Christmas FestEVIL at Scare Kingdom
For just one weekend AtmosFEAR UK reopened the doors at Scare Kingdom for a limited of it's brand new FestEVIL event. The event offered two of it's most notorious mazes from Halloween as well as a chance to meet the despicably mean Satan Claws, who hosted a suitably creepy meet and greet near to the parks reception area.
Our first maze was Manormortis, which had impressed the team back in October with it's fully immersive theming and constant scares throughout. Before we'd even set foot inside the door, the soundtrack provided the perfect ambience to what lay ahead with a cleverly sampled loop of the Christmas song 'Carol of the Bells' in amongst a hauntingly industrial soundscape. It really lent itself to the maze and with such a short run it would have been easy to fall into the trap of using the same music as for the Halloween incarnation of the maze, but the change was a nice surprise.
The maze remained fairly similar in it's build, but for the Christmas period, our tour of the house was extended greatly. Theatrical storytelling in most rooms slowed our pace through the maze, and we really appreciated the chance to really take in the enviroment. At 20-25 minutes it really did feel like we were lost in the labyrinth of hallways and rooms inside the large gothic house, with little chance of escape. Rather than hinder the pace of the maze, the scripted sections actually meant that you were trapped within a room and very often were kept on your toes by a strong team of actors hidden away behind the scenes. We couldn't decide whether we wanted to stay in the rooms longer to take in all the incredible design, or get out as soon as possible to escape the terrors lurking in the shadows of its bookcases and fireplaces!
Manormortis is a quality attraction from start to finish from the rich and plentiful theming to the actors who work hard to breathe life into the old mansion and terrify us in equal measures. With being trapped in the rooms for so long it would normally be easy to spot inconsistencies within the quality of theming. This is not the case with Manormortis though, the insides of the attraction feel authentic through and through and you don't have to look very hard to realise how much hard work, time and expense has gone into creating such a rounded attraction.
Our final experience of the night was to be Pyschomantium. This extreme maze really divided the team back in October and I think this will be the case for most groups. It's interesting to see how each of us coped and how our experiences through the maze varied as we were treated to "Deeper Treatment". There were one or two small changes we noticed from the October version but the maze was more or less the same. The attraction is still a full on assault of the senses and the actors really do work hard to make the experience as unpleasant as it possibly can be. It's sick, twisted and incredibly intense and although it wont be everyone's cup of tea you are clearly warned before the experience as to what you may expect once inside.
Even though some of the group didn't find aspects of the aggressive sexual content scary, there were still some testing scenes and experiences which pushed them to their limits in several other ways, which after discussions with it's creators was their desired effect. We all left with the same feelings of 'What on earth did we just put ourselves through?!' and in that sense, this show was a success!
Standing apart from the weaker attractions of the main Scare Kingdom show, the high quality themes, atmosphere and sets create a very impressive experience. As we said in October - its a shame that the rest of the Halloween event isn't to this standard and the team have set themselves a very daunting task to create a whole seasonal show of this standard.
After we'd calmed down from our "treatment" in Psychomanteum, we were treated to a behind the scenes tour of Manormortis, which is just as impressive backstage as it is under normal show conditions. It was interesting to see how the team works behind the scenes and how each scare happens like clockwork. You could easily get lost trying to navigate the endless secret passages behind the scenes but the team make it look easy.
Manormortis will reopen for Valentines weekend as 'La Mortis House Of Darkness' and other non Halloween events are planned throughout the year.
We would like to thank Jason Karl and the creative team for given us our backstage tour of his latest attraction.
Our first maze was Manormortis, which had impressed the team back in October with it's fully immersive theming and constant scares throughout. Before we'd even set foot inside the door, the soundtrack provided the perfect ambience to what lay ahead with a cleverly sampled loop of the Christmas song 'Carol of the Bells' in amongst a hauntingly industrial soundscape. It really lent itself to the maze and with such a short run it would have been easy to fall into the trap of using the same music as for the Halloween incarnation of the maze, but the change was a nice surprise.
The maze remained fairly similar in it's build, but for the Christmas period, our tour of the house was extended greatly. Theatrical storytelling in most rooms slowed our pace through the maze, and we really appreciated the chance to really take in the enviroment. At 20-25 minutes it really did feel like we were lost in the labyrinth of hallways and rooms inside the large gothic house, with little chance of escape. Rather than hinder the pace of the maze, the scripted sections actually meant that you were trapped within a room and very often were kept on your toes by a strong team of actors hidden away behind the scenes. We couldn't decide whether we wanted to stay in the rooms longer to take in all the incredible design, or get out as soon as possible to escape the terrors lurking in the shadows of its bookcases and fireplaces!
Manormortis is a quality attraction from start to finish from the rich and plentiful theming to the actors who work hard to breathe life into the old mansion and terrify us in equal measures. With being trapped in the rooms for so long it would normally be easy to spot inconsistencies within the quality of theming. This is not the case with Manormortis though, the insides of the attraction feel authentic through and through and you don't have to look very hard to realise how much hard work, time and expense has gone into creating such a rounded attraction.
Our final experience of the night was to be Pyschomantium. This extreme maze really divided the team back in October and I think this will be the case for most groups. It's interesting to see how each of us coped and how our experiences through the maze varied as we were treated to "Deeper Treatment". There were one or two small changes we noticed from the October version but the maze was more or less the same. The attraction is still a full on assault of the senses and the actors really do work hard to make the experience as unpleasant as it possibly can be. It's sick, twisted and incredibly intense and although it wont be everyone's cup of tea you are clearly warned before the experience as to what you may expect once inside.
Even though some of the group didn't find aspects of the aggressive sexual content scary, there were still some testing scenes and experiences which pushed them to their limits in several other ways, which after discussions with it's creators was their desired effect. We all left with the same feelings of 'What on earth did we just put ourselves through?!' and in that sense, this show was a success!
Standing apart from the weaker attractions of the main Scare Kingdom show, the high quality themes, atmosphere and sets create a very impressive experience. As we said in October - its a shame that the rest of the Halloween event isn't to this standard and the team have set themselves a very daunting task to create a whole seasonal show of this standard.
After we'd calmed down from our "treatment" in Psychomanteum, we were treated to a behind the scenes tour of Manormortis, which is just as impressive backstage as it is under normal show conditions. It was interesting to see how the team works behind the scenes and how each scare happens like clockwork. You could easily get lost trying to navigate the endless secret passages behind the scenes but the team make it look easy.
Manormortis will reopen for Valentines weekend as 'La Mortis House Of Darkness' and other non Halloween events are planned throughout the year.
We would like to thank Jason Karl and the creative team for given us our backstage tour of his latest attraction.
For more details check out their website - www.scarekingdom.co.uk/
You Review

Have you also visited this or any other attractions recently? - tell us what you thought here
All the latest news, stories, review and gossip can be found on the ScareTOUR social media pages - the hottest Facebook and Twitter presence in the UK for Scare Attractions!
For the latest offers, exclusive discounts and more - Join the group! |