Review of Scare Kingdom Scream Park 2015 ... The Yorkshire Dad Blog ...

This week i got the chance to visit one of the UK's most top rated scream parks, Scare Kingdom.

The park officially opened 7 years ago and since then it has gone strength to strength by winning awards, adding new and exciting attractions year on year, as well turning over more visitors than ever before.

To celebrate their 7th year of scare-supremacy they have themed this year attractions around 7 Deadly Sins, which introduced some new faces into the mix as well as bringing back some familiar faces.

Scare Kingdom Scream Park is located at Hawkshaw Farm Park, home of Mrs Dowson’s Ice Cream, on the A59 near Preston and Blackburn, it is minutes from the M6 junction 31.

The park is within easy reach of Manchester, Liverpool and all major towns in the northwest. It is clearly sign posted at the Park entrance on the A59. We travelled from Harrogate and had no problems at all finding the park, we even went past the A666.... a great sign of things to come ;)

Before i attended i had a good sense of what this year experience was going to be like. I had kept up to date with them hype on Twitter and had been watching their promotional videos. For those of you that have yet to visit then i would recommend that you watch the video below...

We arrived on a warm night, a dark night a busy night. Not busy in the sense that it was overcrowded but busy in terms of having enough bodies around to increase the hype, tension and nerves whilst waiting to get in. Just to let you know the car parking is free and even on the busiest of nights you should find a space to park easily.

After waiting around five minutes in the queue and waiting room we (9 of us) were bundled into a the first attraction, Sanctum. This has changed since my last visit, you enter a well-lit room, all placed in front of a large glass box that housed a puppet, that puppet was the Minister of Fear. Whilst is was brief introduction it was done well, it made me jump and it provided further detail to the the ciaos that laid ahead.

Under the star lit sky we freely walked towards the next experience. Greeted by a masked silent worker we queued for two minutes and then it happened, a solider burst out of the entrance to the hole and scared the majority of the queue half to death.

The Hole

Once guided in side the Hole a rather frantic solider telling the story behind the 'goings on' and well interacted with the crowd before sending us on through a hidden passage. As the first big attraction on the night i felt that it did what it needed to do, it had plenty of action, surprises and scares along the way. I found myself 'looking for the scare' and was surprised to see that the actors and theme throw amble amount of curve-balls.

I left the Hole satisfied, scared and laughing at the amount of time i jumped throughout the experience.

Manormortis

The most theatrical of attractions by far, clergymen and women are scattered throughout the journey. We had the some of the best scares here, but the music in parts was a tad loud, which made it particularly hard to hear the actors at some points.

Arcanum Arcanum

In my mind the best themed scare if the night, you enter this attraction with accompanied by a time travelling actress who really sold the part. The attraction only lasted a minute but in that time you had a couple of very good 'in your face' scares a rather gross moment.

Hell

Greeted by a priest who informed us that is was our destiny to be here. Bundled into a narrow corridor the journey began and we made our way through a dark and rather brilliant labyrinth of well executed scares. My favourite moment had to be in the upside down room and graveyards... think very good costumes and acting!

Gluttony Corp

A rather well executed space themed attraction that had the actor who explained all about a dystopian future and the fact that we would need to prove ourselves in order to survive the tests. Whilst it was the most 'fun' attraction it was more of a short-lived escaped the room game than a traditional scare.

Psychomanteum

The world renowned and controversial scare attraction Psychomanteum did not disappoint. Dubbed the sickest attration in the UK by the Sun i honestly didn't know what to expect.

I read a lot of hype around the experience and whilst i was there began to really understand the appeal it has had on past visitors as i saw the attraction packed full of on-lookers but only a couple of brave-should willing/stupid enough to sign the waiver-form!

Reading the form it is easy to see why it is only for over 18's with statements like "I will be touched, grabbed and forcibly moved”, and that “I understand that Psychomanteum is graphically disgusting, offensive, sexually explicit, crude, vulgar and extremely adult in every way humanly possible”.

Once i had signed the form i waited for the two young girls to go in ahead of me. You could see that they were very unnerved by the vulgar sexual remarks made by the actors and by the fact that had to enter the experience all alone.

Everyone entering Psychomanteum was given a safe-word just in case you can't handle the 'torture'.

In a nutshell i was man-handled, water-boarded, verbally abused, spat-on, locked-up and forced to do and say some vile stuff. Did i enjoy it.. no not really, would i do it again.... NO... was it worth it.... yes, even though it did leave a horrible taste in my mouth!

The actors executed their roles very well and not once did i feel that my life was in danger or experienced something that was truly horrific. It was also very well themed, each room enhanced the experience and housed some amazing props that took the experience to the next level.

If you fancy visiting the scare-park then you still can, just visit ScareKingdom.com to find out more information, dates and ticket prices. You might also want to follow them on Twitter as they tweet out discounts and updates....