The Asylum, Thorpe Park

Since Fright Nights’ first year in 2002, Freezer has epitomised the event for me. It has always worked at Thorpe Park because it is genuinely scary and only has a tenuous link to Halloween. The average visitor to Thorpe Park doesn’t care for the history behind Hallow’s Eve, they just want to be scared.

And Freezer has always delivered.

As a walk through maze, there has always been the sense of great unknown. Actors exploit your vulnerability, and play up to the fact you never know what’s going to happen. It’s said too many times, but you really do get a different ride every time.

This year, Freezer becomes Asylum, and although the park are marketing this as a new maze, if you go expecting anything more than a name change, then I’m afraid you’ll be disappointed.

Freezer fans, though, will be happy that much remains – all but the camera fodder that was the Freezer door, which sadly hasn’t made an appearance. Instead, the queue follows the same route as last year (Fungle Safari queue, zig-zaging under the Ranger Showcase roof) and instead of entering a large vault-style door at the front, slaloms towards an asylum door tucked away on the back stage.

Like the Freezer door, this aims to be the iconic centrepiece that you associate with the attraction; much like you associate Sleeping Beauty’s Castle with Disneyland Paris, or the historic Towers with Alton Towers.

The riveted metal door with a barred window in a vast grubby brick wall is creepy in its simplicity, but at the back of the stage is lit subtly by comparison, and is an easily missed feature lacking the drama and aura of the original entrance which is a massive shame.

It lacks the magnetic draw that the Freezer door had when it was at the very front of the attraction which always drew a curious crowd. The Freezer door always used to typify Freezer, while the same can’t be said of Asylum’s entrance.

As you walk your way through the queue, there are posters warning of missing and wanted patients. They seem to fit the template of lunatic quite nicely, and with so many mental patients on the run, they’ll no doubt need more nutters to fill the beds. And that’s where we come in.

Groups of ten-or-so are let at a time. The member of staff shouts over the sinister music the house rules; do not run, do not let go of the person in front, do not touch the actors, do not pass go, do not collect £100.

The door is swung open, and we enter a long, straight corridor, walking towards a subtly lit padded wall. As if a cartoon character tied to a factory conveyor belt heading towards an Acme crushing machine, you slowly, nervously walk towards the doorway through which smoke rolls through lit by the continual flicker of strobes with the chaotic sound of screams, sirens and clinking chains getting louder and louder.

As you turn the corner, little prepares you for the sense of chaos that Asylum exudes. If you weren’t mad before you entered, the deafening sound and complete sense of disorientation that are part and parcel of Asylum will ensure you will be by the time you leave.

Your group navigate a passageway of mirrors and chickenwire fencing, before on one mirror you see the reflection of a mental patient writhing in his cell.

Your passage takes you between the mirror and a glass-fronted cell, where the bloodied patient lunges towards you before dropping to his knees, sliding his hands down the glass before you enter a long and seemingly never-ending slalom of pathways through chicken-wire fencing.

The effect of the strobe lights is quite disorientating to the point it often looks like the fencing is actually moving as you walk around it. If walking wasn’t hard enough, actors use the strobe lights to appear and disappear and harass the group into submission.

Using tricks ranging from clambering up fencing to running headlong at the group, acting scared always brings the best out of the actors who revel in reducing you to a quivering, rocking wreck worthy of a bed in the country’s finest mental institute.

One of the better scenes is the surgery, where the whitewashed walls are covered in swathes of dripping blood, and a patient in ripped pyjamas is slumped over a bloodied worktop. Jumping to attention, the poorly patient sends the group running into yet another tight corridor where another psychopath boxes you in.

Disappointingly, many of the actors still allow the group to pass unchallenged, opting to stare out a particular member of the group. Slightly creepy, admittedly, but always disappointing when they don’t jump out at you when you’re least expecting it.

The design of Asylum is far more versatile than neighbouring Hellgate. The style of the maze allows the actors to jump out at you not only when you’re in their particular corridor, but also when you’re in neighbouring pathways due to the chicken wire fencing.

The same fencing also allows the actors to climb up and claw their way over the top, something that was used to great effect in the first year, less so in the following years, and making a slight reappearance this year.

While the acting talent is often mixed, the maze alone offers a sense of chaos that few other attractions come close to offering. The sound effects inside are utterly deafening, the constant strobe lights and haze offer their own challenges, while the outer walls of mirrors further add to the sense of being lost in a nightmare.

Asylum’s finale is the closest the attraction comes to a consistent disappointment. While the chainsaw-wielding zombie last year ensured people would be running the final furlong, this year there is no real ending, just a long corridor to the final doors.

You may have noted that I call this a consistent disappointment. The other disappointment is less consistent, but due to its inconsistency, it is consistently disappointing.

The problem – as you may have gathered – is inconsistency. While Hellgate seems to offer a dependable level of frights, it is entirely possible that you can get through Asylum without being surprised or harassed.

Yes, actors will always be lurking in the darkest corners, craning their next towards you as their bloodshot eyes pierce the darkness, but when it comes to crashing up against the fence, running at the group, climbing up the wall or doing something else that you simply don’t expect, well, cross your fingers and hope to die.

While people do undoubtedly find staring quite unnerving, nothing compares to the sense of reckless unpredictability of a good actor, and all too often this is an element that is lacking from Asylum.

Another problem, apparently, is that Asylum is – by the park’s definition – ‘new’. It isn’t. Absolutely not. It has a new name, it has a new entrance and a few new bits of theming, but it definitely is not new. This isn’t a bad thing, though, as Freezer... Asylum... whatever is a great maze when judged on its own merits, but by saying that it is new raises expectations beyond the limits of achievability.

Aside the erratic interaction from actors, and despite the slightly anti-climatic conclusion, Asylum is a solid, gritty and exciting addition to Fright Nights’ line-up.

You’d have to be mad to miss out on a visit to the Asylum.

MS 25 October 2005