Our second haunt of the weekend last week took us to the excellent FEAR Scream Park, located in the South West of the UK just outside of Bristol. This was my third time visiting this event, with two new attractions since I last darkened their doorways back in 2021 so I was very excited to see how things had changed in just a few short years. 

Similarly to Tulley's Shocktoberfest, FEAR has a very 'music festival' vibe in its setup - with the entire park itself dotted with pop up bars, streetfood and bonfires giving the whole place that delicious crisp Octobery smell throughout the whole event. Fitting, as the event are known for their iconic fire show which clearly inspired many a UK scream park after they debuted theirs, and it's something that still draws crowds years on, albeit with updated visuals and music nowadays, courtesy of the legendary Archie Music. 

Something that always stands out to me about FEAR is the atmosphere they create. Their roaming street team of deranged freak show residents torture guests wandering through trying to make their way from maze to maze so the air is punctuated with shrieks followed by maniacal clown laughter. That combined with the bonfire smell, lights and flames in the air and a great soundtrack is an absolute treat and it's hard not to just wander around soaking up the vibe. 

But of course, there are haunts to talk about! As always I'll review these in the order we experienced them and my spooky pumpkin factor is based on how scary I found the attraction overall. 

My first new-for-me attraction at FEAR was The Exorcism. Going in blind promptly at 18.15PM that evening, I knew nothing about this thing other than it wasn't a horror maze and it's been widely praised by scare enthusiasts across the country, so I was very eagerly to discover what awaited within. 

I want to try not to spoil this too much because honestly, sitting in there knowing nothing of what was to come is arguably what made it so very excellent to me. Essentially you're taken off in small groups and sit in a dark attic room accompanied by a priest, a nun and some poor soul strapped to a bed possessed by some sort of demon, and we witness an exorcism play out. And oh my god, it is the most scared I've been in a scare attraction in years. The small cast of just three actors were excellent at playing off of each other and very convincingly delivered the entire unholy scene - I was absolutely captivated by all three of them.

It's the intimacy that makes The Exorcism so terrifying. Small groups in a fairly large, very dark room leaves you feeling extremely exposed, and the way all three of the actors move around the room amongst the set pieces and the shadows combined with the way we're sat in a circle means you really do not know where they're going to come from next. 

There's also a ton of excellent special effects in there that amplify the already terrifying scene playing out before us - again I won't go into detail as I don't want to spoil anything but there were some serious WOW moments that had my jaw on the floor. Given this is the attraction's second season I'm very surprised we haven't seen these pop up elsewhere in the UK as we know how scare attractions love to inpsire one another!

I really can't praise The Exorcism enough. It's got hauntingly beautiful set-design, mind-blowing special effects, brilliant actors and above all, it's absolutely petrifying. Kudos to FEAR for doing something so excellent and for bringing something so original and unique to the UK scare circuit, it really is a jewel. 

A kind of sister (pun intended) attraction to The Exorcism, Malefica sees us enter the belly of the Sisters of Mercy Church which is unfortunately overrun by the tortured souls of the sisters who met their tragic end in the flames. Why are nuns so bloody spooky? I don't know why but they really are. Winding deeper and deeper through the excavation site of the church itself we move through several rooms within the church - a crypt where a nun literally crawled out of a wall in front of me and fell at my feet which was absolutely vile, a congregation of creatures sat waiting in the pews for us to squeeze past and the finale - which again I will not spoil but it's an absolute showstopper. 

The team at FEAR really understand how to create a spectacle in their attractions and the ending of Malefica is a testament to that - again it had us WOWing our way through the screams as we made our way to the exit. 

The next three mazes we did, VITA NOVA, X4 and The Core, live in a slightly separate 'land' within the park known as the Republic of England - an alternate timeline where a dictatorial totalitarian government reminiscent of George Orwell's 1984 have taken over and are enforcing their horrific regime. Again - I'm very surprised we haven't seen other scream parks do this because it's just another way FEAR elevates itself thematically away from other UK scare attractions and goes that extra mile with their storytelling, which I feel really amplifies the impact of the mazes themselves. 

Anyway - VITA NOVA! I think on my Instagram story I said it's like The Smiler meets the current government and I stand by that. It's not post-apocalyptic, but it is sci-fi in the same way that things like Brazil and Clockwork Orange are. Uncanny in that it feels similar to our current timeline but just a tine bit too fantastical to be non-fiction. 

VITA NOVA is very unique in its theme - all bright neon lights, stark white walls and mirrors. It feels very dystopian and futuristic in there, bleak and soulless juxtaposed with the over the top, intense and sickly smiles of the residents within reminding us to take our VITA NOVA so we can live in a state of Euphoria in the Republic of England. It's sadly so disturbing because it really hits home in the current climate, and even more so because you largely experience this attraction alone as you're split up at the start! It's not intense jump scares like Malefica, more a slow burn of an overwhelming sense of dread that creeps up on you throughout. 

When I say FEAR do things differently, no attraction exemplifies this more than The Core. Set within an abandoned sewage plant, this maze is unique in that guests have to don waders as some scenes are submerged in water. Yep, you read that right.

Sadly, I'm one of what I assume is the minority of FEAR guests who have experienced Below at Walibi Holland's Fright Nights which I believe inspired The Core, so wearing waders in a horror maze was not a first for me and so some of the novelty factor was lost there but that is speaking for me personally. I am very glad to see something so different like this available for us to enjoy right here in the UK and I will always appreciate a maze that completely turns the horror attraction formula on its head like The Core does. 

The Core is a beautiful attraction - it feels incredibly real, like we really are submerged in sewers underground. It's really hard to believe that this is all a set created just for us and it's a testament to how the set design at FEAR just gets better and better with every attraction. Storywise this one wasn't my favourite as I did find it hard to follow, but to be honest I may very well have been so distracted by the whole putting on waders and getting in the water thing that I missed half of the exposition. I do feel like the maze just ends without any kind of major finale moment like some of the other haunts at FEAR have, but again I was having so much fun trudging through each scene that I was sad to see the (literal) light at the end of the tunnel.

I remember the X4 marketing campaign so well that this maze has become kind of iconic to me. I loooove me an alien maze, and I don't actually think they're utilised enough at scare events. Please can aliens become to new obligatory clown maze, or do not enough people find aliens as pant-wettingly terrifying as I do? 

Anyway, once again the FEAR team really go out of their way to ensure that what could be a run-of-the-mill straightforward haunt into something way more theatrical. We walk through scenes of scientists testing in labs, we see the alien test subject behind bars as a security breach plays out (I will say here I do miss the original Extra-Terrorestrial inspired scene here...), we board a Sub-Terra style elevator that takes us underground, we're forced to blindly navigate one of those horrendous fog chambers. It's all these little things that work together to ensure X4 is not only memorable in its own right, but that it has it's own distinct flavour from the rest of the attractions at FEAR, even if it also falls under the Republic of England sub-plot of the scream park.

I know I'm like a broken record at this point, but I always feel the need to caveat that clown mazes really don't do it for me, and I know I'm in the minority vs. the general public who love themselves a creepy clown show. House of Clowns is fun - for me the most memorable part is the ridiculously catchy soundtrack and the really gorgeous hand-painted wall graphics. It's a hoot to bounce through after the more intense attractions in the park, so it's one I always try to keep until the end, as a bit of light-hearted dessert after the horrors. 

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So yes, another absolute slam dunk of a year for FEAR. It's easy to see why this scream park gets so much praise and it's genuinely exciting to wonder what they're going to do next as they always come with something completely new and out of the box. The variety of the attractions at FEAR is second to none in the UK and if you're looking for more innovative, inventive haunts that do things you haven't seen anywhere else and you haven't already then I implore you to visit FEAR Scream Park. It's like nothing else we have in this country. 

Have you visited Fear Scream Park before? What is your favouroite haunt? Let me know in the comments, I'd love to have a chat!

Talk later xoxo,

It's spooky season once again, and once again I find my October weekends jam-packed with the biggest and best scare attractions the UK has to offer, so of course we were heading back to Dr.Frights Halloween Nights!

As far as this crazy hobby of ours goes, I think it's fair to say I've been doing this for a loooong time now, and for me I've always felt like Halloween and scare events go hand in hand with theme park enthusiasm. I love spooky stuff all year around, but try to keep visiting scare attractions as something 'special' to do in October, and as such it's something I look forward to year in, year out. I've been actively visiting parks as an enthusiast since I was 14, and I visited my first scare event when I was 16 - namely Thorpe Park Fright Nights, and that visit had me hooked for life. We have some incredible indie scare events across the country, but I will always have a soft spot for the macabre magic that Merlin attractions roll out at their events every spooky season, and today I wanted to reflect on some of my all time favs from across the years! In no particular order, these are, in my opinion, the best mazes Merlin have ever done.

Once again the most spookiest time of year is upon us and I am so ready to get my scare on across some incredible 2023 UK Halloween events! As we treated ourselves to a spooky little jaunt to Orlando a few weeks ago I sadly won't be travelling to Europe for any spooky fun over there this season, but I'll instead be focussing my efforts on experiencing as much of what the UK has to offer as my calendar (and bank balance) will allow! Between Halloween season staples, revisiting attractions I've neglected over the past few years and trying out some new-for-me haunts I cannot wait to see what this spooky season has in store.

As per usual I'll be kicking off my spooky season with a visit to the iconic Thorpe Park Fright Nights! I feel like I've neglected Thorpe a bit this year so I'm pumped to be back on the island like no other and we all know nobody does Halloween like Thorpe do. Fright Nights seems to have gone through a bit of a level up over the past few years, with scare zones really coming into their own last year so I'm very intrigued to check out how they've outdone themselves ever further for 2023. Of course, the new maze Stitches intrigues me most - it's one of the most elaborate facades we've ever seen for a Fright Nights maze so if that's anything to go by I feel like we're in for a real treat with this one!

Given the family-friendly nature of this event I've never actually made it to Legoland for Halloween before, but I'm excited to say that 2023 will be my first ever visit to Brick or Treat! There's no scare mazes as this one is aimed at younger Halloween fans, but there is a very cute looking trick or treat trail, LEGO Halloween theming AND a LEGO monster street party with tons of LEGO monster meet & greets, so obviously I couldn't pass that up. I'll be visiting with my family including my young nephew who is obsessed with monsters currently so I'm sure he'll be a massive fan. 

Dr.Frights has always been and remains one of my favourite indie Halloween events in the UK, and for 2023 they're introducing Route 666 - a brand new award-winning concept from the unhinged creative minds behind this awesome event. The thing I've always loved about Dr.Frights is their creativity - the way they present their concepts and scares is always so simply yet so effective and they have me screaming every single time. As a self-confessed obsessive with all things USA, I'm very intrigued by the Route 666 concept and I know the team are going to absolutely kill it (pun intended) with whatever madness they have in store for 2023. 

One I was gutted to miss out on last year, we made it a priority to head over to FEAR at Avon Valley for our 2023 spooky season tour. I haven't visited since 2021 so I'm very intrigued to try out the critically aclaimed The Exorcism as well as getting back inside the award winning Malefica. One of my favourite things about FEAR as an event in general though is the atmosphere around the park. Chilling with a beer with the whiff of flames in the air and a backdrop of screams is Halloween perfection. 

Another one I haven't visited for a few years now, there's a bunch of new-for-me mazes that I can't wait to have my pants scared off inside. Xtreme by name, extreme by nature, this scream park has always been up there for me as being home to some of the most intense scare mazes in the country, couple with excellent set design and detail oozing from every scene. Warehouse of the Weird, The Witches of Hard Luck Wood and Uncle Enos's Open Acres are all on my hit list for this year, as well as getting back inside the legendary Xtreme Scream Park staples like the unhinged Ash Hell Penitentiary, still to this day one of the most terrying mazes I've ever experienced. 

A rendezvous with the iconic Miss Fannie Burns has long been on my spooky season agenda so this year I'll be making a point of ensuring I head south to check out Scream Aloud. Boasting six scare mazes, including two yet-to-be announced attractions, plus a scare zone, fun fair and more, Scream Aloud is located in Lymington within the New Forest, a location famous for its history of witches and dark magic. Such a naturally spooky setting for a scream park! This is an event I'm essentially going into blind, which is my favourite way to experience these things and I'm very intrigued to see what Miss Fannie Burns has in store for us!

Another long-awaited Halloween event for me, this year will finally see me darken the doors of Blackpool Pleasure Beach's spooky season offering: Journey to Hell - Freak Nights. One of the most exciting parts about this event is the way the park integrate their iconic attractions into the event itself including haunts built around the legendary River Caves, the Ghost Train, the Dodgems and more, as well as one attraction that takes guests through the actual tunnels beneath the Pleasure Beach itself! Plus, I get to ride Icon in the dark which I've never actually done before. Come to think of it I don't actually think I've ever been in the Pleasure Beach after dark before in general so that will be cool.

It's been a long time since I've visited North East England so what better excuse to rectify that than with an award-winning scare event! Another event I'm going into fairly naive, from what I can gather this is a 'follow one path' type setup where you enter at a set time and make your way through the event as opposed to a freeflow setup with separate mazes? Seems this year there are 18 'rooms of terror' including three new for 2023 scenes which sounds absolutely massive. I've heard nothing but amazing things about this event, especially the spooky themed bar at the end and I'm equal parts terrified and excited to finally experience it for myself. 

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I'll also be swinging by Scarefest at Alton Towers, Howl'O'Ween at Chessington World of Adventures and potentially a few others that we haven't quite settled on yet. Let spooky season commence!

Talk later xoxo,

It's a theme park enthusiast discussion that's been ongoing since the dawn of time (aka the early 2000s on coaster nerd forums): park announces a new ride, releases concept art, maybe an animated visual or POV, and before the place has even had a chance to drill a support into the ground there's replies from enthusiasts complaing how it looks slow, or short, or poorly paced, or not exactly what they specifically would like to see from the park. 

And it's one that's always baffled me. Having ridden my fair share of rides, as I'm sure many of you have, I will never understand the blind confidence of an enthusiast on a message board, or indeed now on social media, boldly declaring their opinion on a ride that not only they haven't ridden, but that isn't even built yet. I wanted to dive a little deeper into this discussion today and explore why it's ultimately harmful to the eventual experience of finally getting to ride the thing to go beyond general speculation. 

So firstly, concept art and animations are meant to be, as the name might suggest, conceptual, and are never representative of the actual 100% fully signed off finished product. Especially in the very early stages of a project. So we might see different train designs, a slightly wider track, trees or rockwork where there doesn't end up being any, etc. A lot of the time, concept art is used to 'sell in' an idea as opposed to being actual, detailed blueprints of the thing. It's an idealised, top line version of what the attraction might look like and therefore you'll often find the details are foggy and vague. 

Think those wishy-washy conceptual paintngs of Epic Universe in the early days - there was pretty much no defining detail in those images but rather a generalised idea of what the park would look like. Of course this didn't stop countless YouTube channels dissecting and zooming in on every square foot of the image, speculating what might be to come, and there's nothing wrong with that at all. It's an exciting, shiny new project that we want to get hyped about after all! But what we can't do is say oh from this extremely vague concept art I determine that this ride/attraction/park is going to be rubbish and immediately start slating it because there's no fact or detail to be garnered from it. It's outrage and disappointment based on nothing at all (looking at you, Disney 'fans' slating Tiana's Bayou Adventure concept art...) 

The next point is more specifically about rollercoasters. Anybody who's ridden...any rollercoaster ever can surely agree to the fact that even the most high quality, HD, crystal clear POV cannot convey the actual forces felt on a coaster. Because sometimes, forces come completely out of nowhere and catch us off guard (and those are the best ones in my opinion!) I'm thinking SkyRush's first drop - there's insane ejector airtime on that thing that you would never be able to predict from a POV, or even the top hat on Velocicoaster. Yes, seasoned enthusiasts can watch a POV of a coaster we've never ridden and get a vague idea of what forces will happen where but it's never 100% accurate until we actually ride the thing. 

Maybe I'm alone in this, but I find it infuriating when enthusiasts say a coaster looks slow, or forceless, or has no airtime, but they've never ridden it and have only watched a POV. I know in the past I've had countless debates with people who will argue with their whole chest that they know what the experience is like from watching loads of YouTube videos, but let's be real, you cannot really have a fully formed opinion on any ride until you've ridden it yourself. You can certainly argue whether you think something looks fun or not based on your personal tastes and what you know you personally like from a ride, but to say something flat out IS bad without having ridden it yourself is crazy to me. 

And to add to that - when you watch a POV the only sense of the ride you get is visual, maybe a little aural, but I'd argue the latter depends on the quality of the video in question. Your sensory is experience of the ride is reduced to a detached visual one (eg filtered through the lens of a camera and then again through the screen of the device you're watching on). You're completely removed from the actual sensation of the ride itself, audio nuances, smells and any other sensations you'd feel in real life. ALL of these things are purposefully designed to elevate the ride experience, and to judge a ride without experiencing those things altogether in the symphony it is intended to be is reductive, and ignorant to the ride designers and their intentions for the attraction experience. 

Finally, and this is the kicker for me personally, I do not understand the idea of wanting to experience a ride for the first time having already made up your mind on what you think the experience will be. I actively will not watch POVs of rides I haven't been on for the most part, because I do not want to have any bias in my brain for how my actual enjoyment of the thing will pan out. Also spoilers! So many rides have little things that happen that come out of nowhere, and personally I do not get why anybody would want to take away from the joy of being surprised by that for the first time in real life. If you watch a POV of a coaster and decide it looks crap, then surely when you ride it yourself for the first time you're boarding the thing expecting it to be crap? I do not understand self-sabotage like that, for me I'd much rather board for the first time with a blank slate and make my mind up after the fact. And usually even then it takes a few gos to get a fully rounded opinion. 

In conclusion, don't judge before you ride! Not only is it irritating when debating with those who actually have ridden the thing, but it's non-sensical for attractions that literally haven't been built yet and also detrimental to your eventual experience of the ride itself. Imagine, discuss and speculate to your heart's content of course but leave the final judgement until after the fact. 

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What do you think? Are you guilty of this? Do you think you can get a good idea of what a ride will be like from POVs and concept art alone? Let me know in the comments, I'd love to have a chat!

Talk later xoxo,

The Land of Legends Theme Park located in Kadriye, about 40 minutes outside of central Antalya, is on of Turkey's biggest entertainment resorts. Including a massive water park, a shopping avenue complete with night time show, an on-location hotel and of course, the theme park itself, the Land of Legends Resort has been on many a theme park enthusiast's bucket list since it opened in 2016. When the park's Mack Rides hypercoaster, aptly named Hyper Coaster, opened in 2018, I knew it was somewhere I wanted to visit and so this summer we did something very out of character and booked a package holiday to a bougie Turkish all-inclusive hotel, located just ten minutes down the road in Belek, with the intent on visiting Land of Legends as part of our vacation. 

Last month saw the terribly sad news that the Jetline rollercoaster at Stockholm's Grona Lund amusement park derailed, resulting in the death of one rider and severe injuries for several others. It's always terrible when tragic accidents like this occur, but then I saw somebody on Twitter point out that this was the third instance of a derailing like this occurring on similar coaster types, which begs the harrowing question: could this have been avoided? 

We're very lucky, especially as roller coaster enthusiasts, to exist in a bit of a roller coaster golden age. There's never been as many operating coasters in the world as there are right now as far as I am aware, and that is showing no sign of slowing down with newer, bigger and better coasters appearing year after year. We've also gained tons of knowledge about how to look after these machines in better and safer ways than we ever have before, meaning that the first properly bold and levelled-up designs we saw emerging in the early nineties are still able to deliver thrills to riders 25+ years later. 

And that's fantastic - with the explosion of social media the small forums and message boards full of theme park nerds like us who care about this stuff expanding from a dusty tucked away corner of the internet in the early 2000s into the cold light of modern day there's now a louder cry than ever for parks to take care of what are now classed as heritage attractions, and that public pressure means parks are investing in ways to keep these attractions running for as long as possible. 

Which is of course brilliant, but as with all things like this where is the cut off point? Is it safe or necessary to keep a roller coaster running after decades of continual operation? According to a very quick Google search I just did, the average lifespan of a car is about twelve years, or 200,000 miles (300,000 if well maintained). And we all know how that goes, towards the end of your car's life things can get a little bit janky, even if you're very good at looking after it. It's just the way machines go, and so surely the same can be said of roller coasters?

So, what to do? Because theme parks are places that are so intrinsically linked with heightened emotion, childhood nostalgia and general joy, it's easy to understand why these machines mean so much to people and why so many of us grow real, personal attachments to the things. The thought of the big bad theme park taking a wrecking ball to a ride you have fond memories of really is heart breaking, and realistically no park in the world wants to take the decision to permanently remove iconic rides. In fact I'd say that often those working in the parks have an even stronger attachment!

The good news is, it seems like the parks are very much aware that we're approaching a point in the theme park timeline where a lot of big, iconic coasters are nearing the end of their lifespan, and have been showcasing lots of different ways to keep attractions alive in one way or another. 

Retrack

Something that seems to be a very popular option of late, retracking. Essentially this involved replacing most, if not all of a roller coaster's track like for like. We first saw this in a big way in 2015/2016 when Universal Islands of Adventure retracked their iconic Incredible Hulk coaster. UK enthusiasts are currently watching with mixed emotions as Alton Towers retrack the legendary Nemesis roller coaster. This is a fantastic way of giving roller coasters a new lease of life, and theoretically increasing the longevity of an attraction infinitely given the budgets are there. I like to think of this as the Trigger's broom solution - yes all the original parts might be long gone but essentially the machine is the same and delivering the same ride experience it always has. 

RMC

Kind of like a retrack but with a twist (literally). Often the choice for parks looking to keep older wooden coasters standing but with a modern update, parks have been calling in modern coaster manufacturers to update older rides to give them a new lease of life. RMC are most famous for doing this, spurning the phrase 'RMC it' or 'this needs to be RMC'd' referring to a rough wooden roller coaster in dire need of an update. Whilst this doesn't provide a like for like replacement ride experience like the aforementioned direct retrack approach, which may upset die hard fans, this is a fantastic compromise option. The original ride itself isn't completely gone, but also the park gets an exciting new, different addition to their attraction line-up. 

Replace

Sometimes it's not worth, or simply not possible, to retrack or update the attraction, in which case a park may decide to make the difficult decision to tear the whole ride down and replace entirely with something new. I know I'm not alone in thinking this approach can work, however what is replacing the attraction being removed better be infinitely better than what stood in its place previously. My brain here is drawn straight to Duelling Dragons/Hagrid's Magical Creatures Motorbike Adventure at Islands of Adventure. Duelling Dragons was an incredible attraction, however with all the issues in its latter years of operation and the need for some new Potter blood, AND the fact that Hagrid is an incredible ride, I'm completely at peace with the decision. Plus, there are little nods to Duelling Dragons in the Hagrid queueline if you know where to look, and that to me shows that the park understand what this coaster meant to people and are being respectful to those who miss it rather than just pretending it didn't exist. 

And then of course there are a couple of other options: tear the thing down and do not replace it, or just leave it standing but not operating (SBNO). Both options of which I'm sure everybody reading this will agree should only be considered as absolute last resorts. 

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I think we're in a really interesting point in history when it comes to what we do with these big, iconic rides in the future and I'm intrigued to see how parks continue to innovate to maintain that balance between operating safely, respecting and honouring heritage and also ensuring things feel fresh and new to keep visitors coming back for years to come.

Talk later xoxo,