Last scare of the year for me took me to Walsall for their Christmas special Christmasacre. I’d already planned to make a weekend of it visiting Scare Kingdom followed by Walsall Scare Maze and little more than half an hour after I’d bought my standard ticket. ScareCON / ScareTOUR announced that they would be having their Christmas party at Walsall Scare Maze on the same evening.
Unsurprisingly I ended buying a ticket for that as well, as it was superb value and included 1 x express entry to the maze, 1 x Face It Alone pass for after the main attraction closed, free drink, free merchandise, free photo and a midnight feast, followed by entry in to the club till 3pm with a drag show featuring Pam Catz.
Since I had a standard ticket, I got there a bit earlier than everyone else for my normal run through. It wasn’t massively busy so they were letting people go in small groups and happily for me, I was allowed to do my first run solo. After the usual safety briefing I made my way on my own through the, revamped for Christmas, version of Walsall’s Scare Maze.
This run through was less theatrical than Halloween’s House of Heinous, but definitely ramped up the scares and whilst not extreme there were plenty of lighter contact moments and some great traditional scares, creepy moments, total confusion, some very dark sections, disgusting smells, the foggiest room I think I’ve ever been in and a few brilliant set pieces, with great use of technology. I left laughing and pretty breathless, having thoroughly enjoyed the run.
As I went through this run more people arrived for the special Christmas party including Ash and eventually we went in groups of four for a run through the standard version again. From a consistency point of view, it was just as good the second time and we still got some good scares despite already having been through once. The excellent actors ramped up the intensity a little bit more for this run through. Since this is likely to be the same level of intensity that you’d get for the remaining Christmas run I can whole heartedly recommend this. Well worth travelling to Walsall to experience.
Face it Alone
After a bit of a wait, some drinks and chat with the rest of the party goers, we were picked off one by one for our Face It Alone challenge. The actors had a bit of downtime before this performance and changes were made to their roles, positions in the maze, outfits and in some instances previously dark or smoky rooms were lighter and the set design was much more visible. All in all it felt like a completely different experience, despite the overall maze aspect being the same and we were warned that this would be more extreme and full contact.
About 15 to 20 minutes after the first person entered the Face It Alone experience amidst a cacophony coming from the exit, they emerged looking shell shocked and liberally smeared with fake blood on their face. As more and more people came through they all had the same shocked expressions on their face and whilst they shared war stories, the rest of us waiting to go in tried our best to avoid any further spoilers. Eventually I was one of the last few people to go in.
Whilst this is a one off event, I still want to avoid specific spoilers as much as possible, just in case Walsall Scare Maze ever decide do an event with this level of intensity again, which I for one really hope that they do, either at Easter, Halloween or Christmas in 2020. Aside from the aforementioned changes this version also had the intensity ramped up to 11. There were still some great jump scares, but this time with much more pushing, shoving, getting right in your face and towards the end a lot of physical contact in the latter two scenes. Like everyone I left shell shocked, but still laughing as it was such good fun.
There were a few spare places left at the end so Ash, myself, and Mikey from ScareTrack jumped at the chance to go and experience it for a second time, and I ended up doing the last run of the evening, and it was superb as I got even more attention as a naughty boy that couldn’t get enough.
Final Thoughts
The whole team from the superb actors, to the guys and gals behind the scenes at Walsall Scare Maze have done a cracking job in changing up their Halloween event in time for Christmas, and I’d highly recommend Christmasacre to anyone that can get there for their last few nights.
Thanks to ScareCON / ScareTOUR for putting this Christmas event together with the Walsall Scare Maze team. It was great to meet some fellow enthusiasts for the first time as well as catching up with some familiar faces. A really brilliant end to my personal 2019 Year in Scare, roll on 2020.
Christmasacre at Walsall Scare Maze runs from 19th to 22nd with limited availability so get your tickets now.
