Christmas is not a time you usually associate with scares but in the pst few years Christmas themed scare events have started to pop up. One such event we visited on the 29th of December at it was Scare Kingdom‘s Christmas Festevil. This winter version of Scare Kingdom hosts two scare mazes and one scare experience, Those being Manormortis: Home is Where the Haunt is..., Body Snatchers: Plague and the ever infamous Psychomanteum: Naughty Nativity. The park also features a large outdoor, partially covered seating area and a small bar too.
Spoiler warning Read at your own risk
Leaving the entrance area set up inside a large teepee you meet Zoe the Naughty Elf who over excitedly shows you on your way and is a great start to the event. Zoe leads you to the first of the two mazes, Manormortis: Home is where the haunt is... which takes the Haxenghast Mansion and adds a menagerie of ghouls and ghosts to mix. The experience starts with meeting the fantastically campy realtor to the stars Maximillian Dollar who is overjoyed at his recent sale of the foreboding mansion. This actor is an absolute star and really made the wait to go into the maze much more enjoyable. He makes everyone laugh and when he pops out the door all eyes and ears are commanded to him. Entering Manormortis we meet the next enigmatic character Lady Scroungewell an exuberant socialite who has become the new owner of the Haxenghast Mansion along with her gloomy gothic daughter Lydia, Again played to absolute perfection. What follows from this opener is the usual layout of beautifully themed rooms, well-timed jumps, a few more theatrical stops for good measure and even a lady obsessed with curtains. Manormortis is a stunning attraction at the best of times but add some spooks alongside and what's not to like.
After a short walk, next up was Body Snatchers: Plague which takes place at that usual dark end of Knox Alley at the Brimstone and Blacks Funeral Parlour. It has to be said due to my poor eyesight that we did slightly overstep our entry but the opening actor took great delight with fantastic improv to put me back in my place and even on entering the maze, failed not to remind me of my mistake. The story behind this version of Body Snatchers was not just that of the London Plague but that the Plague victims had been coming back to life and it was our job to send them back into the pits from whence they came. Just like Manormortis, Body Snatchers is again an absolutely beautiful attraction with some amazing scenes so when you get a chance to stop and have a look around on one of the scripted sections it really shows. Body Snatchers just like Manormortis contains some stop-start action but all the actors in these locations are fantastic and so well-rehearsed.
The grand finale to any Scare Kingdom trip is a chance to check into PSYCHOMANTEUM, This time under the guise of Naughty Nativity and now in a new location. No longer in the dark of the barns but now in the unassuming designation of a set of shipping containers. Now we say this a lot but we shall say it again. Psychomanteum is best experienced blind with no actual spoilers of the experience as such and for that reason you will find none here. What we will say is Naughty Nativity was a beautifully blasphemous attack on decency which when it comes to Psychomanteum its what we live for. Psychomanteum is that one attraction that is like giving you that little push outside of your comfort zone and into the arms of a crazed dominatrix. It might be £6 extra but it's worth every penny and is always a highlight to all Scare Kingdom visits. To the Dirty Angel, Mary, Joseph, Balthazar and Jesus...you smashed it out of the park, another visit to the UK's sickest scare attraction and another success.
The Christmas-Festevil is now over but the next Scare Kingdom event is Valenterror on Saturday 12th February. Tickets can be found at https://www.scarekingdom.com/
Thank you to everyone at Scare Kingdom for another amazing night, we can't wait to come back again soon, Until next time PSG Signing out