Thorpe Park Fright Nights-2025 Maze review

Our Slasher Review On the 20th of October we headed south for Thorpe Park Fright Nights 2025. Due to time constraints and wanting to get some night rides in too we are only reviewing the main mazes and the Crows of Mawkin Meadow scare zone. While there was no new mazes for this years line up, there were changes that we noticed to Survival Games and Trailers and to our knowledge Dead Beat and Stitches remained the same. The Crows of Mawkin Meadow has evolved into almost an outdoor maze rather than a traditional scare zone which was great to see. We usually now state which was the strongest and weakest maze, however they all had some great points, so instead we shall say the one that stayed with us longest was Survival Games and the one that was least memorable of our runs was Trailers. Again we are not saying that Trailers was bad it just seemed overshadowed by the other attractions. It is also worth mentioning that we paid for the VIP Maze experience which really added to our runs as we were the only ones in our group of 6 going through the mazes at any one time. Due to the fact we arrived at the park for 3pm and wanted to get rides in before our 5pm VIP Maze slot we sadly didn't have time to partake in the shows. Other highlights aside from the mazes that we noticed were some changes on the rides, such as a different countdown on Detonator, Smoke added on Colossus and simple but very effective lighting on Hyperia glowing in a foreboding red and the drop lights turning off as you crest the lift.

Top Tips-If within your budget we highly recommend the Phantom Four VIP Maze package, it cuts the queues down to practically nothing and as we mentioned before you only go in with your group(Up to 12 guests) but our group was 6 which was even better. Things That Bite-While we understand that the VIP Hosts are on a schedule, it would have been nice to not feel as though we were being rushed, it came off a little impersonal. Value for money-Noting how big the scare maze queue times were we feel the VIP package was worth the money. Scare Rating-4/5 Do we recommend- Absolutely, not just for the mazes but the atmosphere across park as a whole which Alton Towers Scarefest could learn some things from Fright Nights. Our Stalker Review On the 20th Of October we headed down south to take on this years Thorpe Park Fright Nights offerings, as we mentioned on the Slasher Review we arrived we arrived around 3pm after checking into our boat for the night, yes you read that right our Airbnb was a boat and about a 5 minute walk to the park. We breezed through security which we wasn't expecting, so this was a nice surprise and headed to our first ride of the afternoon which was The Swarm and then Hyperia which unlike many people claim was actually running quite smooth, by the time we exited Hyperia it was time to head across park to the VIP marquee. After a short wait we had tickets scanned and our hosts took us inside the marquee. The marquee is decorated with many posters from past attractions and other set pieces dotted around. We were handed our VIP lanyards and Pin badges, extra perks of the package and after watching a short briefing video we headed to our first maze.

First up was the closest being Survival Games. The queue was quite big even though it was only about 17:10, but we were escorted to the front of the queue and much to my surprise only our group was let in, I was expecting a group of around 15 but we were lucky with our group just being 6 of us. Time to enter YVEL's games. Now the only spoiler I had read was that the maze was not fully free flow anymore, this isn't 100% true as we would soon find out. We entered into the start of the game noticing the cages that you would usually be batched into were now empty, the video played and then we found out why the cages were empty, here comes our first scare. Tension mounted we entered the playing field as it were. Right from the start the scares came thick and fast and it wasn't long till we faced the main new change to Survival Games, "the modified" shall we say inhabitants. Filled with power and rage these cast members were not afraid to get into your face and up close and personal which we loved. As we progressed through the leveling up gates, scares came from the most unexpected places and the cast members worked the dark spaces with perfection, as we neared the end of the game myself and Abby got ordered to stand and face the wall, while Dane was allowed to make a quick get away. This actor who works this area plays it to perfection and definitely added to the intensity of the attraction. Also worth noting as was mentioned before, although this is a mainly linear attraction now, there are still areas and elements that can have you split from your group. We exited the games applauding, what a great start to Fright Nights mazes. Next up we headed straight to Trailers, For those that don't know Trailers takes you through a selection of nods to past attractions, now it has to be said for those of us who hadn't done alot of Fright Nights past mazes this attraction might be a little lost on us. But that being said we headed into the SuperSpark Cinema for our flashback experience. The first scene is the desk area and entrance to the Cinema before heading down to the screen itself , here we learn abit about what I believe is a crazed film director who has found a way to literally take us into the "movies" of mazes past. Now this is going to be a bit shorter as I honestly didn't get all the references to all the attractions but what we will say is that all the cast were absolutely fantastic and totally committed to each of their respective roles. Of the areas I did recognise, these were scenes of Bozo's/Big Top, Creek Freak Massacre, Experiment 10 and possibly( although not knowing why they would want to remember )Vulcan Peak too. When the attraction came to its end we face a baseball wielding psycho meant in the best way possible who showed great timing and skill in coming extremely close to my face with said bat, a great final scare. With no time wasted it was time for maze 3, Dead Beat. You will not miss Dead Beat at all especially from the music that pounds the air all around, the club anthems blast out across the area but there is a hint of darkness in the soundtrack, something feels off but you can't quite place it. And then you arrive at DJ Canistro's end of the world party. Just like the other mazes before it, Dead Beat features a well set up introduction, this time on a TV Screen featuring the DJ themselves, but this is where things take a turn for the dark as the DJ hints to our potential demise. With that it was time to enter into the night club. Now so much happens in such a short space of time that it really is hard to remember everything that we wanted to. But what can be said about Dead Beat is the sets that have been created for this attraction are nothing short of stunning, with no attention to detail being missed out. The scenes ranged from dance floors to VIP areas and even a stretch of fruit machines. But while we were enjoying the ambience and the set design, we were also dodging the Visceral's I believe they were called, the past revelers of DJ Canistro's party that had been darkly entranced and lost forever in the beat. The lighting, the smoke, the smells they all add up to create an immersive world inside the rave that is Dead Beat. And just when you think you can predict the scares coming, one comes from a location you won't expect and caught the whole group off guard. Making the way through the night the light of day (or a very bright light) maybe we died after all makes our exit visible with the soundtrack of Bittersweet Symphony serenading our escape. Dead Beat lived up to all expectations and our only regret is being allowed to do it just once. Heading down through the smoke and rain we headed to our 4th and final maze of the evening, that being Stitches. Stitches takes place in the Howell's Toy Emporium, An unassuming location for a scare maze im sure as the outer façade actually looks quite cute and welcoming. But as soon as you walk in you are met with the shop worker who seems very attached to toy making and tells us of the Toy Maker and her love of making the most "alive" toys around. You soon come to realise that there is a much more sinister agenda behind making these play things. Again having so little time to actually compose and write something down about each maze on exit has left us really having to think hard about each experience. But what we do remember is that just like all the other attractions, the cast were really on point, from the creators of the evil dolls to the dolls themselves come to life. There was a couple of moments where we nearly went into the rat runs but to be fair to the cast members not only did they turn us back around but also kept 100% in character. Another scene that is just plain freaky and wasn't expecting was that of a giant hair tarantula crashing through the ceiling, this area was so unexpected and due to the lighting timing caught me completely off guard, Another area and this is a combination of set design and casting was that of the rooms of "costumes" set up with an actor hidden between them , so simple yet so effective. The final thing we want to mention is that of a familiar sight we believe from The Boiler House, its nice to see one of the Hamble Twins masks still being used to terrify guests, one thing that we did take away from all the attractions and Stitches especially was that no area of the attractions felt under themed or not utilised well. With all 4 mazes now done and a swift exit from our hosts, we headed back up past Colossus for the final scare of the night The Crows of Mawkin Meadow. To call this a scare zone feels a little unfair, it's length is comparable to that of Trailers and if you walk slowly you can really get some great time spent in this area. Now I know it's normal of Merlin scare zones to allow you to film and take photo's in the scare zones but I really wish it wasn't the case, this lead to kids acting like idiots trying to scare the cast on film, the security on Crows must have such hard job to do so we do highly commend them. During our walk through we noticed many groups of kids and young adults acting like fools which sadly just made us want to get out as quickly as possible, but we don't want to detract from the amazing cast within. Each of the scarecrows has an exceptionally hard job to do relying on physicality alone, as far as we are aware the Crows do not talk which makes this section undeniably creepy with an air of unpredictability that you don't get to this level in the main mazes.

We are aware of the other scare zone, Purgatory Town but due to the speed we had to walk with our group, we sadly had no time to take in this area. After getting some food and drink from the Indian eatery and a lovely bubble tea, we had a little time for a night ride on Colossus (biggest mistake of the night) and a night ride on Hyperia. Hyperia we highly appreciated for a few reasons, One being the speed of the batching and two the awesome but simple lighting package that adds to the atmosphere glowing an eerie red, then we noticed its little trick which I was so happy to see, the lights turning off as the train crested the lift and went down the first drop in darkness before fading back to red. Such a small addition but made the ride seem even more imposing, as if you could make Hyperia more imposing, but either way they did it. Leaving Thorpe Park we decided to walk down by Colossus rather than risk another kid filled run in the Crows. We had a quick look at the merch, before exiting to return to our boat for wine and games. We would like to thank all the cast, crew and show captains for putting on such a strong year of Fright Nights, In the past its been hit and miss, but this year every attraction shone brightly with respective scares and atmosphere. When the park is a sell out it can't be easy to run those attractions as well as you did on our night, so we applaud and commend all your efforts. Thorpe Park Fright Nights has just a few more dates left in the calendar these being 28th to the 31st of October and 1st and 2nd of November. If you wish to book for Fright Nights you can do so at the link below.

https://www.thorpepark.com/