Graw

honestly the font kinda reminds me of the black mirror logo. defs wouldnt happen but still, just an observation.

What music was it playing at Fright Nights? I never walked past it close enough..

Has it been officially confirmed that the ride will be family friendly though? Looking at them bulding designs, it really doesn't strike me as family friendly .

Yeah, I've known about blackout for a while! Appears to be more "wtf" factor than anything like Mckamey Manor, and just on the verge of going over the line of absolutely disgusting (in comparison to something like Psychomanteum at Scare Kingdom for example, that sounds way too messed up). It seems more mind games than actual bad stuff happening to you, and now they've stopped the waterboarding and stimulated torture they had in the first year, I'd probably do it if someone paid me .

The frog is bloody terrifying. That thing staring at us in the Studio 13 fastrack queue was definitely scarier than the entire maze. I'm not bashing Studio at all, that frog just creeps the **** out of me.

I know this is an old quote, but I'm pretty sure this Friday/Saturday they had some in what I think was the Air shop (I'm not sure), with just the logo on celebrating 20 years of Nemesis! I know they're properly celebrating the 21st anniversary, but I definitely saw these in a shop, not sure if it was Air though. They looked really nice to be honest. Random I know, but I'd just thought I'd point this out if nobody knew. Apart from that, had my first ever ride (and visit to AT!) of Nemesis on Friday, and wow is all I can say. Definitely one of my new favourite rides ever. We also did back row yesterday and that was one of the most intense ride experiences (on a roller coaster, at least), I've ever had! Loved it.

Went to Scarefest (and Alton Towers!) for the first time ever on Friday/Saturday. In comparison to the Fright Night mazes, The Sanctuary knocks every single one out of the water, in terms of theming, pace, atmosphere, actors and variety of scares. It's honestly the best maze I've ever done. It was incredible! It really showed me how good mazes could be, and actually lowered my opinion on the mazes at Thorpe to be honest! (This years FN were the first scare mazes I've done, really.) Terror of the Towers was great fun, however in our opinion, the people I was with spent more time laughing than screaming, so I'd say scares-wise it was on par with say, Studio 13 or Saw for the most of it, except the final section which was extremely intense. However, I'd still say that our runs through of MBV and CITW were both scarier than ToTT. Despite that, this maze was still better than every maze at Thorpe, with the exception of CITW to be honest (MBV was a lot more intense, and scary, but overall I've decided that ToTT is a much better maze, despite MBV being our favourite on the night, only due to the actors and the hilarious reactions of our group members). The atmosphere in ToTT was great, but not as good as The Sanctuary's. However, the tension of this maze, due to loads of extremely dark (by far the darkest maze I've done I think!) sections with slow, tense music and no actors, but some sneaky effects, was definitely the highest out of any event, probably thanks to the length of it! We thought that The Sanctuary was long, but this felt even longer! Overall, it wasn't as scary as the 2 best mazes at Thorpe, or The Sanctuary, but it was still better than every maze at Thorpe with the exception of CITW! The mazes at Scarefest were of extremely high quality, and honestly much better overall than the ones at Fright Nights! I think I've fallen in love with The Sanctuary (and The Smiler, wow!). Overall tho, I still believe Fright Nights to be a stronger scare event, solely due to the fact that it has 3 more mazes than Scarefest (yes, Scarefest has the scare-zones, but honestly these were all tamer, even the 7pm+ version of Zombies!, than every maze at Thorpe and Alton, maybe with the exception of Blair Witch, despite their brilliant theming!). So the mazes at Scarefest were way way way better, sort of lowering my opinion of Fright Nights, but overall if I was to choose to go to one or the other based on just scare attractions, I'd still go with Fright Nights.. Scarefest's atmosphere on Halloween day/night was unmatched however, so there's that.

Went to the park yesterday, and I was really suprised by which mazes I enjoyed the most/found the scariest. As I only did Saw Alive last year, I was going into all these mazes never having done them before, so keep that in mind. We had fastrack, so Saw Alive was up first. It was literally walk on with the fastrack at 5pm, but had a huge normal queue at 140 minutes, which I found weird. Anyway it was a LOT lighter than I remember, we could pretty much see everything and I must admit that the theming as a whole is brilliant. However, it was definitely the weakest maze. We must have encountered around 5 or 6 actors, all who really just bashed chains around, or grunted in our faces. There was also no pigs, and the freezer scene was really really predictable and had next to no impact. There was also no final payoff, and the maze ended pretty much randomly. 4/10, from me. Next, we had Studio 13. Going in, the first actor/the receptionist were really good, and started the maze off well. Once we were in, the first couple of actors were brilliant, really getting into our faces. However after the first few jump scares from the production scene, we reached the "doll scene" I believe, or a bit before it, and we were expecting a huge scare when the Director said "Action!" but nothing happened, except the lights and the music came back on. However, the strobes were good, the theming and use of music was brilliant in my opinion, and the final few actors really got into their roles, scaring us all. The final corridor was also brilliant, and a lot darker than I expected. We didn't wait to see the chainsaw man (men???!?), we just heard loads of extremely fast and heavy footsteps coming towards us and the revving, so we legged it out the door, which was hilarious and great fun. Overall, not very scary at all and quite low on actors, and I also can't compare it to Asylum, but it had a great theme/theming and it was extremely entertaining, so 7.5/10 from me. After, we headed to My Bloody Valentine, and I'd heard awful things from pretty much everyone, including my friends who had gone on it, however we were extremely suprised and it turned out to be our favourite (and the scariest!) maze of the night. The actors were absolutely everywhere, and they all got really really in our faces, and were all extremely aggressive/intimidating. The first actor in the hospital scene suprised us, by literally throwing the leader of our group (who spent the remainder of the maze running through, screaming whilst being relentlessy picked on!) into the hospital wall, and smashing some sort of weapon/item right near his head, before chasing us out of the room. Setting the scene for the rest of the maze, there seemed to be an actor around basically every corner, all extremely interactive and very, very angry. There didn't seem to be any "victim" miner actors, who I'd heard about, pretty much every actor (there seemed to be loads!) appeared to be out to get us. The final room, or 2 rooms, I can't remember, had about 3 Harry Warden characters, who were crazy, slamming every wall in sight, touching pretty much all of us, and causing us to run out of the maze, probably faster than we did on Studio 13! Extremely suprising, and easily my favourite maze, with possibly the best theming of the night (when you could see it!). The only downside was we didn't go through the crawl tunnels, but had the section with the low inflatable ceiling instead. However, due to the absolutely incredible actors, this gets a 9/10 from me. Loved it. Then, we had Cabin. The beginning section was great, the actors all really picking on every member of the group. However, it was really short for us, as we found the control room really fast, due to catching up with the group in front of us. When we reached the control room (there was literally about 15 of us stuffed in there, with both doors shut) nothing happened. One button appeared to cause the actor in the mask room to repeatedly sway the mask in the air towards the camera whenever we pressed the button, but nothing else worked apart from that, which was dissapointing. Then the actor in the mask room banged on the door, trying to open it, so we moved on. We ended up at the front of the now 20+ strong people group, and ended up being seperated, as the people behind us were stopped before the little crawl section. So, we finished the maze off with about 4 people, and the ending section was brilliant. I'm not quite sure what actor was in the spinning tunnel room, I couldn't actually see, but he looked huge! Then, as we were going through, a clown literally jumped out and grabbed me through a hole in the wall, and during the whole night, this was the only moment where I was genuinely terrified, and I screamed out loud and literally ran away from her (embarassing, I know!) and then she continued to follow me, so I continued to scream, and then in the whole last section with the really crazy energetic (zombie maintinence workers??) actors, jumping all over the ramps, all the actors saw me screaming and decided to pick on me, every single one grabbed me! It was crazy, so despite a really short beggining section, this was definitely one of our favourite mazes, and the most hectic. (and for me, scary!) 8.5/10. (We only did the mazes once each, and to be fair, this probably takes at least 2 runs through to really appreciate it, but still, an extremely strong maze!) Finally, we had Blair Witch. I'd heard good things but this was a bit of a let down. The entire maze was just people with baseball bats and hoods, either crawling up to us, hitting a tree, or grunting. The end section in the shed was much better than expected however, the fog was extremely strong and there was loads of people in there, so it was pretty jumpy in there, and filled with screams from every direction. The maze had a great atmosphere however, and tension-wise was the best. I'd say I give this a 6/10. Overall, the park was busy as hell, we got on about 10 rides, and each main coaster once. The only downside of the day, was we queued up for Swarm at 11 in the morning, which apparently had a 65 minute queue (which wasn't too bad), and ended up getting off it at half 1! Absolutely awful start to the day, considering we got on Colossus and Saw within about 20 minutes of eachother in the morning. After that though, we got on Inferno and Stealth within around 90 minutes, which wasn't that bad, and we later did Stealth and Swarm (twice!) in the dark again later on, so overall the queues weren't terrible for us, except Swarm in the morning! We also got on a few other smaller rides in the day, so we didn't really mind. We were mainly there for the mazes, which all had less than 20 minute fastrack queues, which was great. The main queues for the mazes looked awful though, averaging at around 140 minutes. Thorpe really need to do something to help with the queue times for the mazes, it looked awful! Anyway, overall we had a great day and with the exception of Saw and Blair Witch, all the mazes were brilliant! Saw and Blair Witch were still great fun however, so it was definitely worth going on every maze, they were just weaker. I can't imagine how people would have survived without fastrack for the mazes though, so operations-wise, that was awful. Still, I had a brilliant time and it was a good day at the park overall. I'm also going to Alton tomorrow, so I can see how Fright Nights stacks up against Scarefest!

She's also an actor now, apparently. I have no idea how true that is but yeah.

Watch the "Manor Wins Again Video", the first part you see of the video is all filtered out and red, right? That's the contraption that Russ keeps cutting out of videos, it's apparently a drown tank. Later on in the video either the Mario or Luigi guy says "anything but the drown tank, or something along the lines of that. If the drown tank is what people are saying it is (literally a tank they dunk you in whilst you have a bag over your head, over and over again, the only way being able to be breathe is by putting your nose through the gaps in the cage), then that goes way way way beyond anything stimulated (think the fakeish waterboarding at blackout), and I'm pretty sure that's legally considered full on torture. I wouldn't be suprised if that is what the contraption is, judging by how absolutely terrified of it the "victims" who go through the haunt are. Even if they've signed a waiver, it doesn't protect somebody either stimulating, or literally torturing you against your will, it's pretty much in your human rights that you should be able to stop participating in something you don't wish to anymore. I'm positive there "not being a safe word" is verging on illegal. Then again, if any of it was illegal, I'm also pretty sure there'd be an official investigation on this thing. So, who knows? Nonetheless, it's extremely messed up.

It's so much worse after all the theories and stuff people have come up with. The only solid evidence of weird/shady stuff going on is the fact that people basically infriliated the members only facebook group, got screenshots of people saying pretty messed up stuff/confirming messed up stuff, identified some of the actors and owners (including Russ and his Ex-Wife) as current/ex members of the military/navy etc. And then the fact that after all this happened, the Manor closed up for this weekend (it all happened on like Thursday/Friday) and cancelled planned tours for people who had obviously been waiting months and months, due to the Russ' "Wedding Singing Commitments". Shady stuff.

The "secret" group of people betting on the manor in Vegas sure think it's fun to watch it.. I honestly think that's where he gets the money to fund this thing, seeing as there are allegations that "Operation Greyhound" isn't even a real charity. However, if the haunt only became insanely extreme this year, was he "streaming" it before?? I seriously have no idea. The only thing I don't get at all is how on earth Russ Mckamey has had the money to fund it from the start.. the dudes a wedding singer and DJ, I hardly think he has half a million dollars to fund the whole "haunt" without receiving any profit whatsoever. It all really just doesn't add up..

Jesus, if the queue's today are all like 60+ minutes.. I hope they're not like that when I go on wednesday. I have Director's Cut tho, so maze-wise, I think I'll be okay. Still 60+ for all the main coasters? I know it's half term but honestly, it's a monday, I wasn't expecting that.. EDIT: also, seeing as the "main character" (ie: fornicus, sugarplum fairy, kiko etc) has changed every weekend so far in CITW, does anybody know who's going to feature this half-term week (or specifically Wednesday?).. The whole idea is so cool and I adore the film, so I'd love to know who's in it when I'm going tbh.

^^very true, once people have gone through the entire thing themselves, they get the opportunity to become and actor, but considering it was way way way easier to complete in earlier years, that pretty much means nearly anyone can be an actor..

Jesus christ, there's a members only facebook group for (I think??) people who have survived the manor (or it could be people who have been picked/near the top of the waiting list), and on it there's screenshots of one of the workers there confirming that every run-through of the manor is streamed to a group of "pre-selected" anonymous people in Las Vegas, who then bet on how long people are going to last in the manor.. Creepy as hell. The more I read up on it, there's so many theories and things regarding the legality of it but the stuff I've seen from the facebook group is pretty damn concerning. This place weirds me out.

I do believe for the past two years they have actually opened the park for christmas, however only a few small attractions are open, whilst a grotto type thing takes place in the building the scare maze is held in at Fright Fantastic..

I'm sorry, could you pm me how to get to it too?? thanks!!

I go a lot and I'm pretty sure it's been gone for around two years, at the very least definitely a year. I haven't heard it once throughout the entire 2014 season and if I renember correctly also didn't hear it during 2013..

Ah, so that is the one in the photo op room! I thought it was, but it looked different and was in a corner rather than the middle haha.

Where on earth is that billy the puppet ever in Saw: Alive? I've never noticed that, unless it's the one in the photo op.. (it doesn't look like it tho.)

Does anybody know from experience, or just knowledge, what day in the half term will be the least busy? or after that until the end of fright nights, not inculding the 1st+2nd of November?? I originally planned to go the weekend just gone, then that got cancelled, so I planned this weekend coming up, but that's also been cancelled so now ive got myself into a situation where I sort of have to go after the 26th.. so any help would be appreciated, thanks!

daaamn, I hope we get hell lord on the second week when I'm going, that'd be so so cool.

Ahhh, okay. I guess if they direct me the other way on MBV, I'll just go where my friends go. They can't force you can they?? I hope not anyway, lol. And hopefully I won't be made to do that haha, I know I won't look fearless anyway so I should be okay. Thanks for the replies!

Ahh, okay. So like what do they do to you?? Push you away from your group and then leave you alone? If that happens to me on either I'll probably just wait for somebody to show up. Hopefully it won't though.

Thanks for the replies! Doesn't sound bad at all tbh, I guess I'll hold onto my friends in CITW and just hope we don't get split up in MBV, haha.