The Asylum, Thorpe Park

I don’t expect any sympathy, but honestly, reviewing mazes is probably one of the most difficult things I have to do for Coaster Kingdom.

The problem with mazes like The Asylum always boils down to one thing – the actors. They can make or break a good maze, but the very fact they’re humans means that you’re dealing with an element of unpredictability.

Of course, this means that the mazes offer a different experience every time, but with unpredictability comes inconsistency, with the problem being that sometimes you can spend over five minutes inside The Asylum without being challenged by an actor even once.

Compared to Hellgate and Se7en, Asylum is a raw scare-machine, built for the purpose of disorientating, intimidating and belittling those inside.

There is no room to play the psychology card, and if actors fail to embrace the gritty and chaotic atmosphere inside the maze, it waters down an otherwise potent concoction of pure bedlam.

The simplicity of the maze is echoed with the symbolic entrance, a simple prison-style door in the centre of a weathered brick wall, towards which the queue slowly zig-zags.

Above the covered queue line, the words ‘The Asylum’ are scrawled across a beaten-grey sign, above which two columns of flames periodically lick the sky with dazzling gusto.

Sombre and plodding music suitably casts a dim shadow over proceedings as the queue slowly slaloms towards the stage, behind which stands the battered blue entrance door.

At the front of the queue, you are arranged into a group of 8-10 people, joining the Fastrack queuers (Fastrack, if that’s your prerogative, costs £3 per maze, or £7 for one-time entry into all three) before being briefed by a member of staff bellowing over the dull roar of the queue.

With hands on the shoulders of the person in front, the group walk through the door, and turn to the left walking down a misleadingly bland corridor.

With the two-tone corridor brightly lit by suspended lights above, initial impressions are that of disappointment, and, for maze virgins, confusing. With the bright lighting, the grandeur of the strobe lights flickering against the end wall is now lost, while last year you had no chance but to walk towards the commotion as if you were walking the plank off the side of a pirate ship with nowhere to go but in.

But inside, little has changed.

Once in, the realisation of what exactly you’re letting yourself in for dawns. The strobe lights blind you as the room opens up before you, and a red-haired bloodied nurse stagers towards you clasping a syringe.

Disorientated, you bear left into a narrow corridor, passing between a wall of mirrors and the glass wall of a patient’s cell. From the dark, two hands lurch forward and slam onto the wall, before the group begin to make their way to the centre of the maze.

What follows is a meandering passage through a dark pathway, flanked with chicken-wire fencing. Lit only with powerful strobes, the ultimate affect is disorientating and frenzied.

The pathway heads back towards the outside of the main room, widening as the group filter past a chest freezer with smoke rolling out of the lid. Squatting on top, you can just about make out the silhouette of a bloodied actor who jumps down towards the group, sending them careering off to the right hand side through some plastic flaps.

More fenced-in meanders follow, each step accompanied by a deafening soundtrack of sirens and screams often under the watchful eye of an actor. Many stand and let you pass, many clamber up and onto the fencing while many just block your route, such as the ever-effective gentleman who must be 7ft tall and is built like a brick outhouse.

One of the most effective scenes soon follows. The laundry sees the group navigate their way through sheets and sheets of torn linen hanging from the ceiling, which is a simple, if disorientating trick. The actors often use guests’ disorientation and limited eyesight to their advantage, although unfortunately the worktop in the middle of the room effectively ruins the effect somewhat by creating an obvious pathway through the scene.

The maze concludes with yet more walking through the industrial-style fencing, with the exit from the maze guarded by an actor, which takes you into the consistently anti-climatic ending corridor, brightly lit, more often than not devoid of actors, but always a flat ending to a maze otherwise bloated with action.

There are many things that Asylum has going for it. The maze itself has a solid foundation of gritty chaos helped with the harsh and disorientating lighting and the intimidating soundtrack.

Structurally, the maze is possibly the most versatile of the three. With the majority built out of the chicken wire fences, actors aren’t limited to just scaring in their own corridor, but neighbouring corridors, too.

It’s easy to block people into corners, and with the strobes, it’s easy to appear and disappear while every motion they make is amplified due to the strobing.

With many actors having the athletic ability to clamber up on top of the fence, this alone is one of the most intimidating tricks they could possibly employ – towering over you, the mere fact they’re sitting on top of an 8ft fence gives proceedings a veritably unpredictable twist.

There are several actors in the maze who are consistently good. The girl who stands still before jumping down out of a cage shouting “DIE!” always seems to make people jump, while another actress clasping a doll which she strokes across the faces of guests is actually quite sinister.

Another is the 7ft oaf mentioned earlier, if only effective thanks to his menacing build.

But still, too many just walk towards the group staring. If this is ultimately building up to the actor ‘snapping’ and doing something unpredictable, then it’s a worthwhile exercise, but often it just stinks of a missed opportunity.

As in other years, the same things disappoint. Unlike when the maze was The Freezer, the opening corridor is bland, sterile and serves no purpose other than being a walkway into the maze. It should at least serve more purpose than this.

The ending corridor, too, is guilty of the same crimes and doesn’t even have the excuse of building expectations that perhaps the first corridor does.

The maze itself is excellent, and the laundry scene – which is new this year – is sublimely effective. Unlike the other mazes that rely more on eye candy, even without the interaction of actors, The Asylum is a belittling experience.

Subtle touches such as the cell near the beginning of the maze, and the shower midway through are lost in the chaos – both have no lighting of note, and the shower in particular is probably something I’d argue even Asylum regulars wouldn’t even realise was a shower unless told.

Overall, The Asylum is a superb maze, let down by inconsistent levels of scares and occasionally tatty presentation. With changes to the beginning, the end and by making the most of the few set pieces in the maze, as well as actors using this versatile maze to its full potential, Asylum would be good enough to have even a pillar of sanity sectioned under the mental health act.

While Asylum ranges from being phenomenal to frustratingly disappointing, we don’t have the luxury of being able to sum this up, other than using a pointless and frankly unhelpful animated GIF, such as:

But, while Asylum can’t decide if it’s amazing or average, we’ll have to decide for it - four stars it is.

MS 24 October 2005