The Leicestershire based scream park is one of the biggest and best Halloween events in the UK. Those who dare to enter can experience a stellar line up including the six purpose-built attractions, festival entertainment with live local bands and spook-tacular street theatre.
Sandy Gyorvari, park and marketing manager, explains:
"The park has gone from strength to strength every year, it is now one of the biggest and best night time Halloween attractions in the UK. We are one of the only permanent attractions so people can return to see what they love every year whilst we add to our award winning formula and titivate our attractions, they mature and develop constantly. We have been training and recruiting now for many months for hundreds of performers. Each night a huge amount of work goes into preparing the greatest show on Earth! We consider ourselves showmen, making sure guests have the most fun and entertaining night out this Halloween season".
The team have numerous awards including 'Best Scream Park' and 'Best Halloween Attraction' and are looking to add to their success. One of the original attractions will bow out this year, Curtains Chaos – The Final Curtain, it's received a whole new demolition and destruction theme ready to pave the way for a completely new maze for 2019.
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We started by checking out the site and grabbing some food and drink from the festival area where there is live music, some street entertainment and a gigantic pumpkin head scarecrow animatronic. The Excalibur swing tower is one of the rides open as part of the event, offering great views of the park. There is also a Zombie Paintball area.
The six scare mazes:
- Stilton Hall Hotel and Hell Spa - a huge purpose-built two-storey horror attraction with a seemingly endless number of highly detailed rooms, from the hotel lobby, sauna and spa treatment rooms, to the bedrooms and everything else you would expect, plus a lot that you wouldn't! It had the grossest scenes and smells, rudest language, most adult themes, and very personal interaction from the actors. A brilliant experience from start to finish.
- The Pie Factory - with the park located just outside Melton Mowbray, home of the pork pie, it's a very fitting basis for a truly twisted attraction. There experiences takes place across multiple buildings including the piggery, slaughterhouse and the factory itself. The crazed pigs and even crazier workers are there at every turn and you are lucky to escape without being their latest ingredient!
- The Village - this very worthy award-winning maze lasted for more than 20 minutes, as we explored an entire village inhabited by evil scarecrows. The absolute stand-out moments included a vast school, laboratory, garage and a huge chapel with a theatrical piece that got our hearts pounding. At points we were almost too scared to continue, the tension so effectively built that our nerves were completely on edge. The scale and ambition of this attraction are really quite remarkable.
- Curtain Chaos - The Final Curtain - a classic clown-based horror house with all the fun of the scare. It's got a lot of charm, some funny moments and a very effective spinning tunnel walk-though. We're sure that this attraction has delivered plenty of frights over the years but it feels like a good time to bow out.
- HooDoo VooDoo - a great combination of a hooded maze and highly themed scenes. The hooded section was very long, so although pretty terrifying for those that can't handle long periods in complete darkness, with nothing but a rope to guide you, it was otherwise light on action. However, the next part was packed with scares and takes place in a completely immersive environment that transports you to the Americas with trees, huts, bridges and of course voodoo dolls!
- Ash Hell Penitentiary - we saved this one for last, and what a way to end the night. Most certainly deserving of the Xtreme tag and another remarkable purpose-built horror maze. We entered into what looks and feels like a genuine prison occupied by sadistic guards and convicts running wild. Through a relentless series of passages, cells and tunnels we encountered more and more dangerous inmates. The intensity is set to maximum and the actors are aggressive.
The six attractions at Xtreme Scream Park are the epitome of UK scare mazes, from the incredibly detailed scenes and the level of personal interaction from the actors. They are immersive, intense and sometimes genuinely shocking. There are narrow spaces, ghastly smells and prolonged periods of complete darkness. Guests are sent through in small batches, able to explore at their own pace without being hurried through and there is a complete absence of signs and staff to interrupt the 'show'.
Outside the attractions you aren't safe from scares either, as there are roaming characters everywhere. The costumes, make up and acting are mostly excellent.
The team behind it are clearly incredibly passionate about what they do and the actors of all ages are loving it. The free gifts handed out at the exit are also a great touch.
The event runs on selected nights until 31st October 2018 - don't miss out on this award-winning scare attraction! Find out more and buy tickets at www.xtremescreampark.co.uk