PrimEVIL 2019
PrimEVIL is often overlooked when people talk about large scream park events, but the park have been steadily been building their reputation with new ideas every year, including last tear's first "Extreme" night. This year has seen a big change around in layout, but sadly still can't ignore the fact that the event is set across two different levels and areas - joined by a long steep hill between them . Fortunately one side of this route is used as the Forest of Fear, and as this now starts at the bottom of the site, it seems logical to go down to the lowest point first with a visit to Arachnophobia, and then use Forest of Fear as the walk back up.
Arachnophobia has been built on the old site of the clown maze, and we were excited to find out what the undisclosed "effect" or concept was that the park owners warned us about. What surprised us was the issuing of every body with a quality set of headphones, that soon turned out to be part of a silent disco set up. Once on, a thumping techno soundtrack accompanied us on our journey into the dark strobe lit maze, and left us completely vulnerable to stealth attacks from all sides. Of course we couldn't hear anything and were enjoying the music but this also meant we couldn't hear the actors until they were literally on top of us. This meant that our whole experience was a maze of dancing our way round, punctuated with the terrified screams as we got scared. For such a simple idea - we are amazed we have never seen this use of technology before, and we are sure it would be a godsend for actors who have to work in a loud maze for so long, or for anyone who has noise issues with neighbours etc. We thought this was going to a highlight of the night - turns out that there was more innovation to come!
As stated in the intro, we used Forest of Fear as the pathway back up to the main site. Of course being such a long walk, it really would be difficult to sustain the same level and quantity of scares as the indoor attractions, but we had several good jumps along the 15 minute plus walk. The actors throughout were all lively and stayed in character as they engaged with our group, and the chainsaw finale had a lot of people running toward the exit. It's probably the weakest of the 5 attractions, just due to the logistics of the pathway, but at least it provides some interesting relief on the walk back up the hill!
Back up in the main event area, we ventured into the The Crypt which easily has one of the most impressive facades we have seen in any UK scream park. This looks like a genuine church building and is a stunning entry point for a great fun maze. This year, there seemed to be a lot of new animatronics throughout, and although impressive, we had a few timing issues with things triggering later than they should. Saying that - the actors did a very lively job or providing real scares as well, and we left the attraction wondering how they could have got so much maze into what looked like such a small church.
The final two mazes have been moved to a new location at the front of the park and this makes a perfect place to either do them last as you leave, or upon first arrival. We had heard some exciting things about the clown maze so decided to check into Mayhem Manor Hotel first. Behind another impressive facade, this attraction is probably the closest to a "standard" haunted house maze, even if nothing about it is particularly standard. The rooms and corridors of this hotel hod a myriad of evil characters, and in each room we had multiple attacks (often from unexpected places). We also liked that the use of standard scare techniques (such as drop panels) were all in play, but nothing was over used or repetitive. Each room was nicely decorated with enough props and furniture to convey the theme and story required without the rooms being overcrowded. Also - it was quite unusual to actually have doors to open between rooms, instead of just pushing through flaps or material. It was a nice touch that made the house feel real, but also created more tension each time we came to a closed door!
Our final maze was Circus of Terror and we have to say we loved every part of this attraction. From the over sized clown head on an overhead rail that charged us, through to the ball pit and crazy bungee rope maze, this maze threw so many fun and original ideas into the mix, as well as the craziest bunch of clowns we have seen for a long time. Our highlight will be enigmatically known as the "round room". We are not sure where the idea for this room came from ,but it was so much fun as we tried to find our way out while staying upright on our feet. We wouldn't be surprised to see others copy this ingenious effect - but we saw it here first, and for that PrimEvil we always be the originator!
Due to travel and the timing of our arrival, we didn't have that much time to spend around enjoying the atmosphere in the park, but we saw some fun roaming characters, there was a live band providing music, and the catering facilities all seemed to be buzzing with activity.
Having done just the normal PrimEVIL show, we were really tempted to go back and do the extreme version that was running for a few extra days over Halloween. It's not often that we immediately want to go straight back to a park after visiting it once in the season, but PrimEVIL really blew us away this year with its ingenuity and scares. We cant wait to see what next year brings!
Arachnophobia has been built on the old site of the clown maze, and we were excited to find out what the undisclosed "effect" or concept was that the park owners warned us about. What surprised us was the issuing of every body with a quality set of headphones, that soon turned out to be part of a silent disco set up. Once on, a thumping techno soundtrack accompanied us on our journey into the dark strobe lit maze, and left us completely vulnerable to stealth attacks from all sides. Of course we couldn't hear anything and were enjoying the music but this also meant we couldn't hear the actors until they were literally on top of us. This meant that our whole experience was a maze of dancing our way round, punctuated with the terrified screams as we got scared. For such a simple idea - we are amazed we have never seen this use of technology before, and we are sure it would be a godsend for actors who have to work in a loud maze for so long, or for anyone who has noise issues with neighbours etc. We thought this was going to a highlight of the night - turns out that there was more innovation to come!
As stated in the intro, we used Forest of Fear as the pathway back up to the main site. Of course being such a long walk, it really would be difficult to sustain the same level and quantity of scares as the indoor attractions, but we had several good jumps along the 15 minute plus walk. The actors throughout were all lively and stayed in character as they engaged with our group, and the chainsaw finale had a lot of people running toward the exit. It's probably the weakest of the 5 attractions, just due to the logistics of the pathway, but at least it provides some interesting relief on the walk back up the hill!
Back up in the main event area, we ventured into the The Crypt which easily has one of the most impressive facades we have seen in any UK scream park. This looks like a genuine church building and is a stunning entry point for a great fun maze. This year, there seemed to be a lot of new animatronics throughout, and although impressive, we had a few timing issues with things triggering later than they should. Saying that - the actors did a very lively job or providing real scares as well, and we left the attraction wondering how they could have got so much maze into what looked like such a small church.
The final two mazes have been moved to a new location at the front of the park and this makes a perfect place to either do them last as you leave, or upon first arrival. We had heard some exciting things about the clown maze so decided to check into Mayhem Manor Hotel first. Behind another impressive facade, this attraction is probably the closest to a "standard" haunted house maze, even if nothing about it is particularly standard. The rooms and corridors of this hotel hod a myriad of evil characters, and in each room we had multiple attacks (often from unexpected places). We also liked that the use of standard scare techniques (such as drop panels) were all in play, but nothing was over used or repetitive. Each room was nicely decorated with enough props and furniture to convey the theme and story required without the rooms being overcrowded. Also - it was quite unusual to actually have doors to open between rooms, instead of just pushing through flaps or material. It was a nice touch that made the house feel real, but also created more tension each time we came to a closed door!
Our final maze was Circus of Terror and we have to say we loved every part of this attraction. From the over sized clown head on an overhead rail that charged us, through to the ball pit and crazy bungee rope maze, this maze threw so many fun and original ideas into the mix, as well as the craziest bunch of clowns we have seen for a long time. Our highlight will be enigmatically known as the "round room". We are not sure where the idea for this room came from ,but it was so much fun as we tried to find our way out while staying upright on our feet. We wouldn't be surprised to see others copy this ingenious effect - but we saw it here first, and for that PrimEvil we always be the originator!
Due to travel and the timing of our arrival, we didn't have that much time to spend around enjoying the atmosphere in the park, but we saw some fun roaming characters, there was a live band providing music, and the catering facilities all seemed to be buzzing with activity.
Having done just the normal PrimEVIL show, we were really tempted to go back and do the extreme version that was running for a few extra days over Halloween. It's not often that we immediately want to go straight back to a park after visiting it once in the season, but PrimEVIL really blew us away this year with its ingenuity and scares. We cant wait to see what next year brings!
PrimEVIL 2018
PrimEvil has grown over the last eight years from a small offering at Norwich’s local dinosaur park to become one of the biggest scream parks in the East. This year’s event featured five scare mazes – one of them new, roaming actors and live music. We went along on Halloween night itself to see what all the fuss was about.
The fun started for us before we even got out of the car park as two clowns terrorised guests as they got out of their vehicles. The park has a big focus on roaming actors and certainly has a great variety of them, some of our favourites being a deformed waiter, a puppeteer and a little old lady with a lot of attitude. As well as scaring, the roaming actors were very funny and spent a lot of time stalking the queuelines, keeping us entertained as we waited.
We chose to start our evening at Carnevil of Terror, a clown themed maze at the back of the park. After making our way through an air bag we were in a nicely themed series of corridors with a number of surprises and a few quirky characters. You’ve got your standard ball pool, spinning tunnel and chequered walls as you make your way through the circus. We did think the maze lacked actors in places, often walking for some time without seeing anyone. However the second part of the maze improved on this. After passing through last year’s finale, we were surprised the maze continued as we found ourselves in a brand new second finale featuring, three actors, several doors and a spinning floor. It was a nice and creative ending and great to see the maze evolve year-on-year.
Our second maze of the evening was Forest of Fear, an outdoor walkthrough along one of the dinosaur parks many dino-pathways. This maze has also been revamped with the route having reversed compared to the previous year. After a brief actor-led intro, we were into the maze and ended up walking through many different scenes and getting several good jump scares. There were some great effects in this maze including some fantastic lighting (we never knew outdoor strobes could be so disorientating), some pyrotechnics and a very impressive animatronic which gave us possibly the best scare of the night! The maze did feel a little sparse in places, but this can be forgiven when walking through the forest which is always eerie. As with Carnevil, Forest had a great finale which was well timed and petrified half our group as they nearly bowled us over running for the exit.
Our next stop was the park's new maze – Arachnophobia. This is housed in a new building just outside the main park. We must admit we were a little disappointed by the announcement of Arachnophobia originally as it replaced our favourite maze of last year – Infected. However, as we got close we heard a familiar drum and bass track blasting out of the building – this was more of a retheme than a new maze and that’s no bad thing! After a brief explanation of the story (big spiders are running riot and biting people turning them to zombies!) we were straight into what was a very intense strobe maze with multiple routes, energetic actors and lots of scares. New for this year were the massive spider models – initially just static models but as we went through - some impressive animatronics too. There was also a fun use of a bungee wire as we delved further into the maze. The strobes were very powerful and the actors knew exactly how to utilise them. We had a great laugh here and would say the new iteration was once again our favourite maze.
Next up was the Crypt which has had an impressive facelift with a new façade and fire effects out the front. It’s fantastic to see how seriously the venue now takes this event that they’ll go to this level to theme the building. Inside is perhaps slightly less impressive. The Crypt focuses itself around darkness and tight confined spaces – which will be enough to scare some people – but it does have a distinct lack of actors due to its nature of being so small. To try and counter this, some new animatronics have been added to try and give a few jump scares, but unfortunately on our run thought these were not timed very well, meaning were actually waiting for the animatronic to move so we could get the effect. That said, The Crypt does yet again have a fun and theatrical finale which did work and even though we knew what to expect from last year, stull gave us a good fright.
Our final maze was Mayhem Manor Hotel which has also been given a new home in the same building as Arachnophobia. The anticipation for this maze was built brilliantly in the queue, firstly by a very creepy butler welcoming us all and secondly by the actor from the final scene frequently chasing guests several meters out of the maze with a howl of ‘where are you going!’. Mayhem Manor is a standard haunted hotel set up, but it’s done very well indeed. This year has seen the maze scenes given a bit more room to breathe as the new venue means the maze is much bigger. This made the experience feel much more like a real hotel as opposed to just several corridors of previous years. The acting was superb and the actors really did like to mix up the style of scares throughout which was much more fun than the standard jump scares. When we finally made it to the finale actor, it was worth the wait – the intent in his eyes as he swiped with a massive baseball bat was terrifying!
2018’s PrimEvil offered another great lineup – our only gripe would be that it felt as if there were a few less actors than in previous years. But as we sat in the bar, enjoying the live music of Thy Last Drop and watching the cranky old lady we mentioned earlier boogieing the night away, we couldn’t deny we’d had a fantastic Halloween night!
The fun started for us before we even got out of the car park as two clowns terrorised guests as they got out of their vehicles. The park has a big focus on roaming actors and certainly has a great variety of them, some of our favourites being a deformed waiter, a puppeteer and a little old lady with a lot of attitude. As well as scaring, the roaming actors were very funny and spent a lot of time stalking the queuelines, keeping us entertained as we waited.
We chose to start our evening at Carnevil of Terror, a clown themed maze at the back of the park. After making our way through an air bag we were in a nicely themed series of corridors with a number of surprises and a few quirky characters. You’ve got your standard ball pool, spinning tunnel and chequered walls as you make your way through the circus. We did think the maze lacked actors in places, often walking for some time without seeing anyone. However the second part of the maze improved on this. After passing through last year’s finale, we were surprised the maze continued as we found ourselves in a brand new second finale featuring, three actors, several doors and a spinning floor. It was a nice and creative ending and great to see the maze evolve year-on-year.
Our second maze of the evening was Forest of Fear, an outdoor walkthrough along one of the dinosaur parks many dino-pathways. This maze has also been revamped with the route having reversed compared to the previous year. After a brief actor-led intro, we were into the maze and ended up walking through many different scenes and getting several good jump scares. There were some great effects in this maze including some fantastic lighting (we never knew outdoor strobes could be so disorientating), some pyrotechnics and a very impressive animatronic which gave us possibly the best scare of the night! The maze did feel a little sparse in places, but this can be forgiven when walking through the forest which is always eerie. As with Carnevil, Forest had a great finale which was well timed and petrified half our group as they nearly bowled us over running for the exit.
Our next stop was the park's new maze – Arachnophobia. This is housed in a new building just outside the main park. We must admit we were a little disappointed by the announcement of Arachnophobia originally as it replaced our favourite maze of last year – Infected. However, as we got close we heard a familiar drum and bass track blasting out of the building – this was more of a retheme than a new maze and that’s no bad thing! After a brief explanation of the story (big spiders are running riot and biting people turning them to zombies!) we were straight into what was a very intense strobe maze with multiple routes, energetic actors and lots of scares. New for this year were the massive spider models – initially just static models but as we went through - some impressive animatronics too. There was also a fun use of a bungee wire as we delved further into the maze. The strobes were very powerful and the actors knew exactly how to utilise them. We had a great laugh here and would say the new iteration was once again our favourite maze.
Next up was the Crypt which has had an impressive facelift with a new façade and fire effects out the front. It’s fantastic to see how seriously the venue now takes this event that they’ll go to this level to theme the building. Inside is perhaps slightly less impressive. The Crypt focuses itself around darkness and tight confined spaces – which will be enough to scare some people – but it does have a distinct lack of actors due to its nature of being so small. To try and counter this, some new animatronics have been added to try and give a few jump scares, but unfortunately on our run thought these were not timed very well, meaning were actually waiting for the animatronic to move so we could get the effect. That said, The Crypt does yet again have a fun and theatrical finale which did work and even though we knew what to expect from last year, stull gave us a good fright.
Our final maze was Mayhem Manor Hotel which has also been given a new home in the same building as Arachnophobia. The anticipation for this maze was built brilliantly in the queue, firstly by a very creepy butler welcoming us all and secondly by the actor from the final scene frequently chasing guests several meters out of the maze with a howl of ‘where are you going!’. Mayhem Manor is a standard haunted hotel set up, but it’s done very well indeed. This year has seen the maze scenes given a bit more room to breathe as the new venue means the maze is much bigger. This made the experience feel much more like a real hotel as opposed to just several corridors of previous years. The acting was superb and the actors really did like to mix up the style of scares throughout which was much more fun than the standard jump scares. When we finally made it to the finale actor, it was worth the wait – the intent in his eyes as he swiped with a massive baseball bat was terrifying!
2018’s PrimEvil offered another great lineup – our only gripe would be that it felt as if there were a few less actors than in previous years. But as we sat in the bar, enjoying the live music of Thy Last Drop and watching the cranky old lady we mentioned earlier boogieing the night away, we couldn’t deny we’d had a fantastic Halloween night!
PrimEVIL 2017
PrimEVIL at Norfolk Dinosaur Park is back for 2017 and this year has seen many big changes across the whole event.
The Crypt was a brand-new scare experience that was housed in a purpose designed building.The maze was like a bigger brother to The Dark, with a confusing path way and some great scares coming at us from the throughout. At times this maze was genuinely terrifying as we had no idea where we were going, and the scares came thick and fast as we were trying to escape!
The Infected was also new with a storyline involving infected people (i.e. zombies). Generic theming aside, this maze had some crazy strobe effects which made it completely disorienting and confusing. As we tried to find our way out, the infected kept appearing out of nowhere. The actors were so lively in here and knew how to use the space to provide genuine frights to everyone in our group.
We loved the Carnival of Terrors last year and it was great to see the attraction make a return. By being a permanent installation, the attraction feels more detailed which helps create a professional experience. Once again, the maze really threw every clown/fun house trick at us including squeeze tunnels, rotating tunnels, uneven floors and of course lots and lots of evil clowns. All the fun effects are back, and we manged to get many fun scares throughout.
Mayhem Manor Hotel is a well themed trip through a haunted hotel full of ghosts. The whole attraction was once again one of the most impressive of the night with the ghosts tormenting us from beginning to end with multiple drop panels and places to attack. The maze has the most detailed theming of the attractions and provided some great scares from the lively actors.
Forest of Fear is the park’s signature attraction and is always very popular. The long walk through the woods generally throws all different types of scares at the visitors and as usual had our group laughing as well as screaming. Some of the set pieces on this pathway are really stunning and completely unexpected in the woodland setting.
As usual the event had many roaming characters that were scaring an entertaining guest throughout. We weren’t even safe in the new bar area as they followed us into the building that used to be home to the Dark attraction
We have been visiting PrimEvil since their first steps into becoming a scare event and each year we see them get bigger and more advanced in their execution. The move to hosting attractions in permanent structures is really given the event an even more polished feel and we can wait to head back in 2018.
The Crypt was a brand-new scare experience that was housed in a purpose designed building.The maze was like a bigger brother to The Dark, with a confusing path way and some great scares coming at us from the throughout. At times this maze was genuinely terrifying as we had no idea where we were going, and the scares came thick and fast as we were trying to escape!
The Infected was also new with a storyline involving infected people (i.e. zombies). Generic theming aside, this maze had some crazy strobe effects which made it completely disorienting and confusing. As we tried to find our way out, the infected kept appearing out of nowhere. The actors were so lively in here and knew how to use the space to provide genuine frights to everyone in our group.
We loved the Carnival of Terrors last year and it was great to see the attraction make a return. By being a permanent installation, the attraction feels more detailed which helps create a professional experience. Once again, the maze really threw every clown/fun house trick at us including squeeze tunnels, rotating tunnels, uneven floors and of course lots and lots of evil clowns. All the fun effects are back, and we manged to get many fun scares throughout.
Mayhem Manor Hotel is a well themed trip through a haunted hotel full of ghosts. The whole attraction was once again one of the most impressive of the night with the ghosts tormenting us from beginning to end with multiple drop panels and places to attack. The maze has the most detailed theming of the attractions and provided some great scares from the lively actors.
Forest of Fear is the park’s signature attraction and is always very popular. The long walk through the woods generally throws all different types of scares at the visitors and as usual had our group laughing as well as screaming. Some of the set pieces on this pathway are really stunning and completely unexpected in the woodland setting.
As usual the event had many roaming characters that were scaring an entertaining guest throughout. We weren’t even safe in the new bar area as they followed us into the building that used to be home to the Dark attraction
We have been visiting PrimEvil since their first steps into becoming a scare event and each year we see them get bigger and more advanced in their execution. The move to hosting attractions in permanent structures is really given the event an even more polished feel and we can wait to head back in 2018.
Pictures provided by and used with permission of PrimEVIL
PrimEVIL 2016
PrimEVIL at Norfolk Dinosaur Park is back for another year and has seen some changes for 2016, with new attractions and some location changes within the venue. The change to more permanent locations for attractions and the addition of enhanced infrastructure such as the central bar area, make the event feel more polished, especially as the roaming characters can have fun with the guests gathered in the bar or waiting in the queuelines
CarnEVIL of Terrors has taken residence in a new permanent location in the valley section of the park, which has given the team the chance to really go to town on design and theming. Following an hilarious greeter, who had us in hysterics as we prepared to enter, the attraction really threw every clown/fun house trick at us including squeeze tunnels, rotating tunnels, uneven floors and of course lots and lots of evil clowns. There were a number of clever and quite different scares along the way, including a very effective massive suspended clown face that was the perfect distraction for the actor creeping up behind us!
Mayhem Manor Hotel is a well themed trip through a haunted hotel full of ghosts. The whole attraction was one of the liveliest mazes of the night with the ghosts tormenting us from beginning to end with multiple drop panels and places to attack. The maze also included some interesting character acting as we dove deeper into the darkness of the hotel.
Zone 64 East: Deadwood has a new home in the outdoor maze section of woodland, which works perfectly as the story tells of a zombie style outbreak and our quest is to make it to the safe zone. Of course the wood is populated by undead creatures, and the actors used the darkness of the woods to get a number of great scares as we stumbled through. The lighting throughout the zone is subtly effective, giving off enough light to create an atmosphere but not enough to reveal the hidden zombies.
Forest of Fear is a long walk through the woodland down to the lowest part of the park and has a mixture of effects and live actors to scare and startle along the way. It IS a very long path and so does suffer at times from feeling a little bit underpopulated, but when the scares come they are fast and effective. We should also mention the incredible puppet style effects hidden in two of the structures along the route. Both of these were totally unexpected and gave the whole group a great fright.
The Dark has been scaring guests for a number of years and remains as dark and effective as before. Without the gimmick of hoods or having to follow a rope, The Dark does exactly what it says on the tin. It is dark. Very dark. Along the dark route, there are a number of elevation changes and different startle effects, culminating in a confusing finale as we were confronted with multiple doors to try and get out. It really is a great scary maze and the darkness works perfectly every time. By the way - did we say it was dark in there?
The Hangman's Revenge is a small up charge price to experience the park's zip wire in the dark. The loading station has been decorated accordingly and the operator was dressed as a medieval hangman. There was one MASSIVE surprise that we don't want to ruin, but we genuinely let out a scream of terror as part of our experience as we raced down the hillside! Definitely worth the extra £3.50.
CarnEVIL of Terrors has taken residence in a new permanent location in the valley section of the park, which has given the team the chance to really go to town on design and theming. Following an hilarious greeter, who had us in hysterics as we prepared to enter, the attraction really threw every clown/fun house trick at us including squeeze tunnels, rotating tunnels, uneven floors and of course lots and lots of evil clowns. There were a number of clever and quite different scares along the way, including a very effective massive suspended clown face that was the perfect distraction for the actor creeping up behind us!
Mayhem Manor Hotel is a well themed trip through a haunted hotel full of ghosts. The whole attraction was one of the liveliest mazes of the night with the ghosts tormenting us from beginning to end with multiple drop panels and places to attack. The maze also included some interesting character acting as we dove deeper into the darkness of the hotel.
Zone 64 East: Deadwood has a new home in the outdoor maze section of woodland, which works perfectly as the story tells of a zombie style outbreak and our quest is to make it to the safe zone. Of course the wood is populated by undead creatures, and the actors used the darkness of the woods to get a number of great scares as we stumbled through. The lighting throughout the zone is subtly effective, giving off enough light to create an atmosphere but not enough to reveal the hidden zombies.
Forest of Fear is a long walk through the woodland down to the lowest part of the park and has a mixture of effects and live actors to scare and startle along the way. It IS a very long path and so does suffer at times from feeling a little bit underpopulated, but when the scares come they are fast and effective. We should also mention the incredible puppet style effects hidden in two of the structures along the route. Both of these were totally unexpected and gave the whole group a great fright.
The Dark has been scaring guests for a number of years and remains as dark and effective as before. Without the gimmick of hoods or having to follow a rope, The Dark does exactly what it says on the tin. It is dark. Very dark. Along the dark route, there are a number of elevation changes and different startle effects, culminating in a confusing finale as we were confronted with multiple doors to try and get out. It really is a great scary maze and the darkness works perfectly every time. By the way - did we say it was dark in there?
The Hangman's Revenge is a small up charge price to experience the park's zip wire in the dark. The loading station has been decorated accordingly and the operator was dressed as a medieval hangman. There was one MASSIVE surprise that we don't want to ruin, but we genuinely let out a scream of terror as part of our experience as we raced down the hillside! Definitely worth the extra £3.50.
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