The Halloween season has now drawn to a
close (sad face) and I thought it would be nice to round off the 2013
season with an event I had never experienced before. That, and it was
free, so why not?
The morning of the 1st of
November a small group of us set off East towards Norfolk for
Pleasurewood Hills' Halloween event Pleasurewood Chills. Anybody who
has been to the park before can forgive me for having low
expectations for this event, but I am glad to say that I left the
park feeling a tad ashamed of myself, it was really awesome and such
a breath of fresh air when you're used to the Merlin Halloween stuff,
that even when changed for a year, still feels like the same old same
old. So let me tell you a bit about it.
We arrived at about
2.30pm to a half empty car park and were informed by staff that this
was their least busy day of the week. Good news for us but not great
considering we were still in half term at this point. The park were
very accommodating, they presented us with press passes (yay) and
into the park we went.
The music around the entrance was
awesome, really dramatic and mood setting. It would have been even
better if there was a bit more lighting. It didn't make a difference
as we entered the park as it was still daylight but once night fell
the park was incredibly dark, you can see clearly why they don't
operate the rides after sundown. However I am informed that this
plans to be changed next year with the hopes of hiring some
generators so that should be good. To the right of the entrance plaza
the park had set up two photo points – the first was a beheading
scene and the second was a noose, complete with a vulgar scarecrow
character to pose with. He was really horrible, the costume was
properly scary (a theme that would continue throughout this event).
Further around the entrance plaza were typical Halloween
gumpf like hay bales and pumpkins, and the flag poles surrounding all
bore Pleasurewood Chills themed flags. Also dotted around the park
were event specific sign posts directing guests towards the direction
of the haunts dotted throughout the park – a great touch especially
for those not familiar with the park layout.
The first activity up on the agenda was
pumpkin carving – a free activity put on by the park hosted by a
morose Jason character whose nonchalant stories of his murder
rampages (“Went killin' last night”) kept us entertained as we
worked away. I made a crap Coasterforce one, which now lives in a
pile of other unwanted pumpkins which have no doubt been thrown away
by now, hurray! I loved this attraction, such a simple idea that
families seem to have gone nuts for, and the way Pleasurewood have it
set up is that the guests help contribute to the seasonal decoration
of the park with their own pumpkins. Fab.
After dumping our pumpkin effort we
made our way over to the attraction I was most looking forwards to –
Hob's Pit. The attraction has received relatively good reviews
throughout the year and Pleasurewood have cranked it up for Halloween
by adding in loads more scare actors. To say it took me by surprise
is an understatement. It absolutely blew me away! I won't ruin
anything because I found that the second time around it wasn't as
enjoyable because I knew what was coming, but my god. The effects!
The theming! The pacing! The gore! For the few minutes inside this
attraction I definitely didn't feel that I was in the Pleasurewood
Hills I know. It truly is an outstanding attraction, my favourite
Halloween attraction of the 2013 season and the park should be
incredibly proud of themselves for pulling something like this off.
It is clear why LA Times recently named this attraction as one of the
top 13 scare attractions in the world!
We left Hob's Pit in a
kind of stunned silence and hung around for the 4:00pm showing of
Spooky Storytellers. Pleasurewood Hills have been rather clever with
their Halloween event and have done something I haven't seen many
other parks (except maybe Alton Towers) do well. They have a real
vast range of attractions – from the 12a Hob's Pit to things like
Spooky Storytellers which is a small ghost story show for children.
It was rather modest but the actors were enthusiastic and seemed to
drum up a nice crowd considering how dead the park was. Another good
point about this attraction I that once the show is over the
characters mingle with the guests and spend their time scaring people
until the next shows begins, which was fun to see.
For the Pleasurewood Chills event the
park have transformed Tales of the Coast to Tales of the Haunted
Coast, which is essentially the same ride but with more live actors.
It is a good concept, just not executed very effectively. On our ride
only two actors were used, and whilst they did a great job in scaring
us themselves there were large gaps of nothing which could easily
have been used for one or two more scares.
Directly opposite
the Spooky Storytellers stage was a weird yet hilarious set up called
Trick or Treat. The attraction consists of two doors which, upon
knocking, will provide either a trick or a treat (shockingly). These
can be anything from sweets, to a park mascot appearing, to being
screamed in the face at or squirted with a water gun. It was
brilliant fun and everybody of all ages seemed to be enjoying it, it
was one of the busiest attractions we saw all day and a fantastical
and original (as far as I've seen) concept.
Next in line was
the Horror Express, a creepy walk through a ghost train. For me this
was the least imaginative of Pleasurewood's offerings in the sense of
being much like what I'd seen before. Some cool effects were used
though such as a spinning room with a flickering light to create the
illusion of movement and a terrifying butcher behind plexiglass.
Horror Express was fun but it felt a little awkward and staggered,
some music inside the attraction may have made a difference to the
flow of this walk through. However considering this Halloween
offering was put together by a team at Pleasurewood itself it is a
good effort on all parts and hopefully things can only improve from
what we experienced.
Out final attraction for the day was the
acclaimed Satan's Circus, created by the creative design team at
AtmosFEAR! Scare Entertainment. If this attraction is anything to go
by, hiring an outside company to create your scare attractions is a
must do for any novice park wishing to put on a Halloween event. This
attraction was the perfect combination of black comedy and freakshow
horror. It was such a breath of fresh air to see a different style of
'scaring' being utilised aside from being yelled at in the face. This
walkthrough featured everything from loud noises, grotesque sights,
disgusting smells and over-the-top gross out costumes alongside a
subtle comedic tone. The whole thing is just weird, think Alice in
Wonderland meets Rob Zombie. I couldn't tell if I was laughing or
screaming throughout the whole attraction, just amazing stupid fun.
Afterwards we were lucky enough to meet with some of the team
behind the attraction who talked us through how some of the effects
used were achieved and let us have a picture with Satan himself as a
keepsake for our time in his circus, so thank you very much for your
time guys!
We took one more spin on Hob's Pit before calling
it a night at Pleasurewood Chills. The roaming characters around the
parked scared us right out of the door. I left the event feeling
pleasantly surprised. More than a handful of exceptional horror
attractions at a park that I have always felt is rather under
appreciated. If this year's event is anything to gauge by I would say
definitely give Pleasurewood Chills a visit next Halloween, it was so
much fun and the creative input was incredible and original, it would
be brilliant to see the park getting a few more numbers through the
door next season to ensure that they can continue to put on excellent
events such as this one and continue to grow as a theme park.
And that wraps it up for my Halloween reviews. Hope everybody had an amazing time and have enjoyed reading about what I got up to!
