Blair Witch Overnight Experience - Follow up visit
At the start of this year's Halloween season, we were amongst the first group of people to experience Thorpe Park's new overnight experience based around The Blair Witch Project. Our review of that event was uniformly bad as we just felt that nothing happened and there were just no scares. In fact our experience was so poor, that senior management in the park made immediate changes to the event and invited us back for another go. Sceptical that they would be able to change the experience, we joined other guests from the Crash Pad and headed back into the woods.
The night started very similar to before with our psychically tuned guide telling us about some of the strange things that occurred along the Blair Witch Scare Zone since it was opened. Amusingly - many of the group thought that the concept of the monastery on the site of the park (and the fact that the attraction is built along Monks Walk) was just a pure storytelling construct, and were quite surprised when we confirmed the story. It also left people wondering if we were plants in the audience which was something we had thought of a couple of them. Especially when one couple started to reveal details about all the paranormal activity in their house. We thought this was all part of the show, turned out they were genuine!
Once along the the dark walkway of the Scare Zone, we spent some time as a group talking about different paranormal events before the guides introduced us to the death of Michael Larsson - a park maintenance man who was crushed between two logs on the log flume, and whose spirit was supposed to haunt the station. Of course, once asked if we would like to go an investigate we gleefully shouted yes and head into the darkness of the log-flume loading bay. Once there, the guides did some spirit calling asking for the spirit of Michael to make himself known and potentially latch onto us, ahead of a full seance we would be holding later. Standing in the dark calling out to be a supposedly dead person was freaky enough, so of course, when we got a response it had all of our group on edge. It was subtle but frightening and after a few further incidents, we needed no further urging to get out of the building for our own safety!
Once back at the camp, we held a seance which was atmospheric but quite uneventful. We were rewarded with a couple of knocks and bangs but when the guide suggested we retire to our tents until "the witching hour", we were disappointed that nothing really major had happened so far. But the tents, although small, were warmer than outside and being about 1 in the morning after a long day in the theme park, it was actually quite comfortable and we both started to doze off.
The next 45 minutes or so was then a blur of noises heard during half sleep, footsteps outside the tent and, creepily, two of the other guests leaving to go back to the hotel as they were too nervous to continue. Ordered at times to stay in our tents for our own safety, we kept drifting off to suddenly hear something hit the tent or urgent footsteps run through the camp. It was exciting and tense especially as we couldn't see what was happening outside. Suddenly a panicked guide demanded we all get out of our tents as we needed to try and finish what we had started and it was during this final seance that all hell broke out! It's still quite hard to remember what actually happened during the finale but it was clear that our seance had summoned a number of creatures from beyond, and they really weren't happy!
Half glimpsed movements in the shadows, ear piercing unearthly shrieks, distorted bodies and a possession were just some of the things we experienced as we RAN back down the Scare Zone to the attraction's finale shed. With one final tumultuous scene we stumbled back into the theme park and escaped the demons tormenting us.
Or did we? Just like any good horror movie, this story wasn't over yet. It's so difficult not to give too much away at this point but lets just say that running at full speed through an empty theme park at three in the morning is one of the scariest surreal and fun things we experienced this whole Halloween!
Interestingly, despite summoning this creatures, at no point did we do anything to get them to go back - we just ran and hid from them. So even though we were urged to return to our rooms and lock the doors, none of us really suspected that the demons were still around. After all - surely they couldn't get through locked hotel bedroom doors, could they?! You'll have to experience the Blair Witch Overnight experience yourself to find out.
With all that had happened in the final few scenes it was hard to actually get to sleep once back in the Crash Pad. In fact, we wouldn't be surprised if some other groups moved furniture to barricade themselves in. We certainly jumped and flinched at every small movement throughout the rest of the night!
When we first started the event, we were worried that we were going to get another slow-burn night that didn't go anywhere like our previous visit. What we actually got was a completely different experience that although being extremely slow to start with, soon built up into a crescendo of panic and terror that left us genuinely scared for our souls. Throughout the night we were impressed by our two tour guides who had the difficult job of keeping up the tension, reacting to guests experiences and cueing up the scares for the unseen technical team to orchestrate. Both of them should be commended for the way they kept us safe throughout. We must also mention those guttural mewling demons that seemed to come from nowhere. Despite not really seeing you, the noises coming from your moths were just unreal!
So just three weeks after our first experience, it was great to see that Thorpe Park responded to our criticisms of the opening night and made significant changes to the experience. In fact we would almost consider it a completely different show. We're just pleased we got to see the proper experience for ourselves.
You Review
Have you also visited this or any other attractions recently? - tell us what you thought here
think that the experience was superb and a great value of money. i feel lucky that after being chased through the park once then woke up by the demons i had the great treat of being chased through the park by myslef all the way to the swarm. it was scary,
Jake
Jake
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