Phobia is a new event at Puxton Park and I genuinely had no idea what to expect. Their website doesn’t really reveal any information. So when we arrived, we walked to the desk, got our maze tickets and ventured in. The walk to where the mazes are is so dark that they even advise you to use your phone torch’s to help see. It’s a good 5/10 minute walk too. The only problem is that it is severely underused. Yes there were two actors along the way, but I felt that there genuinely could have been so much more. They could have easily have turned this into a scare zone with zombies and tractors. You eventually get to where the mazes are and it genuinely felt like a barn dance, minus the hay. Let’s start with the mazes
Dolls House
Short and sweet, Dolls House probably had the most actors in it. While the sets are a bit cheap looking, Dolls House brings the creepy. It’s a great little maze and one that has such great potential.
Claustrophobia
This maze is also short and it relies heavily on darkness, which kind of adds to the theme. Whilst I wouldn’t say there is an overall theme to this maze, it had a couple of really well timed scares. Again, this maze has so much potential to be something really good.
Freak Show
Again, another great little maze. The balloon room, be it so simple, worked very well. The fact that they actually pop a balloon and then laugh is creepy. Another with so much potential, but again, it just fell a bit flat.
Haunted Tractor Ride
All they have done is put some black sheeting around a trailer. You sit on the trailer and go to The Parlour. I would not have bothered even advertising it as a scare attraction. It’s more a mode of transport to take you from one area to another. The driver does drive the tractor pretty fast so you do bounce around a bit, which was fun.
The Parlour
Again, this one wasn’t that great. It did provide one good scare purely because we didn’t see the actor, but that is all it had to offer. There was no story or overall theme that I could make out. The cows were a cute touch 😜
Overall this new event has a lot of potential if time and money is spent on making it better, but as a local event for the area it’s probably a little bit of fun. I do feel that they have tried to go with quantity as opposed to quality for the mazes but for a new event, I guess they tried their best.
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