’t really encounter much out at restaurants. The servers weren’t the best, unfortunately, and Jeremy had to wait almost half an hour for a water refill. The food itself was good. There was pasta, chicken, and beef with sides like veggies and mashed potatoes.

I loved that there was audience interaction built into this show, but I wish there had been more of it. Basically, a few people were given lines to read out loud following a cue from an actor. There could have been a lot more audience participation, like actually having some of us come up to act or something!

At the end we were all able to guess which character committed the crime before they revealed the true villain. I’m not entirely convinced that they didn’t somehow change the ending based on what we guessed, because Jeremy and I had a pretty solid answer. The “reveal” was sort of anticlimactic and didn’t make much sense, so we were a little bummed about that.

I’d consider this to be more of a comedy show than a murder mystery, but the price was definitely right and the food was good, plus there was an inkling of interaction that we liked. So, it was an alright evening at a really beautiful place! It’s not necessarily an NYC murder mystery, but if you’re ever in the area it’s worth a shot!