Fright Nights 2025

1 hour ago, Cal said:

for me Fright Nights was good in the old days of the stronger mazes and being able to lap them till 10pm free of charge. I don't have an interest in the dance shows, scare zones, or paying money to stand in queue to get a weak runthrough in a maze. I miss the old intense Fright Nights days, getting locked in cupboard in experiment 10 and having actors in queue lines etc..

This is a perfect summary of my thoughts as well.

It’s quite an interesting subject really, because now that they’ve chosen to go down this new route of highly themed walkthroughs and dance shows etc I imagine it would be difficult to change course.

The Asylum, Experiment 10 and Cabin in the Woods are examples of excellent Thorpe mazes in my opinion at least - but I imagine they would be poorly received if they “came back” exactly as they were, even if they were still “free” (or included in the event ticket price as I prefer to say!).

I think now people have grown used to what a Thorpe scare maze “is”, and something like Asylum would probably now be seen as lazy, as it had next to no theming and just 2 stock songs playing in the queue, even though it could be an extremely intense experience.

I also wonder if these sort of “more basic” attractions won’t be able to compete now adays due to the need for things to look good for social media etc, especially with Universal a few years away, Thorpe need to have impressive looking attractions I suppose so they can directly compete with HHN.

I expect however, the real reason is that they need to justify the prices they’re charging for a run through, so it needs to look like it’s worth paying for, more so than the need for it to be scary.

As you say Cal, times have changed I suppose.