Selfies with a serial killer

Chilling Photos

Since July 18, 2026, Mind of a Serial Killer: The Experience has been drawing crowds to the old sheds of Tour & Taxis in Brussels. The immersive exhibition from producers Exhibition Hub and ticketing platform Fever previously visited Dublin, Seattle, and New York, and now guides visitors through twenty killer rooms filled with reconstructions of the most infamous serial killers in history.

The tour lasts between 90 minutes and two hours and opens with an 'Investigation Office' where you play detective yourself. This is followed by a series of life-sized reconstructions. They take you to the recreated kitchen of cannibal Jeffrey Dahmer, complete with a fridge full of fake limbs, the yellow Volkswagen Beetle of Ted Bundy, and abandoned railway lines where the Rostov Ripper struck, and much more. For Brussels, there is an extra section featuring Belgian cases, including those of Staf Van Eyken, András Pándy, and poisoner Marie Becker. The visit ends with a fourteen-minute VR experience in which you help solve a murder case, followed by a somber, candlelight-lit room for the victims.

Admission is reserved for those who are at least 16 years old and sign a declaration in advance.

Spectacle

CEO Hamza El Azhar reiterates in interviews that the creators are not out to glorify: they want to show what the perpetrators did and how investigators caught them. At the same time, the organizers encourage sharing photos on social media. The result: one visitor after another poses smiling broadly with a 'wanted' sign in front of a wall full of wanted murderers, an image that stands in stark contrast to the somber memorial space at the end of the tour.

Flemish, French-speaking and international media remarkably agree: the expo promises to provide insight into how someone becomes a serial killer, but largely withholds that insight. The wall texts outline the youth and criminal trajectory of the perpetrators, but remain superficial. Psychological or scientific explanation is almost completely absent. The Dutch translations often do not attain the standards we expect.

The overarching image that emerges from the entire press is that of an exhibition that starts as a reflection on human evil, but soon turns into a spectacle: impressive to see, but with little guidance to understand what you are seeing. Both in our country and at previous editions in Dublin, Seattle, and New York, the exhibition was criticized for the use of AI-generated or digitally edited images, including of victims. Criticism that El Azhar acknowledges but strongly minimizes by saying that the amount of AI is really, very small.

In Short

Despite, or maybe because of all that criticism, Mind of a Serial Killer draws large visitor crowds. The common thread through almost all reporting is clear: anyone looking for an answer to the question of why people do such things will be disappointed at Tour & Taxis. Those looking for an impressive, slightly chilling outing will get exactly that.

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