PrimEVIL at Norfolk Dinosaur Park
Now in its 3rd year as a dedicated scare event, PrimEVIl is back with 2 new mazes for 2012. But can an event held in a family friendly theme park, provide the scares we are looking for? We started with the mazes;
The Dark
Darkness seems to be very popular in attractions this year but PrimEVIL have taken things one step further by introducing a truly dark maze WITHOUT a hood or a rope to hang onto. Passage through The Dark is made completely by the first person in the group feeling ahead of themselves with their hands. Everyone else just hangs on and hopes that the person in front doesn't lead them in to a solid wall (which we did a number of times!). Along the way, there are a number of tactile effects which left all of us guessing as to what it was we were touching, or worse, what was touching us! After what seemed an eternity in the darkness we came to a large room with about 10 doors and no obvious route of escape. We tried every door with varying degrees of success (once even thinking we'd escaped to come all the way round and back in again!) What didn't help is that we had two very dark creatures stalking us throughout. The Dark was a simple idea but managed to get some really good scares from our whole group.
Creepy Cottage
The Creepy Cottage is a small but well themed walk through a potential "holiday chalet in Switzerland". The story started in a travel agency, as Baron Skullmore tried to interest us in one of his lovely properties and before we knew it - we were on our personal tour of the "show house". This amusing story set us up for a scary trip through about 8 rooms which were full of creatures hiding in unusual places ready to scare us. And scare us they did! As an attraction included on the "scare" ticket, the Creepy Cottage can be turned up or down in levels of fright depending on the make up of the group coming through. As a group of adults we got the full show and can confirm that it was absolutely terrifying in places!
Insanitorium
Firstly we must point out - there's nothing new about The Insanitorium - it's an asylum themed maze full of strobes, smoke and metal fences. What differentiates this from other mazes is the execution of the idea, The team at PrimEVIL have created some definitive rooms (surgery, office etc) as well as some fun hiding places and interesting distraction scares. The actors were some of the most physical of the night - throwing themselves at, and over fencing in an attempt to get hold of us. Add in the incredibly upbeat drum and bass style soundtrack and the Insanitorium is a masterpiece of sustained fear.
Dino Haunts
DinoHaunts was the park's first attraction and is located along their mile long dinosaur walk through the woods. With only minimal lighting throughout, strange noises and all manner of beasts prepared to attack, the walk takes about 30 minutes to finish. The sound effects along the way make use of multiple speakers to ensure that whispers and voices seem to come from all round the woodland. Alongside the chilling echoey version of "If you go down to the woods today" the atmosphere along the path was suitably spooky. There were a number of good scares along the way including a couple of clever scares that had most of our group screaming.
Circus of Terrors
Nestled in the corner of the park, a bright big top leers at people in the dark. It all looked innocent until we stared to hear the screams emanating from the groups that had gone in ahead of us. The reason for the screams was the dark and twisted clowns that had brought their Carnival to town. Unlike many of this years clown mazes, the circus used the darkness of the woods to hide the characters, and the clowns had more space to have fun and scare people. Unlike many clown mazes, the motives of these clowns were obvious - they had a taste for human flesh and we were on the menu! All in, a good fun maze with a noisy finale that left everyone running out of the woods for safety!
Having completed all the mazes we waited around to see the nightly fireworks display while enjoying the stilt-walker characters which helped create a fun atmosphere throughout. Finally, as we were leaving we noticed that unlike nearly all the major attractions we have visited this year, PrimEVIL has a range of branded merchandise.
Editors note - please note that although Michael Bolton Scare Consulting helped with the original design of PrimEVIL in 2010, it has not been involved with the 2012 event.
Editors note - please note that although Michael Bolton Scare Consulting helped with the original design of PrimEVIL in 2010, it has not been involved with the 2012 event.
Links
Official PrimEVIL website - www.primevil-scare.com/
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