I did Se7en last year and it was dire. Barely an actor in sight.

Yes, mazes should open at 3.

I asked Thorpe Park about opening the mazes an hour early to compensate in the loss of an hour and this is what they had to say.

There are currently no plans to open the mazes an hour earlier as we wait for dusk before we kick off Fright Nights activites, and by opening at 3pm the atmosphere will not be the same.

It's a shame really that they're not planning on opening earlier. Personally, unless the maze relies on being outside, I don't think the lightness outside the maze makes much different - in a way, they are even more effective; being plunged into darkness and terror during innocent sunlight.

On topic - I'm actually really pissed that Se7en is gone (if it has). It had some rough years but I thought 2010 and 2011 were really quite good!

This. 2011 was actually a brilliant year for it, and I think had Experiment 10 not have had the new factor, I would have rated Se7en as my favourite maze last season.

I enjoyed se7en more last year than before - it was creepier, some scenes looked better and although it has never been close to a favourite I actually liked it last year.

Curse on the other hand was just pitch black corridors with a few almost pitch black rooms last year - what is the point really?

Still, as long as they keep Asylum and Experiment 10 I am happy

Curse has never really made sense to me, I understand the storyline but it just seems to be a series of dark corridoors with the occassional actor jumping out behind a door

and then shutting it as quickly as possible.

I asked Thorpe Park about opening the mazes an hour early to compensate in the loss of an hour and this is what they had to say.

Doesn't even make sense because it won't be dusk at 4 in the early days of the event (I think).

Doesn't even make sense because it won't be dusk at 4 in the early days of the event (I think).

Very true. Dusk doesn't come till about 6ish (even a bit later perhaps) before the clocks change. I guess at 4 is when it does begin to get a bit 'less lighter', however (if that makes sense...)

I was on park today and to be honest, all I really cared about was Fright Nights! I took the time to sit down in 'The Showcase' area at one point just to have a look at The Asylum and the lights were on inside. You could see through a grate on the door and the usual sign at the very beginning was up. I obviously couldn't look too far inside, but there must have been some work going on inside if there was lights on. I do seem to remember an indent in the wall to the left as soon as you walk through the door last year. It was big enough for an actor to hide in, but that has been boarded up this time around.

Regarding Neptunes Beach, there was a sign up today letting people know that it would be shut for to the build up to, and for the Fright Nights event. One thing that did confuse me though was that the sand had been piled and the floor leveled out on both sides of the beach. If there was no maze returning to the larger side of the beach, then why would they be doing work on it?

Here are some pictures of the work on Neptunes Beach, these are the only photos I got regarding Fright Nights today however.

This is where Se7en was last year, I don't see the point in all that work if nothing is going back in its place?

As most of you will already know, this is where The Curse usually goes. Work has also been done on the sand, but no water has been drained from either side of the pool as of yet.

That's it for me until Fright Nights, good to hear the new attraction will be announced next week. Hopefully it will be something worthwhile and will have a gimmick. Although I will be slightly ****ed off if it's not a horror maze!

I love your photos.

Posted by Thorpe park official on facebook today:

"What's your worst fear? It might just be coming to THORPE PARK as our new attraction for Fright Nights this year..."

Maybe it will be about phobias?

I hope not because that wil lonly scare like 45% of the people and get rather bad results

Going to be at the park on Sunday so will have a little look around at developments and get some pictures

I hope not because that wil lonly scare like 45% of the people and get rather bad results

Depends on what phobias they would put in, sure there's a couple which if done well could scare non-phobics as well as phobics...

Which phobias do you think are possible to make scary... if you know what I mean

Which phobias do you think are possible to make scary... if you know what I mean

For people who have phobias, it is very easy to scare them using it. But as for making other people afraid if they don't suffer from the phobia it's a bit more difficult. Clowns have been done to death so I really hope there are no clowns inside. Spiders can be done quite well, and depending on how it's done will scare people without arachnophobia. Claustrophobia is a given for any scare maze. I personally would like them to give hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia a go

I personally don't think it will be around phobias in general - too hard to pull of well in my eyes. For someone who isn't scared of, say, spiders, it's very difficult to cause a scare to them using spiders. Imagine doing that with several common phobias, and having to do it well; just can't see it happening. Would prefer it didn't happen either - seems like a really cheap idea for a scare maze to be honest..

However, there's every possibility that something which people are commonly afraid of could play a vital part of the maze (much like how Carnival of Screams has clowns as a key part).

These things can be used to scare 'normal' people too though. I'm fine with spiders, but put me in a dark room with spiders everywhere and make it feel like things are crawling on me and I can't escape them then I'm pretty sure I'd be scared / entertained by it. Just has to be done well, that's all. I'm not scared of zombies or ghosts or Jigsaw as they are not real, but I still get a kick out of mazes containing them.

I have a funny feeling it will be clowns, the two main comment responses on Thorpe's status are:

A. Entrance prices

B. Clowns.

The roaming clowns last year also seemed to scare a lot of people, maybe Thorpe picked up on that somewhere along the way?

I think it will be a more extreme version of CoS. That seemed to be more funny than scary for me? Although I don't see it fitting in well by Hellgate if this new maze is going there.

Really hope it's not the 'phobias' thing- they brought that up as a potential new attraction for 2011 in last year's focus group; they were really keen to push it but the concept was flawed and their ideas were terrible. Whether they got an entirely different response to the same idea in this year's focus group I don't know, but hope they'd be a bit more creative.

Those with genuine phobias wouldn't go anywhere near an attraction promising to scare them, and those without phobias (as has been said) wouldn't be interested and it'd be extremely hard to generate fear from them.

Phobias? Phobias?!

Please no moths... please no moths.

Fastrack sellers?

Maybe they'll have someone inside a dark corridor setting money on fire shouting 'this is what we do with your £45!'

Thorpe have had the concept of a twisted carnival since about 2005. In fact, they were considering installing one instead of Hellgate! I read it in an interview with the Entertainment Leader from 2006 which I'll post below. These three volumes of a magazine go into a lot of depth about the mazes. Pretty interesting to be honest. The interview is in Volume 2.

http://www.s10463835...gazine_23a_01.htm- Volume 1

http://www.s10463835...zine_23b_01.htm- Volume 2

http://www.s10463835...zine_23c_01.htm- Volume 3

Also, I think the idea of general phobias is flawed. As mentioned above, if somebody was genuinely scared of what's inside surely they wouldn't go in? Thorpe will have a hard time scaring the people who are not scared of what lies inside as well. I know I've said it already, but a circus seems like the most likely theme of this new attraction. Clowns do scare most people (to a different extent of course) and if Thorpe could pull of a much more extreme version of Cos, I think it would be very successful!

"Your worst nightmare. In a shipping container"

Information of the 4 known mazes (EX10, Asylum, Curse and Saw Alive) has been sent around in the Merlin VIP magazine which I haven't recieved but Rollercoaster Reel posted a picture of the page from the magazine. Does anyone else get the feeling that the image on the left is related to the new maze?