Fort Amherst - 2006
When designing a haunted attraction most organisers are faced with a huge challenge–- how to turn a modern featureless room or venue into something dark and spooky?
Not so at Fort Amherst. This historical fort built into the hillside overlooking Chatham docks simply oozes character with narrow tunnels, roughly hewn walls and a labyrinthine layout. With just a few carefully placed props, some lighting effects and a large number of actors, this spooky venue becomes something truly terrifying.
Led into the caverns in large groups, the assault on the senses started as soon as the entrance doors slam shut. Unlike many attractions with single scare actors hidden away, here they roam in packs, jumping out, mingling with guests and generally causing a nuisance.
Many times blinded by the lights we were confronted with monsters bouncing around the room trying to scare as many people a possible.
With this many monsters attacking at once, each room or corridor rings with screams from every direction. This is almost like a mass hysteria as the people at the back of the group are screaming in anticipation of the scares they can hear up ahead of them. All the time, a very ominous looking guard pushes any stragglers forwards into the fray to ensure no-one gets left behind. The scream level for most of the tour can only be described as “deafening!”
Effective use was also made of strobes and lights to completely disorientate people and make them feel vulnerable. When walking directly into a light source it’s very difficult to make out anything that is coming towards you in the opposite direction.
Mention should also be made as to how physical this attraction was. Guests were threatened, grabbed and removed from the group at any time and singled out for some extra treatment. In the final scene many people were split from their family and friends as they were held hostage with knives and other sharp instruments to their throats! All that their friends could do was watch helplessly and hope that they weren’t next on the menu!
Along the route guests may also experience other sensations on the tour including disgusting smells, horrible things to touch and even a mild electric shock wired into one of the fort’s walls!
Mother and son team, Rosemarie and Phil Snipe (the organisers of the event), have been doing haunted attractions at the Fort for over 20 years. Passionate about really scaring people, they use ideas and effects given to them by celebrated horror artists such as Christien Tinsley (make up expert on many Hollywood films such as How the Grinch Stole Christmas, Catwoman and the gruesome prosthetic effects in The Passion of The Christ.)
They regularly review their stories and create thematic storylines for the fort tours. In the past these themes have included the standard zombies and vampires up to complex storylines around the Napoleonic wars. The theme for 2006 was carnival which although not evident in a lot of the rooms did leap out during a mass strobe light clown attack in a locked room that had everyone screaming to get out!
Despite all of this the show is extremely popular with over 1,000 prebooked tickets every night of its short run and as many as 1,500 guests on a weekend night! Everyone we saw had a great time (once they were safely out of the Fort!) and were probably talking about what they had experienced through the last 20/30 minutes all the way home!
Personally we weren’t sure what to expect at this attraction. We knew it had the potential to be scary due to its location but we were not sure if the operators could rise to these challenges. As it was, they surpassed our expectations, and made a truly scary but highly entertaining attraction. We WILL be back!
Not so at Fort Amherst. This historical fort built into the hillside overlooking Chatham docks simply oozes character with narrow tunnels, roughly hewn walls and a labyrinthine layout. With just a few carefully placed props, some lighting effects and a large number of actors, this spooky venue becomes something truly terrifying.
Led into the caverns in large groups, the assault on the senses started as soon as the entrance doors slam shut. Unlike many attractions with single scare actors hidden away, here they roam in packs, jumping out, mingling with guests and generally causing a nuisance.
Many times blinded by the lights we were confronted with monsters bouncing around the room trying to scare as many people a possible.
With this many monsters attacking at once, each room or corridor rings with screams from every direction. This is almost like a mass hysteria as the people at the back of the group are screaming in anticipation of the scares they can hear up ahead of them. All the time, a very ominous looking guard pushes any stragglers forwards into the fray to ensure no-one gets left behind. The scream level for most of the tour can only be described as “deafening!”
Effective use was also made of strobes and lights to completely disorientate people and make them feel vulnerable. When walking directly into a light source it’s very difficult to make out anything that is coming towards you in the opposite direction.
Mention should also be made as to how physical this attraction was. Guests were threatened, grabbed and removed from the group at any time and singled out for some extra treatment. In the final scene many people were split from their family and friends as they were held hostage with knives and other sharp instruments to their throats! All that their friends could do was watch helplessly and hope that they weren’t next on the menu!
Along the route guests may also experience other sensations on the tour including disgusting smells, horrible things to touch and even a mild electric shock wired into one of the fort’s walls!
Mother and son team, Rosemarie and Phil Snipe (the organisers of the event), have been doing haunted attractions at the Fort for over 20 years. Passionate about really scaring people, they use ideas and effects given to them by celebrated horror artists such as Christien Tinsley (make up expert on many Hollywood films such as How the Grinch Stole Christmas, Catwoman and the gruesome prosthetic effects in The Passion of The Christ.)
They regularly review their stories and create thematic storylines for the fort tours. In the past these themes have included the standard zombies and vampires up to complex storylines around the Napoleonic wars. The theme for 2006 was carnival which although not evident in a lot of the rooms did leap out during a mass strobe light clown attack in a locked room that had everyone screaming to get out!
Despite all of this the show is extremely popular with over 1,000 prebooked tickets every night of its short run and as many as 1,500 guests on a weekend night! Everyone we saw had a great time (once they were safely out of the Fort!) and were probably talking about what they had experienced through the last 20/30 minutes all the way home!
Personally we weren’t sure what to expect at this attraction. We knew it had the potential to be scary due to its location but we were not sure if the operators could rise to these challenges. As it was, they surpassed our expectations, and made a truly scary but highly entertaining attraction. We WILL be back!
This review was written by Michael Bolton and originally appeared on Haunted Attractions UK.
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