Nothing says spooky quite like Friday the 13th — that rare date when the calendar aligns and all our superstitions and phobias come out to play. In fact, it's a day so fearsome there is an actual scientific term for the phobia of it: friggatriskaidekaphobia! Try saying that real fast, we dare you!

Home to Perth's best-rated, totally immersive Horror themed escape rooms, we at Escape This love Friday the 13th, naturally. But why is Friday the 13th considered so scary in the first place? The answer is a complicated tangle of numerology, folklore, history, and good old superstition. But let’s take it one detail at a time.

13, the unluckiest number

Humans have always had a strange fascination with numbers and the idea that some carry occult significance and attract dark superstitions — from the “devil’s number,” 666, to the witching hour, 3am. The number 13 may be the darkest of them all, however. Maybe you’ve lived in a building with no 13th floor, or boarded a plane without a row 13?. Maybe you’ve read of people whose obsession with the number tormented them — like master of suspense Alfred Hitchcock who was born on the 13th of August.

For much of recorded history, the number 13 has been associated with Jesus and his 12 disciples at the Last Supper, which brought them all together, with Judas being received as the 13th guest (and we know how that turned out.) Likewise, the story of the Last Supper also coincides with a similar story in Norse mythology in which Loki crashed a Valhalla dinner party as the 13th guest, bringing immediate chaos and destruction with him. So we have Loki and Judas to blame for the number 13 long being considered sinister.

The fear is very real

In fact, fear of Friday the 13th is so real that one scientific name wasn't enough! Nope. The fear of Friday the 13th is scientifically called both friggatriskaidekaphobia AND paraskevidekatriaphobia!

Experts say that friggatriskaidekaphobia affects millions of people and estimate that businesses, especially airlines, suffer from severe losses on Friday the 13th. And triskaidekaphobia, or the fear of the number 13, is even more widespread. So much so that many high-rise buildings, hotels, and hospitals skip the 13th floor, and many airports do not have gates numbered 13. In many parts of the world, having 13 people at the dinner table is considered especially bad luck, bound to result in the death of one guest within 12 months!

The Day Inspired One of the Highest-Grossing Film Franchises

The billion dollar grossing Friday the 13th franchise includes 12 horror slasher films, a television series, and several books that focus on curses and superstitions - each earning a cult following, so much so that the mask worn by the key character in the movies, Jason Voorhees, is one of the most recognised objects in popular culture.

Friday the 13th at Escape This

From the halls of our haunted heritage building in Northbridge, Escape This offers Perth’s best-rated escape rooms across totally immersive Horror and family-friendly Adventure themes.

This Friday the 13th (the only one in 2022!) we are GIVING AWAY three of our awesome Perth escape room sessions for you and up to 11 friends (subject to our standard room capacity limits). Will you choose to play The Haunting, The Possession, or if the thought of Australia’s most terrifying escape rooms are too much to bear, we’re offering up a Pirate Island escape also.

For your chance to win, enter via the link below before 5.59pm AWST on Thursday 12 May!