Thorpe Park Fright Nights: Preview Evening (Thursday 8th Oct 2015) PTR with Reviews

[Coaster]

PREVIEW TIME:  6pm - 10pm

RIDES OPEN:  The Swarm, Stealth, Nemesis Inferno, Colossus, Saw: The Ride

 

The event started at 6pm with a speech from "The Ringleader" before we were let in at about 6:15pm.  It was a great evening with a good atmosphere, and queues were fairly short apart from on the new maze - The Big Top.

We headed to My Bloody Valentine first which proved to be a good move, as I read reports afterwards that The Big Top didn't open until 7pm, and Cabin in the Woods was also delayed in opening.  From there we did the mazes (apart from Blair Witch as it had a very long queue), doing some again which were near walk-on and some night rides before getting in the queue for The Big Top at around 9:20pm.

 

Maze-count:

The Big Top x1

My Bloody Valentine x2

Cabin in the Woods x2

Saw Alive x2

 

Ridecount:

Nemesis Inferno x1

Stealth x1

Colossus x1

Saw: The Ride x1 (Seemed to be running very well!)

The Swarm x1

 

Reviews!

--- POTENTIAL SPOILERS AHEAD ---

 

The Big Top (New for 2015)

After a lot of hype from Thorpe and several teaser videos, it was time to see what The Big Top had to offer.

 

From the outside, the maze looks very impressive - spooky carnival music sets a great atmosphere, with lots of theming (produced by the company Scruffy Dog) lining the queueline, transition between tents and signage/clown face.  The carnival lighting was very good (albeit not all working - but this was the preview night).

 

After a rather slow moving queue we entered the maze.

 

The first tent was disappointing - the scene consisted of a "fortune teller" with a crystal ball, which failed to provide scares - there is a lot more that could have been done with this scene.  As it currently stands, it reduces throughput and doesn't add much to the overall experience IMO.

Following this, we had to take a route down one of two unthemed walkways - this was literally a thin corridor with the walls made up of black sheets hanging from metal poles.

This tent could have been used in much better ways and wasn't a great start.

 

The second tent was good, it was primarily a mirror maze with strobes and then a few extra surprises on the way.  This was easily the best part of the attraction IMO, whilst it still felt very cheaply done there was at least a sense of fun about it, and one of the jump scares was very effective.

 

The walk across the grounds was nice, but the "Jack in the box" was much less effective than the one in COS at AT.  The theming however was very nice, and it is clear that a lot of effort has gone into theming the outside of this attraction.

 

The "Big Top" was the final tent, and with a large clown face and blinding white light on the way in, we were hoping that everything had been saved for this.

Unfortunately I found this to be very disappointing - once again, most sets are made up of black sheets on metal poles rather than themed walls, with the odd set piece scattered around, some of which were in near total darkness on our run-through.

This section of the maze was over very quickly, with a few corridors leading to the chainsaw finale - I am glad they have brought this back, but it was executed very badly - it was so dark that you couldn't see the chainsaw or man holding it, and therefore it failed to provide the amazing build-up, "chase" feel and reaction of The Asylum's chainsaw finale and more recently, Studio 13's.

 

Overall I found The Big Top disappointing.  The idea had potential but sadly the interior seems to have been built cheaply, and when you consider that three years ago Thorpe brought us Experiment 10, I think this maze has taken several steps backwards.  In fact I would rate last year's Studio 13 much more highly than this, and I didn't rate that at all.

My rating:  4/10

 

 

My Bloody Valentine

This maze has always been hit-and-miss, but this year the fact that it has been shortened drastically really lets it down.

The brilliantly themed hospital section (previously the first section of the maze) has been removed, meaning that the maze starts with the narrow mine-shaft tunnels and completely cuts a key scene out.  This is hugely disappointing, as was the fact that the actors were not dressed up as Harry Warden (on the second run-through I didn't see one person wearing a gas mask).

 

Furthermore, lots of the small details of theming have been removed such as the gas mask dummies hanging on the wall, which would have been the maze's only saving grace.

With that said, there is still a lot more that the actors could do with the current layout, and I can only hope that they put all their enthusiasm into it, and actually dress up as the key character!

 

To end on a positive note, throughput did seem better than in previous years for this maze.

My rating:  3/10

 

 

Cabin in the Woods

Whilst the maze has received little in the way of alterations, it was in good form on the preview night and was easily the highlight of the evening for me.

The actors were fairly good and were making use of the set pieces well, and the music seemed louder which created a great atmosphere.

 

There was lots of smoke in the first scene as well which was actually being controlled by the control room this time (I think - it seemed to work when I pressed the button).  I did however think that there may have been slightly too much smoke in this first section, which is well themed, and I think it would be better to have more smoke in the second section of the maze.

The actors also seemed to be really into their roles, although there were more scientists and less characters from the films which was a bit disappointing.  Last year they had two of the scariest-looking characters from the film, but I didn't see either of these.

 

A disappointment was that the trommel wasn't working, if this had been working and the film monsters were more prominent I would have given it a 7.5 rating.

My rating:  7/10

 

 

Saw Alive

Usually for me, Saw Alive is very dull and offers little in the way of scares.

This year however... Wow!  The maze has received several upgrades in terms of audio and lighting, and the actors were phenomenal at being in their roles suiting the Saw films - something that the maze has lacked in the past.

 

For this reason, I would say that Saw Alive was easily the scariest maze of the night, overtaking My Bloody Valentine and The Big Top by a long way.

Considering that I used to rate Saw Alive so low, this is impressive... Or a reflection on the quality of the other mazes! 

My rating:  7/10

 

 

 

Photos!

 

The Big Top, which looks impressive from the outside;

 

 

 

 

Saw Alive;

 

My Bloody Valentine;

 

General park/ride shots;

 

You can't argue with that queue time!

 

 

 

Thanks for reading.

[Mitchada04]

The Jack in the box wasn't under the bridge. It's in the final tent towards the end but wasn't working last night like many of the effects. The walls will be finished and like someone from Ents said to us, "it's only going to get better"

[Coaster]

The Jack in the box wasn't under the bridge. It's in the final tent towards the end but wasn't working last night like many of the effects. The walls will be finished and like someone from Ents said to us, "it's only going to get better"

Well that's something then, I'm prepared to give the maze another chance either this Sunday or next Sunday, hopefully it delievers!

 

It is a bit concerning that they cut it so fine with regards to the maze being ready though, I'm sure in the past they have been completely built well before the event starts?  (Correct me if I'm wrong though!)

[Mitchada04]

Cabin and Saw are basically ready all year. BWP is hardly touched as it's an unused path and MBV is just lifted into place from the staff car park. I can't remember how The Curse and Se7en faired at the beginning but they've had to build the whole maze from scratch in one month with new props etc. Scruffy Dog is a relatively small company and do a lot of work for their size. Lego Friends City Area thing was unfinished when it opened as Scruffy were still working (lots of talk Merlin order too late or leave it fine). I can assure you they were working flat out from the day they started to put up the tents, there is a Fastrack sign we saw last week that will be added to the entrance structure. There is a lot more to go on, Scruffy are perfectionists and don't often get enough time. Taking it they've had to do Containment as well and no doubt worked on the other 4 again it's no real surprise that the 2 brand new from scratch attractions weren't fully ready at the start. No it's not good enough and the person behind the scheduling should have to relook at how they worked this project but that's the reason pretty much.