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Petition to bring back the Nemesis inferno whipping theme….

And in an actually useful post, more supports:

Alright, visited on Tuesday (for my first proper Fright Nights experience outside of the passholder preview day 2 years ago), here's my maze reviews and some thoughts: Trailers This is a maze that a lot of you will be aware that I have been extremely vocal about since my first runthrough on opening year. I thought it was dreadful the first time I did it - predictable scares across the board and the rooms are too small. I still think this is the case for the most part, however my runthrough this year was significantly better as for some reason or another, me and my friend ended up losing the ENTIRE group that we went in with after just the first dentist scene - so we basically had a SLKSTN EXCLUSIVE runthrough with all the actors' attention in all of the rooms fixated on us. It was our first maze of the evening too (as we both hated it when we did it last and wanted to just get it out of the way), but both came out very, very impressed. I even ended up running out of the maze, which isn't something I often end up doing in scare attractions. There's definitely a few rooms here and there that are pretty weak - Hell Cell and Vulcan Voodoo stand out immediately to me, I'm sure there was others too. Room highlights though were definitely 'Nightmare on Staines Street' and the finale room. In the nightmare scene, I was so fixated by the person coming out of the bed that I totally forgot that there's also somebody behind the window and it made me jump out of my skin - not something I expected to be doing in Trailers after my last experience where I didn't jump at all. The finale was also great because we had the spark machines working for a change, which (again) wasn't something we experienced on our first runthrough in 2021. Trailers was my second favourite maze of the evening. Stitches We then moved on to Stitches, which surprisingly didn't have the ridiculous queue that I expected considering it's the nEw FoR 2023 maze. I quite liked it. I agree with what @JoshC. said that it's definitely more eerie than scary - I didn't get jumpscared very often, but was definitely uncomfortable whilst walking through. Some of the strobe and LED lighting in there really did blind you which totally throws you off and puts you even more on edge for potential jumpscares (which didn't really happen for the most part unfortunately). The finale room was very very creepy and the strobe lighting makes it virtually impossible to distinguish the difference between real actors and the mannequins - unfortunately, however, there didn't appear to be any real actors in there in our runthrough... or at the very least we just got unlucky and wasn't targeted which did put a bit of a dampener on what was for the most part a terrific maze. Overall though, it's a great maze - and I'd be very surprised if it didn't return for '24. I just hope that if it does, they focus more on scares. The atmosphere is there, but there's no real payoff. I somewhat hope that if this maze is expected to be on the horizon for a while that this replaces Trailers and utilises the permanent exterior to model a good looking toy shop from it. I feel like Stitches could really benefit from this, and would make more sense to do this than it does with Trailers. However, the current setup does work - so if the park are looking to replace Trailers, I'd rather they replace it with something new entirely instead. Survival Games My oh my was this intense. Being separated from your group right the start sets the tone for the rest of the attraction and it's great. My favourite element of this attraction is the focus on physical touch. I wish this was something that happened across the board for the Thorpe mazes (you know, being the 'thrill' park of the UK, I think they could get away with only super intense mazes but I understand they probably don't want to open that can of worms and possibly limit their clientele). Being grabbed and dragged by the actors inside of that building really adds a whole other layer to the experience, and like someone mentioned above you do find yourself trying to evade the actors rather than actively seek them out. I found myself purposefully going around in circles just to avoid actors in the hopes that they wouldn't still be there by the time I come back around. The total free-flow element of the maze is great too, because it means you essentially get to decide for yourself just how long you spend in there. Obviously you could get lucky (or unlucky in this instance) and make a beeline straight for the exit, but it's definitely part of the fun to just get yourself lost in there. Me and my friend even got dragged into a room at one point, forced to kneel down and have a moo-off. 10/10 would do again. The Crows of Mawkin Meadow Gonna keep this one short and sweet - it's just as eerie as always. The Crows will forever be one of my favourite Fright Nights characters and concrete proof that loud doesn't always mean scary within scare attractions. They utilised all of that extra space perfectly too and I loved the little tents with concept art and stuff hung up on the walls. Creature Campus Gonna keep this one short too - it's much better than I expected. Dance shows aren't really my 'thing', but considering we had just got off Stealth and was like 3 minutes until the show began, I thought I'd give it a watch and was very pleasantly surprised. Good dancing, good music, but slightly awkward ending that left a lot of people standing around in silence wondering what was happening - nobody applauded as I don't think anybody really thought that's where it ended. I suppose it's a bit difficult to establish an 'ending' for a dance show though, so probably just part and parcel of that type of experience. Lucifer's Lair This was great too. Probably not everyone's cup of tea, but I really liked it. The guy playing Lucifer hollering out and just ripping into everybody walking past was fun to sit and observe too, with security even having to step in a couple of times due to people actually getting triggered and chatting back 💀 How people can't see that it's just a character, and that 'it aint that deep bro'. Misc Also agree re the themed audio and parkwide audio this year. With the exception of Detonator, it was very weak across the board this year. I love the Stealth default launch audio - don't get me wrong - but it's definitely one of those attractions that absolutely warrants themed audio for every event considering (at current) it is the park's staple, leading attraction. Also, if you choose the 6pm-9pm timeslots for mazes, consider your night ride time extremely limited. I went on a Tuesday before kids have broken up from school, which by all accounts was considered a 'quiet' day, and still only ended up with just about an hour's worth of night rides. I can only imagine this will be even worse, if not impossible, once the kids have broken up from school. Next time I'll probably take the discount and go for the 3pm-6pm slots instead and just allow myself to enjoy the rest of the evening riding the coasters - especially if all of the mazes are indoors again like they are this year. Also, to answer my previous question about whether Ghost Train shuts early on Fright Nights... it doesn't. It was on a 15 minute queuetime at closing time on Tuesday, however it's worth noting that it didn't actually open until 3pm, which I thought was a bit odd. I'd have thought the park would want to have actors in Walking Dead and Ghost Train early before they have to be pulled out and out in mazes, but I guess not!

Loved Stitches on Friday 13th, didn't love the 70+ minute queue meaning we were unsure if we'd get all 3 mazes - THAT WE HAD PAID FOR - done. We did, just about, but only because Josh was oN PaRk and told us Trailers had no queue so ended up going on at 8.55pm as a group of 4, and was an incredible run. Will probably sit out Fright Nights next year unless I can get a ticket for Blue Light day as I begrudge pay-per-maze anyway, and would imagine just the 1 new maze next year.

Ahhh yes, that's our tactic too - either be at the front, or hang back and wait for everyone to get through. It amazes me how slowly some people go through the haunts (another reason not to do Hellements!) Definitely the most actors, agreed! Some great moments of hands jumping out from walls, actors appearing from seemingly nowhere in some of the rooms when just looking into the darkness - was so impressed and they are to be commended. Top notch. As I say - Cottage, Coven at Cellar were highlights for us. We literally said the same! People genuinely don't realise that Cottage is there - similarly, Wastelands had some very very short queues too, and again, I think people would oddly not realise it's there and just think that area was for the fire and dance show. Agreed. We always give The Island (or whatever it's called that year) a go and just generally find it long and not up to par with the rest. Hellements as I say does not scare me in the slightest, though I guess it may for some - I just find it tedious and frustrating, and whilst on it all I can think is, when can I get out so I can go and see the Coven again haha. Wonder what 2024 will bring - the rumoured second maze in Wastelands? Oh - forgot to mention - loved the changes to Hayride, especially Bad Santa!

Sadly I think this is the likely outcome. Just build filler rides, there's literally nothing wrong with it and certainly helped Thorpe's initial growth.