Dr Frights’ evolution over the years we’ve been visiting is pretty remarkable. It’s still that in-the-middle-of-nowhere event where parking your car is quite scary in itself, as to whether you’re going to get stuck in the mud or not. It’s a marquee in a field yet it’s one of the best events we do each year. Thank you to the team for having us down; we truly did have the best time. Without further ado, let’s have a little chat about our evening & what there is to expect at this event.
Here on will contain spoilers and all opinions are our own. This event is where you do a group of mazes back to back then half way point then the remainder. Some of it does feel a bit blurry as there’s so much happening so this review will be the best to our memory.
Black Death: Disease 4.5/5
There’s no nicer welcome to the event than having this maze first with this level of intense scares. It just hurls you into Dr Frights beautifully as you can have a taste of how your evening is going to go. This is genuinely a brilliant way to begin your evening and experience at this event. It’s gorgeously themed and created so that the scares come from the least suspected places. There’s that intensity of turning each corner with that dark and dingy theme, not knowing what’s going to happen next. The level of detail within this maze is brilliant especially the rats in cages, the added effect of leg whippers and the actors playing into their characters as well as they do. We never anticipated this maze to be as scary as it was but it certainly set that unnerving feeling here onwards. It was the perfect duration where the story didn’t become too much and it wasn’t over too soon neither.
Maid to Kill: Artificial Intelligence – 4/5
Prior to visiting I weren’t exactly convinced this was going to be anywhere near a standout maze. The whole AI concept is something that I thought wouldn’t necessarily be all that scary or scare us at least as it’s often quite a radiant, in-your-face kind of theme. However, this was pleasantly terrifying. The set pieces of this maze were brilliant. It’s heavily reliant on what’s real and not kind of a vibe. But again the way this maze is designed has developed some really unusual and least expected spaces for actors to scare. It’s an easy-to-follow concept with AI trying to take over humans and the actors with their props gave good scares too. It was an enjoyable surprise with some really decent jumps too.
Lights Out: The Darkness – 5/5
What a fantastic maze. The strobe use in here was truly clever; it was that immaculate level between horrendously dark yet you can judge where you are going still. Those darkness moments are truly startling as well as someone who’s not particularly fond of the dark, this is a brilliant take on testing that in these trails. With that said though the strobes helped develop some of the severest scares possible. These actors just popped out of quite literally everywhere and anywhere. There are revolting drop-down windows throughout. Towards the back end of this maze was a really outstanding effect of cloth with multiple nun statues behind it with glowing eyes and tremendous scares. It was a really delightful take on the whole nun concept without it being too comparable to elsewhere as you weren’t given any light, nor was it completely pitch black. It felt unusual in itself.
Blood Bayou: Chainsaws – 2/5
I feel as if we had an unfair run-through of this maze purely due to us catching the group ahead up. It then slowed down the group and made one long line of people giving the few actors very little opportunity to provide us all with at least some scares. But I can reassure you that the actors did a phenomenal job. However, this was a refreshing take on the hillbilly theme concept as it is one of those typical Halloween themes that gets overdone a lot. That all aside this was a reasonable maze; again, there are a lot of different effects throughout. For what you’d imagine to be a chainsaw-heavy maze it really ain’t. I’m not too sure if that adds to the suspense or not in all honesty. There’s a lot of low lighting and laser effects throughout and the actors truly are brilliant. Despite them having already scared the people ahead of us they still kept in character and going. It must have been hard to scare that many people.
Halfway Point:
This is a lovely little spot to catch a breather after the intensity of the prior mazes for sure. You can grab soft or hot drinks from within this area; the bar is at the end. There are some photo opportunities & toilets.
Trick or Treat Street: Boogeyman – 5/5
This style of maze/theme has been at the event for as long as we’ve visited and it still remains one of the few of the spooky season that has me sceptical if I can genuinely enter. I’ve always had deep-seated fears of the large quantity of the characters you meet within this maze since being a small child. Entering this maze as a group of 3 was quite horrendous. All the characters were reset in their spaces and ready to scare. The minute we set foot in that first room, it didn’t stop; the scares were relentless. We met them all along the way Jason, Art the Clown, Ghost Face, Freddy Krueger you name them they are within this singular maze. That Ghost Face room nearer the finale was utterly horrendous. This is easily one of the most intense scare mazes this season; I’ve never known scares to be that much in such a short space of time. It was a lot. The actors weren’t getting us once; they were getting us multiple times along one tiny corridor or space it was truly fantastic and relentless. It shall stay in my mind for as long as I live how traumatic it was.
The Terror Below: Claustrophobia – 3/5
This really was an unusual style of maze for us. There are so many pipes, poles and tight spaces. If you genuinely have a claustrophobic fear this would really push you. There are so many moments that are simply uncomfortably tight. The fact this maze has a lot to do physically like squeezing through pipes, ducking etc it doesn’t take away from the scares once. The actors don’t give you a minute’s break. It’s a really cool idea one of the most unusual takes on creating tight spaces we’ve ever seen.
Killer Clowns Super Happy Fun World: Clowns – 2/5
I think this maze would have been brilliant amongst the mix rather than as the finale. Nonetheless, clowns always make for a fun maze, with the pop of intense scares too. There’s something quite comical about walking through an intense strobe with clowns popping up with the soundtrack of Vengaboys in the background. It’s a bit iconic really. There’s one singular scare that truly was the highlight of this maze and that was the projector room with the screen and that scare. The clowns were great in here. However, this kind of maze doesn’t do a lot for us perhaps because we aren’t afraid of Clowns & just being absolutely scared witless prior. I’d love to see this maze switch around with the Boogeyman or the first maze of the evening.
Overall:
This is one of those events that never fail to improve and get stronger each year. We always come away a little bit shaken up, mind blown and astonished all in one. It’s a short and small event in the grand scheme of scream parks and Halloween events but the punch it packs is quite something else. It’s easily one of the scariest events across the large majority of their maze offerings there is. We truly wish we could do it all twice rather than once as there’s so much to take in during each maze and it all flies by. The way they batch the groups is brilliant and if you get the right groups in front and behind you could easily be alone the entire way around. Those actors were truly sensational and so damn fierce; never have we had 1 actor scare us 4 times back to back. How this event is set up really does amplify the scares within the mazes as it’s so cleverly put together in every single maze. We truly didn’t think Dr Frights could top last year but they absolutely did; the whole trial concept is genius.
You absolutely need to book this event if you haven’t already as it can’t be skipped. Book your tickets HERE for one of the best nights you’ll have this Halloween.
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Thank you for reading and thank you to the team for having us!
