A new event for me, I had seen on social media about Scare Zone Northallerton. I knew it was a small charity home haunt style attraction so I went in not expecting the same style of sets and scares as the bigger, well known events. This small event had two attractions in The Butcher and The Mine Shaft but you could argue it's technically four zones over two attractions, so I'm going to review each "zone" in individual paragraphs.
Let's start with the first half of The Mine Shaft. This was a really simple section. It's theming was very minimal but it worked. There were two actors in here. One was very happy and welcoming the other was a tall guy who just stood there in an intimidating way and followed us out the mine. It was simple yet very effective and built the tension. We then walked round the corner and met Mr Poopy Stick who told us to walk between the scarecrows.
The second half of this route was horror icons and we met a few characters. Along the wooded route we met Ghost Face and Michael Myers. It wasn't necessarily scary, more atmospheric and there was a good scare where Ghost Face came out of no where and jumped up onto the walkway from underneath waving a knife. we were then chased out by a chainsaw.
We head back round to the start and it was time for The Butcher route. Again this route was split into two sections, The Butcher and a clown maze. The Butcher was really good fun. There was some great jump scares. The sets are again done on a budget but you can tell you were in a butchers. It felt like there were more actors in this route.
The second half of maze was the clown maze. The actors in here were good. They used the spaces to their advantage. There was even one actor laying on his side above us hidden who got us. The set was very clowny and it was just fun.
For a charity event with a very limited budget Scare Zone Northallerton create a nice little attraction. It's not the scariest thing in the world but it's definitely not the weakest attraction out there. They should be proud of what they created. We had a fun, spooky evening out and had a couple of frights along the way. It was great to find out that they made over £2500 for charity. They are taking a break next year but will be back in 2025!
For more information you can visit the Scare Zone Northallerton website.