Beware: This is a review of a past Halloween event. Therefore, do not use it as a basis upon which to preview the same event this year, and please note that the event may not necessarily be taking place this year. Please use our guide for an overview of this years' Halloween attractions. 

The Freezer, Thorpe Park (2003)

Given the possibilities, it seems strange that parks have been so slow on the uptake when it comes to Halloween. October is a notoriously quiet time of year for theme parks, and it is in every theme parks’ interest to try and even out attendance throughout the year.

It’s fair to say that Halloween is a far more celebrated event in America. Knott’s (formerly Knott’s Berry Farm) has become famous for its Halloween Haunts where the park would operate as normal by day, close and re-open after sundown with tens of haunted mazes and shows.

Deciding to exploit Halloween, Thorpe Park employed the expertise of Lynton V. Harris’ Sudden Impact! company to develop two enclosed areas at Thorpe into haunted mazes. The first, 3D Freakshow takes place in the former queueline of X:\ No Way Out, whilst behind what is now the Nemesis Inferno shop, the Freezer opened.

Depending on its length, the majority of the queue takes place under the thatched roof normally used for the Thorpe Park Rangers Show. The plodding melodies of Midnight Syndicate’s Forbidden Crypt accompanies the 20 minute zig-zag, a stark contrast to the Rangers’ music of choice; Up The Chimney.

Towards the front of the queue, you’re counted up and patched up into groups of six-or-so. Three groups are batched up and stand parallel in front of the main freezer door. Blue work lights arch across the weathered, rivet-ridden block letters THE FREEZER with a battered brushed aluminium door covered in heavy pipes and bulky locking wheel towards the centre.

As an alarm sounds, the door opens as a rich mist rolls out, a swirling blue light just about visible. Before the alarm sounds for you, a member of staff sternly sets out the house rules, warning of strobe lighting and fog effects before the beeper sounds, the door opens and you frog-march in.

As the door closes behind you, a feeling of vulnerability sets in as fog rolls around the frostily-lit clinical white corridor as through the mist you make out swathes of blood on the walls. Something’s clearly not right here.

You push through a heavy plastic freezer curtain before walking down a long, black corridor. With every step closer to the end, your heart beat increases as the sound of sirens and the flash of strobes through a door to the end get more and more intense.

Comparisons with Terror of the Towers are inevitable unfortunately, but Freezer has an identity of it’s own, and it’s completely different to it’s Staffordshire counterpart. Freezer instantly conveys a harsh and gritty atmosphere, and you immediately inherit a sense of urgency as soon as you enter the main room.

Instead of a surging orchestral soundtrack, Freezer’s bleak soundtrack is a deafening siren, piercing screams and clinking chains. It sounds dull, but it really adds to the feeling that you’re somewhere where you shouldn’t be, and that you must do everything to get out.

Your passageway takes you down a corridor, mirrors in front and to the side, with a high chickenwire fence to the left. With nothing but strobe lights lighting your way, the mirrors are disorientating for the person at the front of the group, and as you make your way around the corner, plastic bodybags are suspended from the ceiling.

As you weave around these bodybags, our first undead victim lurches out, a pale-faced clown with scraggly blonde hair and a bright red nose. Still dressed as a patient, he clasps a cane waving it around in a frenzied manner, squatting down ready to pounce. He follows the group as they walk down a tight corridor of chickenwire fencing before the body of a young blonde girl wakes, wandering around in daze, with a bloodied face and stricken stare. Holding onto a teddy bear, she vacantly wanders back into the darkness before the passageway opens up into a surgery.

A dead surgeon is hung on the wall, eyes bulging and almost appearing to move in the confusing strobe lighting, whist ahead a surgeon seemingly frozen in time holds a scalpel over a sink, blood everywhere. From around a corner, a large undead man walks towards you as if possessed, arms outstretched with a strangely focused expression on his face. Squirming out of the way, you go through a doorway to the right before going down another chickenwire corridor.

As you approach a doorway, a confused and bloodied lady stands in the way, nervously touching her face and stepping in the way. As you step left, she steps right into the way. You step right, she steps left – after a moment, as your group make a dash, she finally lets you pass, as through windows on the left, a pale-faced person lurches out at you as you turn more to the right into a cold storage room. A mist rolls from a chest freezer, chained shut. From behind the freezer, another undead person jumps out at you, arms flailing before you enter a tight corridor.

Bolts of lightening shoot parallel to the pathway in a terrifying effect as a masked man jumps into view, crouching down, jumping towards you as you approach him. He jumps out of the way, jumping back out at the back of the group as they run out of Freezer through the door  onto the stage in the queuing area.

Considering Freezer hit the jackpot last year, it’s surprising that many changes have been made to the attraction since 2002.

Firstly, acting talent was not supplied by Sudden Impact!, the American company who oversaw the original installation of Thorpe’s mazes. Instead, Thorpe employed the services of a theatrical company, and to a lesser extent also used their own entertainments department.

The obvious concern was that there would be less actors, and who are not proficient in scaring you witless. Freezer last year was fairly unreliable when it came to frights – it’s easy to remember the very best times where actors were clambering over fences and hanging from the rafters, but too many times you were left unchallenged throughout.

This year, Freezer seems far more consistent in terms of the actors you’ll find, and each of them clearly exhibit a certain passion when it comes to their roles. Whilst some prefer to jump out of the darkness scaring you, others toy with your group, not letting you pass and behaving fairly eerily.

Inside, dead ends have been removed meaning that groups are less likely to run into each other, also meaning less of an obvious staff presence when it comes to directing you. Parts of the scenery now open up into small rooms, such as the mortuary and freezer room later on.

Another improvement this year is that the attraction has a storyline of sorts, where the dead come alive inside a cold storage facility, killing the resident autopsy surgeons. It’s the kind of storyline that makes itself obvious to the more observant visitor with surgeons hung up dead throughout, and the undead jumping out at you, but it loses nothing should you miss the plot by being waylaid escaping the undead.

Outside, the same logistics apply as last year where groups are batched up and let in at intervals dictated by a timer. This year, the menacing and distinctive buzzer has been replaced by a fairly pathetic beep. Is this a Freezer or a microwave?!

Freezer still has a unique character to it. Freezer is gritty, intimidating and unrelenting, with the non-stop use of strobes it is disorientating, with the siren soundtrack it’s chaotic. Whilst it doesn’t offer the gothic setting of Terror of the Towers or the exquisite scenery, it excels in other ways, offering a more raw thrill than most other walkthroughs and an ever-present feeling of urgency and panic.

Not only is this freezer cold and chilling, it can also break most people into a nervous sweat.

MS 31 October 2003

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