Attraction Review: Psycho Path

After finally visiting on Saturday, I think I can safely say Psycho Path, the north east's biggest scare attraction located near Newcastle-upon-Tyne, is the UK's most unique scream park. Every year I try to visit new-for-me attractions and last year some friends and I agreed that we would finally make a visit up to Psycho Path happen. As with most of these things, I did very little research so I had no idea really what to expect, only that Psycho Path was a scream park setup with a reputation for doing things a little differently. And, after years of doing this, anything different is like music to my ears!

The event setup is perfect for the north of England during October - a giant indoor warehouse that has serious spooky WOW factor upon entering. But, to get there you have to wander past a giant satanic head and through a dark corridor with an ominously flickering neon light at the end as creatures lunge at you. The vibe is very 'underground rave', which certainly sets the tone for what to expect from the rest of the event. It's clear from the outset this place is 'edgy', but in a raw and legitimate way, not in a trying-too-hard kind of way that you sometimes get from these places. 

The atmosphere in the main hub is incredible - all neon lights and fog and fire and actors on stilts making people scream. The central VIP bar is adorned with a giant smoking wolf head, and a neon pentagram looms as the backdrop for the main stage, that itself boasts a non-stop rota of performances from fire-breathers to drag artists and more. Entrances to three of the haunts are also housed here, meaning you can enjoy the entertainment whilst you wait, which is an excellent touch and not something I've seen replicated elsewhere. 

Outside felt a lot more familiar - for me it was reminiscent of Tulley's Shocktoberfest ten years ago, which is exciting to consider! We grabbed a drink to set ourselves up for the night at the well-themed Blood Bath Bar which reminded me of many a goth nightclub I'd frequent when I was at uni before heading out for our first maze. I'll note right here that before this we got straight in line for Crawl Space, which we were told spaces fill up for really quickly - and they were right: we missed out by about ten slots which is a real shame as it sounds like nothing else I've ever experienced! No spoilers though, I'm saving it for next time.

Our first haunt of the night was The Darkness - a 'bag-on-head' style setup that I understand was a last minute replacement for what is usually a corn maze. As someone who has done a lot of these, I personally don't find them very scary or effective, but given the reactions of literally everybody else around us it was clear this was a hit! The maze was HUGE and long and winding, and the actors were really giving it their all, doubling down on those who gave them the bigger reactions. I can't fault it, this style of maze is just not my personal preference.

Up next - Vandalism, an attraction notorious for its unhinged opening scene where guests are literally bundled into the back of a van by balaclava wearing thugs and taken for a rough joy ride. Insane, I loved it! You're then dumped in the middle of nowhere out the back of the park and have to find your way back through the debris-covered landscape to civilisation, via some unsavoury characters of course. This part was really creepy and intimidating - very much a 'found item'/junkyard style setup but without a solid theme you really have no idea what you're about to walk into next so I loved the tension of that. I think this maze would benefit from some atmospheric soundtrack - a lot of the scenes are silent, save for the actors screaming, and at some points the silence was a little awkward.

When I say this event is unique, Doll House: The Factory is exactly what I'm talking about. Guests enter the house and are processed on a conveyor belt to begin the process of being turned into dolls. Literally and physically. I'm talking getting covered in face-paint, forced to put on a doll dress, tagged with a price tag and saran wrapped before being pushed out of the exit. Obviously with so much physical interaction involved in this attraction throughputs are something of an issue, but that is offset slightly by pallet maze sections to break up the scenes. That said, these do take the edge off the fun of the main scenes so the pacing was a little bit up and down. But the themed scenes were really creepy and well done, the actors clearly LOVED their roles (who wouldn't love getting to paint swear words on people's heads all night?) and being physically transformed into something else as part of a horror maze experience is something I have never seen before.

With 10/10 on Psycho Path's own scare rating, our group were very nervous (and excited) to get inside Psychotorium. New for 2025, Psychotorium is the self-professed 'most intense experience' the team behind Psycho Path have ever created, and that I would agree with. And experience is absolutely the right word - participants go from scene to scene through a dramatised version of a US prison. And everything is captured: to start with you're forced into prison jumpsuits before being marched in for processing where you get a phone call from your loved ones on the outside world. This is followed by a sermon from an 'enthusiastic' priest, a violent screw finding contraband in your cell, a shanking in the prison yard, being shocked in an electric chair before finally, breaking out of the joint by crawling through a tunnel access by sliding underneath the morgue. It's an incredible experience - more theatre than horror maze but each scene is more terrifying than the last and very immersive. It takes a lot to scare me these days but the rituals Psychotorium puts you through did it for me!

I'd being eyeing up Isolation all night as we walked past it several times and I saw everything from a woman being walked around on a lead and made to howl, to kids running out the wrong way screaming and crying. And admittedly I was nervous. So nervous that I almost bailed out of doing it - more so because I do not like or enjoy the humiliation style scares that a lot of these solo experiences tend to lean into. But I put my big girl knickers on and got on with it and before I knew it I found myself crawling through a tunnel towards a blood and gore covered man. And then it all got a bit weird - the whole scene was essentially him just describing how he was going to torture me whilst holding my head, and then it was over. Then I met a burning priest with a really cool actually smouldering costume, who essentially did the same thing, and then it was over? I'm not sure if I went the wrong way, or skipped a scene, but it was nowhere near as intense as I thought it was going to be and I was actually a little disappointed it wasn't too bad in the end. 

We almost missed Cut-Throat Island as it's hidden right at the back of the park, but I am so glad we didn't! Upon entering the attraction you board a HUGE pirate ship and the tone was immediately set as we were introduced to Shipwreck the Slag - yes, this is a pirate themed horror maze full of innuendo-laden drag show style humour. More laughs than screams but with a grotesque, seedy undertone - we howled our heads off the whole way round and if we'd had more time I think we would have done it again.

We bounced into Psycho Path's clown maze next, and admittedly I was pleasantly surprised! After a night of unusual experiences it was nice to get back to a more traditional horror maze setup, which this most certainly is, but it's Psycho Path so of course there are a few twists. I'm talking a ball-pit room with a slide, a shipping container filled with fog so thick you can't see your hand in front of your face and the general unhinged acting style that I very quickly grew to adore from the Psycho Path cast. 

We ended our night with Psycho City, another more traditional horror maze setup with another junkyard/found object theme but across a HUGE sprawling layout that took us all the way around the edge of the park itself. After a night almost completely devoid of them in lieu of a more unique approach, Psycho City was stacked FULL of jump scares, which were hilariously amplified by the reactions of the rest of our group who were seemingly the most on-edge people I've ever met, lord knows what they were doing at a scream park! There's always something really disgusting and unnerving about a junk-themed maze - that rough-around-the-edges approach always leaves me feeling slightly more on edge than a more polished and well finished attraction, and I loved Psycho City for that.

Our night at Psycho Path went by far too quickly, and there's so much there we did not manage to experience every attraction, which is an incredible feat for an event like this. It really is on its way to being the 'Tulleys' of the north - an excellent night out for those who want intense scares attractions as well as those who just want to vibe in a spooky atmosphere. I easily could have not experienced any of the haunts themselves and still have an excellent night at Psycho Path - I can't believe it took me this long to visit but I will absolutely be back, if only just to experience Crawl Space and do Psychotorium again! An incredible attraction that I'd implore any haunt enthusiast to get up to as soon as you can to see for yourself.

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Have you visited Psycho Path? What do you think is the most intense attraction there? Let me know in the comments, I'd love to have a chat!

Talk later xoxo,