Fright Nights 2021 brought back the return of indoor mazes, as well as a huge celebration for the 20th anniversary of Fright Nights! The event was hugely popular and showed the quality that the park were capable of producing. It was also notable for featuring the first early teasers for the ride which would end up being Hyperia!

Platform 15: End of the Line

The last chance to join Creek Tours

Review

New for 2021

There were 4 new additions to the 2021 event.

We’ll start with the highlight addition, Trailers.

Stepping into the fictional SuperSpark Cinema, you quickly learn that power outages have been affecting the cinema. The automatic doors do not open, and power surges are bringing the films to life! There are multiple films throughout the maze, each based off a previous Fright Nights attraction, such as The Big Top, Studio 13, Se7en and many more!

Each scene comes at you thick and fast, but there’s enough of a breather and separation that it is distinctive and flows well. We particularly liked how well the scenes were designed, meaning that actors could interact with you multiple times and create a much more chaotic feel. Our favourite scenes were Bozo’s Playground – a homage to The Big Top featuring the IMA Score music – and Seven Dolls – featuring several creepy dolls…but how many are just dolls?

After getting through the trailers, you make your way to the projector room. The films have come to life and the characters are there, and they all want to get you! A finale which assaults the senses follows, including lots of special effects which we haven’t seen before at Fright Nights! 

Trailers is a worthy addition to Fright Nights which does justice to previous attractions and to the anniversary the park are pushing and celebrating so much. With a great cast and lots of special effects, plus great theming, we look forward to doing this again plenty more times!

The second new addition is The Crows of Mawkin Meadow. This transforms the old Saw Alive pathway into a creepy, hay-filled meadow. Crows lurk around every corner…but you never know which are real. Filled with lots of smoke and an eerie atmosphere, this one-way zone is a great use of a once-dead space. We were really impressed with how the park took the characters of the Crows, which were roaming the park last year, and turned them into their own attraction.

The attraction does have a couple of dead spots, but this helps build up the tense, eerie atmosphere, and makes it all the more satisfying when you get a scare. We’d love to see this scare zone developed more, perhaps using the space that occupies the old Saw Alive queue line, and maybe tweak the operations of this.

Also new for this year is Birthday Bash. Taking place outside Ghost Train, Birthday Bash celebrates the birthday of twins Hattie and Hugo, who are less than well behaved. The twins have several entertainers for the birthday, but they still don’t think it’s enough. So the entertainers choose to entertain you…but they all have dark secrets. Topsy and Turvy are a pair of clowns who hate children. The cook chainsmokes and spits in the food. The princess is an alcoholic. Expect your fair share of dark humour! There’s also lots of shows throughout the day…make sure you stay till the end to see why it is a Birthday BASH too!

Finally, Legacy is a new fire and light show, taking place on the larger side of Amity Beach. Only being ready for the second half of the event, the show has a huge centre piece where all the lights and flamethrowers are attached and rigged up. The story of Legacy is introduced by Fear, the headline character for the event, who takes you on a journey of his legacy. Music and audio effects from old attractions is mixed into an 8 minute show, with fire and lights in time with these. 

Legacy has clearly had a huge amount of money spent (fire effects aren’t cheap!), and it’s great to see something like this at Fright Nights. The show could benefit from some central extra (whether it’s a TV screen showing visuals, dancers or similar) and a clearer ending, but we hope that this is the start of these effect-driven shows being at the park!

Returning Scare Mazes

Creek Freak Massacre returns after its Covid-forced hiatus, and is accomapnied by Creek Freaks Unchained. Creek Freak Massacre leaps straight back to its 2019 intensity, with enthusiastic actors and lots of effects and loud noises…and of course, multiple chainsaws! Creek Freaks Unchained, the scare zone in the Old Town area where the maze is located, is dialled back a bit as a result, but features many Buckwheat characters to interact with, along with lots of photo opportunities. It is also great to see the story of the maze extended in the scare zone.

Creek Freak Massacre is still one of the most intense mazes in the park’s line up, and we’re really happy to see it return. Given that the last time it was in the Fright Nights line up, it was a free attraction, it has certainly stood the test of becoming an upcharge attraction too! The extension of Creek Freaks Unchained, which is no longer a one way system, is welcome and we will keep to our pledge we kept when we joined the Buckwheat family!

Returning for its sixth and final year, Platform 15 has received a new story, along with the tagline End of the Line. Starting in Screech Rye Village, you follow a tour of a child who was celebrating their birthday, before the Sleeper Express crashed. Attempting to find the locomotive, you find yourselves reaching the mysterious Platform 15, and the thought-to-be-missing conductor. 

The new story was fun, and the maze did a great job at creating suspense at first, and then creating a loud, chaotic second half filled with jump scares. Indeed, over time, this is how we’ve found Platform 15 to be at its best, a creepy start, with the scares building and building throughput the entire experience. The story, which was also told over speakers, really helped make it clear. We also think the ending, where we find the conductor, is probably the best that Platform 15 has ever had, which was great to see!

Whilst Platform 15 hasn’t always been the most consistent maze, this final incarnation is one of its best, and is a worthy send off. We look forward to what the future holds!

Other Returning Attractions

Swarm: Invasion returns for a second season, featuring more props and more actors scattered around the island. As such, this feels much more like a scare zone rather than just extra actors placed on the island, and is much improved as a result. There’s lots of interesting characters too, including conspiracy theorists, the military, and some half-alien like creatures! Being a true scare “zone”, you get out what you put in – the more you interact with the actors, or let them interact with you, the more you get out of it. Indeed, there’s a lot of story that the actors have to tell! However, even if you choose to not interact and just wander on by, the extra atmosphere on the island is great.

The Stealth plaza is once again used, this time for Amity High vs LycanThorpe High: Love Bites. Both sets of schools roam around the area, trying to convince you to join their side. Multple dance shows take place throughout the evening too, featuring a new dance routine and song choices to tell a Romeo and Juliett story between a vampire and a werewolf! We love the continuing story being told, and it’s clear that this show really is a hit with everyone.

The Bottom Line

Thorpe Park have gone all out to celebrate 20 Years of Fear. This is one of the highest budgetted Fright Nights events in the park’s history, and it shows. With a line up full of original creations too, the park have done a brilliant job creatively as well. Sometimes attractions can be a little rough around the edges of preview nights like these too, but this wasn’t the case. Full credit to the actors and the team for ensuring this is not the case.

Simply put: you have to visit Fright Nights in 2021!