The Doll - Arundel Jailhouse
A town best known for its antiques trade and magnificent castle. An innocuous looking passageway between a pub and a Chinese restaurant. An attraction that plans to have only 15 shows over three nights of its super-scary Halloween attraction. This was going to be a piece of cake surely?
This was the third year that the Arundel Jailhouse has run a Halloween special, and yes, it really is an old jailhouse. It's tucked away off the high street and all we saw to beckon us in was a sign advertising their bread and butter Ghost Experience that runs at times other than Halloween, along with a poster showing the eerie image of The Doll, which was to be tonight's' attraction. Interestingly, we noted that the venue also runs murder mystery nights, comedy nights and live gigs. Clearly a highly active and creative mind was at work, which bode well for our show.
From the off this show was a bit different, with none of the usual preamble of not touching actors and any sort of disclaimer that this could get a bit scary - you had to know what you had booked! This review will steer clear from specific spoilers and focus on what we thought of the attraction and what we think could be done to make it even better. First off, its a really clever and intelligent idea, and draws well on what the Arundel Jailhouse is good at - the finest tradition of ghost stories. The Doll however goes one step further, and uses a couple of clever psychological tricks to get under your skin and set itself apart from a standard scare maze.
The build-up was great, story-telling effective and the big scares (when they came) had this reviewer absolutely jumping out of his chair! There were one or two times when we smelt a rat (not literally!) but overall the sense of confusion generated was enough to hide this nicely. The attraction here was not about big budget animatronics or elaborate sets, but more a story that had depth, was told simply and with some really energy when it needed it.
We were surprised that there was no use of the cells to "lock" the group in, and clearly there's a lot more areas of the Jailhouse that could have been incorporated, but the narrative nature of the show lent itself most to a limited area and seated approach. Overall it was a show that left us buzzing as well as thoughtful - processing of the experience took this reviewer pretty much a whole day, which highlights its clever psychological impact Needless to say some odd dreams were had by our whole group when we got home!. Finally, we'd love to see the story telling combined with a full blooded walk- through attraction, and will be keeping an eye on the Arundel Jailhouse as I'm sure they will have something special up their sleeves when next we visit....
This was the third year that the Arundel Jailhouse has run a Halloween special, and yes, it really is an old jailhouse. It's tucked away off the high street and all we saw to beckon us in was a sign advertising their bread and butter Ghost Experience that runs at times other than Halloween, along with a poster showing the eerie image of The Doll, which was to be tonight's' attraction. Interestingly, we noted that the venue also runs murder mystery nights, comedy nights and live gigs. Clearly a highly active and creative mind was at work, which bode well for our show.
From the off this show was a bit different, with none of the usual preamble of not touching actors and any sort of disclaimer that this could get a bit scary - you had to know what you had booked! This review will steer clear from specific spoilers and focus on what we thought of the attraction and what we think could be done to make it even better. First off, its a really clever and intelligent idea, and draws well on what the Arundel Jailhouse is good at - the finest tradition of ghost stories. The Doll however goes one step further, and uses a couple of clever psychological tricks to get under your skin and set itself apart from a standard scare maze.
The build-up was great, story-telling effective and the big scares (when they came) had this reviewer absolutely jumping out of his chair! There were one or two times when we smelt a rat (not literally!) but overall the sense of confusion generated was enough to hide this nicely. The attraction here was not about big budget animatronics or elaborate sets, but more a story that had depth, was told simply and with some really energy when it needed it.
We were surprised that there was no use of the cells to "lock" the group in, and clearly there's a lot more areas of the Jailhouse that could have been incorporated, but the narrative nature of the show lent itself most to a limited area and seated approach. Overall it was a show that left us buzzing as well as thoughtful - processing of the experience took this reviewer pretty much a whole day, which highlights its clever psychological impact Needless to say some odd dreams were had by our whole group when we got home!. Finally, we'd love to see the story telling combined with a full blooded walk- through attraction, and will be keeping an eye on the Arundel Jailhouse as I'm sure they will have something special up their sleeves when next we visit....
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