Review-Hobs Pit-Pleasurewood Hills
Pleasurewood Hills in Lowestoft has always promoted itself as a family theme park and while never having the budget to take on the big corporate theme parks, has always provided a good mix of rollercoasters, flat rides and children's attractions.
In the past they have dabbled with Halloween and the evil (and quite menacing) Stitch has been seen lurking around the dark tunnels of the train ride. In 2013, they have decided to enter the scare market a bit more and have recently announced Pleasurewood Chills - a new scare event for Halloween. The park will re-theme a couple of existing rides and create a new horror walk-through. One of the key rides to get a retheme is Hobs Pit, which is itself a brand new makeover of an existing indoor dark ride. If the version we saw on preview night was the "mild" version we would hate to see what horrors they dream up for Halloween!
One of the key things that pre show marketing has kept secret is what the actual experience is and we shall try to keep this review as spoiler free as possible. It's not giving too much away to say it could be likened to a small walk through scare attraction followed by a ghost train style experience. But this is no ordinary ghost train.
Unlike plastic skeletons and cheap gimmicks, the whole of Hobs Pit relies on special effects and projections to tell the story. From CGI projections, peppers ghost effects, noise and sudden lights in the darkness as well as those pesky actors that just seemed to get everywhere! The mix of walk through and ride through is well balanced and both of us jumped several times through both portions.
The park used special effects expert Rob Ostir (involved in movies such as Mars Attacks and Chronicles of Narnia) with voice actor Corey Burton, who has worked on many of the Disney animated films, and all the effects in the ride worked very well. There are a few actors around the ride bit, which is unusual in dark rides, although there is plenty of scope for a lot more ‘interactions’. The park said they are ramping up their Pleasurewood Chills season this autumn, with a Halloween budget 10 times that of previous years, so expect more live actors during the witching season! We won’t reveal too much on the ride effects, but they were all nicely done.
Afterwards the park's marketing manager Ben commented that they have a number of plans to add much more layers of surprises and effects to the ride, but couldn’t do that to start off with as they had already blown their budget on it many times over! We chatted to him after riding it twice and he was talking about lots of exciting plans and ideas for the ride in future years. He commented that the ride as it currently stands was effectively Hobs Pit version 1.0...and it seems like there are future expansions that will be worth returning for.
So - in a week where one of the most widely anticipated rides in the UK fails to open on time its nice to see a smaller, more family friendly park have such a successful ride opening. The attraction designers set out to create "one of the scariest indoor theme park attractions in the UK" and have pulled it off successfully. If this is the direction and quality that Pleasurewood Hills are heading in then we cant wait to see what they do this October.
In the past they have dabbled with Halloween and the evil (and quite menacing) Stitch has been seen lurking around the dark tunnels of the train ride. In 2013, they have decided to enter the scare market a bit more and have recently announced Pleasurewood Chills - a new scare event for Halloween. The park will re-theme a couple of existing rides and create a new horror walk-through. One of the key rides to get a retheme is Hobs Pit, which is itself a brand new makeover of an existing indoor dark ride. If the version we saw on preview night was the "mild" version we would hate to see what horrors they dream up for Halloween!
One of the key things that pre show marketing has kept secret is what the actual experience is and we shall try to keep this review as spoiler free as possible. It's not giving too much away to say it could be likened to a small walk through scare attraction followed by a ghost train style experience. But this is no ordinary ghost train.
Unlike plastic skeletons and cheap gimmicks, the whole of Hobs Pit relies on special effects and projections to tell the story. From CGI projections, peppers ghost effects, noise and sudden lights in the darkness as well as those pesky actors that just seemed to get everywhere! The mix of walk through and ride through is well balanced and both of us jumped several times through both portions.
The park used special effects expert Rob Ostir (involved in movies such as Mars Attacks and Chronicles of Narnia) with voice actor Corey Burton, who has worked on many of the Disney animated films, and all the effects in the ride worked very well. There are a few actors around the ride bit, which is unusual in dark rides, although there is plenty of scope for a lot more ‘interactions’. The park said they are ramping up their Pleasurewood Chills season this autumn, with a Halloween budget 10 times that of previous years, so expect more live actors during the witching season! We won’t reveal too much on the ride effects, but they were all nicely done.
Afterwards the park's marketing manager Ben commented that they have a number of plans to add much more layers of surprises and effects to the ride, but couldn’t do that to start off with as they had already blown their budget on it many times over! We chatted to him after riding it twice and he was talking about lots of exciting plans and ideas for the ride in future years. He commented that the ride as it currently stands was effectively Hobs Pit version 1.0...and it seems like there are future expansions that will be worth returning for.
So - in a week where one of the most widely anticipated rides in the UK fails to open on time its nice to see a smaller, more family friendly park have such a successful ride opening. The attraction designers set out to create "one of the scariest indoor theme park attractions in the UK" and have pulled it off successfully. If this is the direction and quality that Pleasurewood Hills are heading in then we cant wait to see what they do this October.
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Discounted entry to Pleasurewood Hills to experience Hobs Pit. ScareTOUR readers can get £2 off per per person. Contact us for your voucher. |
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Scary
This 'ride' was pretty creepy especially the actors there. Defiantly one of my favourite 'rides' there!
This 'ride' was pretty creepy especially the actors there. Defiantly one of my favourite 'rides' there!
Came to PWH specifically to try out Hobs Pit on it's Launch Day. We were among the first 40 to enter after the grand opening and had high expectations after hearing about live actors, special effects and other hype. Unfortunately came out disappointed. There were elements that were clever and there were a few moments of anticipation. The walk round was much more unnerving than the ride, but unfortunately the walking made up around 10% of the ride. The actors were very good but there was only a handful. They did a good job at making you jump but then they left you alone. The special affects were good but not particularly scary. The attraction is different to anything I've been on as it's not a walk through or a ride, it does feel like it's a little more interactive. There is a huge room for improvement in the scare stakes. The actors could be more plentiful, they could also terrorize people a bit more, creep up behind groups instead of being in full view when you turn the corner. I think that is the key to making this a proper scare attraction. I don't think the 12a rating really needs to be applied as we have a 9 year old daughter that can be a scaredy cat but she has been through Halloween attractions that I consider more frightening, and that was 2 years ago. A good effort, I think the scare audience here is for teenagers or younger. I think in order for this ride to continue drawing crowds after the initial launch then it needs to be improved otherwise it will quickly lose impact. I have plenty of ideas to make it terrifying so I'm sure they can come up with a few things :)
Total rubbish it wasnt in the least scary actors were naff effects were awful not enough scenes quite possibly 1 of the worst scare rides ive been too the local fair ghost train was scarier than this cant believe it has cost all that money wouldnt bother going back on it!!
Being in a queue where we saw people running out of the entrance in tears and leaving the exit screaming my mother was almost in tears with fear and I must say horro was building in me - especially s I have wimped out of Alton towers 'boiler house and circus thing' so to save face I decided I'm doing this. Desire my mores anxiety and grandparents trying to keep my 3yd old entertained on the carousel.
What a waste of time, tears and toddler tantrums. Iv been more scared on a kiddies ghost train - although I will admit the graphics were gorey there were barely 4 of the, so nothing to push the mind. The most frightening part was pushing through a bouncy castle wall in s,e lame claustrophobic scare experience to then be greeted by a miner who got in my face, I childishly kissed him and he ran off (I'm not scary honest but his reaction was more terrified than ours)
What a waste of time, tears and toddler tantrums. Iv been more scared on a kiddies ghost train - although I will admit the graphics were gorey there were barely 4 of the, so nothing to push the mind. The most frightening part was pushing through a bouncy castle wall in s,e lame claustrophobic scare experience to then be greeted by a miner who got in my face, I childishly kissed him and he ran off (I'm not scary honest but his reaction was more terrified than ours)
Hobs pit was scary however it was one of the thirty scary rides in England. I would definitely say its not scary to be the top 30. The scariest part of hobs pit was the real people, the rest was a bit naff.
I'm a bit of a sucker for being scared easily. The real people were the most scariest however the ride on the cart was abit of a let down. That's my opinion. I also thought there could of been something added to one part of the ride which could of made it better.
This ride and all the hype around it is a total Joke Scary! I think an old ghost train have more scare in them than the Hobs pit!
would I go to pleasure wood hills for this ride again definitely not! I hope they didn't waste too much money on developing this ride I can only see it going one way and that is the down hill spiral of doom!
This ride, hyped as 'The scariest ride in the UK' is really not worth queuing for, it was seriously not scary at all. I have been scared more in the 'Horror House' at the traveling fun-fair, there were two actors, helping the punters get in the mining car, but no others at all, poor holograms and CGI, very poor! The 'Waterfall' is water running down a glass/perspex sheet. I thought Pleasurewood was trying to improve its customer experience
This ride did scare but but I'm easily scared. The best bit was the young guy putting us in the car...he just seemed to keep appearing right next to my face. He was very good at his job :) the ride itself could have had more scary actors around track.
An overly long queue for a very unpolished ride. The marketing and entrance to the ride give you the impression it's going to be slick and deliver something new. It was very disappointing and badly pitched. The only people who would find this scary are young people who aren't allowed in. There was one scare at the end which was good but too little to late. The cart ride was reminiscent of an old ghost train. Train rides up to a wall with a video playing or some models of dead people, turns and approaches another.......repeat. It actually felt like it wasn't working properly when I went through it.
This would be okay if it was stuck in the corner of a park and not given any hype. Kids would scream and find it fun, adults needn't waste their time.
Very scary - After, visiting within the first two week of Hobs Pitt opening, i would agree, the ride did seem slight low on the scare factor, however after riding again around six/seven months later i could see clear improvements in the ride, as the actors involved in this ride have since become more experienced most lightly learning the best and most effective ways of scaring the passengers on the ride.
As well as this I'd had a friend who went round most of this ride with their eyes closed, as they scare very easily, and has since been on a second time with her eyes open. She said that with you eyes closed it feel a lot worse than with them open as you are purely going on noise, not sight meaning you don't know who/where the noise is coming from.
As well as this I'd had a friend who went round most of this ride with their eyes closed, as they scare very easily, and has since been on a second time with her eyes open. She said that with you eyes closed it feel a lot worse than with them open as you are purely going on noise, not sight meaning you don't know who/where the noise is coming from.
Mildly scary - Not that scary could make actors actually jump out at
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