Thorpe Park – Fright Nights 2022

Fright Nights is another event that we’ve done before, as we did Fright Nights 20 last year. We really enjoyed last year’s offering so we’re expecting good things from this year!

Changes from last year were a lot more noticeable than there were with Chessington. Firstly, Platform 15 has gone now, replaced with Survival Games and The Terminal this year.

Secondly, Deaths Door also joins the Crows of Mawkin Meadow as a free walkthrough scare zone and a bigger feature of Fright Nights 21st celebrations and its Locksmith character.

Finally there’s the return of Legacy: A Fire and Light show. This is bigger and better than last years and I’ll go into detail about it a bit later on.

We’d stayed in the nearby Ramada once again for two nights with our first day being Fright Nights. We were expecting it to be quieter than last year as it was a Monday outside the school holidays and for the most part it was. Most of the rides stayed under 60 minute queues all day which was great!

We started our day on Stealth and we got our first front row ride on this beast. Front row really does give it something else as you have all the wind and force straight at you, as well as uninterrupted views as you climb and crest the 205ft top hat. Such a great ride!

Next we headed round to Swarm as this seems to be a ride that Tracy shows a little affection for. Despite it featuring a bit of hangtime on the first inversion, as well as 4 other inversions, Tracy seems to really enjoy it.

The more I ride the Swarm, the more I enjoy it. It never gives a bad ride at all, and though some rides are more intense than others, it’s a truly excellent coaster with some great scenary and set pieces.

After Swarm we had a go on Flying Fish before making our way to Nemesis Inferno, another one of Tracy’s favourite rides. Though I definitely prefer Nemesis at Alton Towers, Inferno is still a great ride in its own right and probably the more intense of the two as I usually need a bit of a break after Inferno, something I don’t need after Nemesis.

Throughout the day we got a couple of rides on Saw, Depth Charge, Walking Dead, The Dodgems, Rumba Rapids, and a few more rerides on The Swarm, Nemesis Inferno and Stealth. We managed night rides on Saw, Stealth and The Swarm too.

In between the rides we also tried out Deaths Door, the new scarezone walkthrough attraction. This sees you knocking on doors to see what’s on the other side. Usually it’s an actor that will do their best to scare you or a blast of air but sometimes you’ll get nothing at all and move onto the next door.

I had in my head that it would be a progression type of attraction in that you had to go through the doors and into the next room and so on until you’d gotten through the whole attraction. However it’s more of a collection of doors built into few wooden buildings which to me made it feel like you were trick or treating. I don’t know if that was what they were going for but I sort of like the idea of it being an adult trick or treating thing, where there are no treats, just tricks!

I didn’t really get much out of Deaths Door though as the scares weren’t that great and there was no atmosphere about the place at all. The Crows of Mawkin Meadow was full of atmosphere however. Much like last year, the walk through was covered in smoke which gave it a very eerie and sinister feel, which is excellent. There was also a branching path that takes you through the old Saw Alive queue line that’s been converted into a farmhouse scene.

So Deaths Door wasn’t as good but The Crows certainly made up for it. Another great thing to see was the roaming actors this year were primarily The Buckwheat’s of Creak Freak Massacre. These were very entertaining and really did come across as deeply unhinged and savage.

To accompany them was their returning scare maze, Creak Freak Massacre, the final cut which as the name implies is its final outing this year. We didn’t do this scare maze as we did it last year and by the sound of the surrounding area of the maze, they haven’t changed too much in there!

We did however give Terminal a go. This is brand new audio based scare experience and has you put on headphones and listen to a set story whilst in a pitch black room.

The experience starts when you’re bundled into a lift room built into shipping containers. Though the room is stationary, the audio does make it feel like the room is moving ever so slightly then another door opens and you move down a corridor into a wooden cubicle, sit yourself down and put the headphones on.

The premise is that you’ve been selected to go to an alien planet and it’s so far away from earth that you’ll need to enter cryosleep to be able to get there. Complications arise when the ship is boarded by aliens who feed on you and your group, sucking your brain out through a hole made in your head. It does sound quite gruesome and the audio definitely did it’s best to portray this but it was lacking something to make it truly great.

I think for me it would have felt more real if when the aliens are supposedly feeding on you that you’d feel a sensation on your forehead or something that lines up with the audio. There were air jets that made you feel like you were being gassed with cryogenic substances but that was it for physical effects. I’ll touch on this a lot more when I talk about Alton Towers’ Invitation but for now, it was ok. Nothing spectacular but not bad by an stretch!

The other two scare mazes were Trailers and Survival Games. We did Trailers during Carnival and though it was quite good we felt that having done it this year, there wouldn’t be too much different so skipped it. As for Survival Games, I haven’t heard great things from this one which put me off a little, but ultimately we didn’t try it because we’d already done plenty at the resort.

Birthday Bash made a return this year and was as comical as last year’s offering. Though some of the actors were a bit off with their singing, the rest of the show was alright. It could do with some splatterings of fake blood to really up the gore value though in my eyes!

It would be remiss of me if I didn’t also mention the great work put in by the vampires and werewolves of Amity High and Lycan Thorpe by Stealth. I could spend all of Fright Nights here listening to the stellar 80s rock tracks while the flash mobs chase people around the area, all the while Stealth launching in the back ground. This is utter bliss for me and one of my favourite parts of this holiday in general!

Finally there’s Legacy to talk about. Much like last year, this is a free show that has audio playing to a light and fire show but this year they’ve added a screen for extra visuals. This is a good improvement over last year’s and though it told the same sort of story of Fright Nights, it was enjoyable and I hope they elaborate on it further next year too.

Once the sun had started to set, the park got busier which helped with the atmosphere of the place. There was plenty going on, plenty of shows to see and rides to ride. The only real negative of the day was that there was a dire lack of food options at around 8:30pm. Most of the food places had closed, and those that were open had a lack of options. It wasn’t enough to spoil the day but it was worth mentioning!

I don’t think it was nessecarily better than last year but also not worse either. I think there were things that didn’t hit as well as they could have this year such as Deaths Door and Terminal, but Legacy and The Crows were improved upon as well as the actors and the scale of the event feeling bigger. Another great Fright Nights!

Next stop Legoland for Brick or Treat!