Vid TR: Thorpe Park's Fright Nights

[WildMouse]

Not seen any Thorpe Park Fright Night trip reports on here. So I thought I'd post one on my visit last Tuesday.

 

I spent a full 12 hours (exausted by the end of it!) on park where I met up with some fellow Thorpe fans from the SouthParks forum.

 

As well as going for the night riding opportunities (Rush, Colossus and Nemesis Inferno are amazing in the dark), we also took in their two 'new for 2005' horror mazes, The Asylum and Hellgate.

 

Hellgate was my favourite of the two walkthroughs. Mainly due to its excellent Victorian/gothic style set pieces, and touchy feely actors who don’t hold back on the scares. The actors in here seemed to have a lot more passion than those found inside the Asylum. The hooded mannequins, ‘clicking freak’ (the noise it made was pretty disturbing ), ‘dead’ bodies in the cells and the hanging girl were personal highlights. Nice to see they kept the cool ‘scream face’ wall panel (after the revolving tunnel) that was used in Freak Show 3D. I went in not expecting too much, but came out thinking 'wow'! Just a shame the storyline was drowned out by people waiting in the queue line.

 

The Asylum was fun, but also disappointing. Just felt like a re-hash of the Freezer (which existed up until last year), but in reverse. Place didn’t really resemble an asylum unfortunately. I would like to have seen a straight jacked freak or two added into the mix, plus maybe some scenes where we see doctors trying to ‘control’ the patients in a bloodthirsty manner.

Good points were the excellent use of mirrors. Bumped into them many at time, and was also met with a fair few dead ends! Like last year (in the Freezer), the strobe lighting gave the effect that the room was spinning.

I felt that the actors didn’t really do much to scare. Most of the time just stood and rocked from side to side, though a couple of them did make an effort and run at us/follow us. There was no finale. You just walk along a dark section, then out through the double doors. I’d like it if chainsaw guy actually chased peeps out of the maze, rather than just sit on a table. It would have provided perfect photo opportunities for the ‘official’ photographers who were wandering round the park, trying to take peoples money. I’m sure some of the expressions would have been priceless, and they’d have made a roaring trade from it. But I digress.

 

There was also a show called Carnival of the Bizarre, which is a scaled down version of The Circus of Horrors (http://www.circusofhorrors.co.uk/). I saw exactly the same show as last year (almost word for word), so it bored me to death. Even the people in our group who'd never seen it before weren’t impressed! The show was housed inside a 4D cinema, so would have been a lot better if they'd mix some of the effects in with the show i.e. water for the scenes which involve blood and vibrating seats for when a member of the cast is 'electrocuted'. Simple ideas, yet effective.

This didn’t stop Fright Nights being the best visit to the park this year. Always is. But what Thorpe really needs is another horror walkthrough to cope with the high demand, and also open the mazes earlier than 4pm the closer to Halloween it gets, as the queues get stupidly long over the last weekend. Would also be nice if Thorpe made more effort with the Halloween theming around the park. That all important 'Halloween atmosphere' was severely lacking. Hopefully we'll see a scare zone or two added next year.

 

You can find a video I made here:

http://www.zippyvideos.com/4873706651975576/frightnights05lq/wildmouse

 

a few piccies below. rest are in www link.

Asylum area

Asylum entrance

Stealth tophat

Brother of Lichtenstein

Professor Lichtenstein

Yes that is a Blackpool Pleasure Beach logo at Thorpe Park!

Edited October 29, 2005 by WildMouse

[jackskellington101]

Sweet! Nice TR! I saw some of that stuff out and being constructed or waiting for it's place by Colossus when I was there. It's cool to see it in place. I'm shocked though that you didn't pump the Beetlejuice music for Rocky Express. That still blows me away.

 

---Stuart

[Inferno Insane]

Great report there Carl, really enjoy reading it but what a smashing video thou 8). Really brought all the enjoyment we all had out again .

[PhishyBrewer]

LMAO! That was off the hook