Screamfest 2024
It’s been a few years since we last visited Screamfest Burton and whilst the lineup has only had a couple of changes we’ve usually had some decent runs in the mazes. The event is another larger one located at the National Forest Adventure Farm. In addition to the five mazes, there’s also an upcharge alien paintball shooting experience, a few fairground rides and numerous food and drink options. There’s also a nice troupe of roaming actors some of whom start terrorising people in the queue before entry to the event.
Freak Out On Tour
The first of two mazes located a little away from the main drag, Freak Out is a fun clown maze with a nice concept. I was lucky enough to be the first person through the maze of the evening so managed to get some decent and varied scares from the energetic actors throughout. A solid start.
Insomnia
Insomnia is another great concept, but we’ve had mixed runs of this maze in the past, when it was at its old location. After a couple of fun initial scenes, I was separated from the rest of my group and ended up with pretty much a solo run and it was definitely the highlight of my night as all the scares were perfectly timed. Whilst it’s not a particularly intense maze, the actors in my run were superb throughout and really made me feel on edge and landed some great impact scares.
Area 52
Next up was the Area 52 the alien paintball up-charge experience. You sit on a double decker tractor trailer with fixed paintball guns. At various points there are shooting gallery style scenes with heavily padded actors being willing targets for your paintballs. It’s fun, nothing overly innovative, but we enjoyed our time. Our only real criticism would be that the padded outfits that the actors wear don’t really lend themselves to an other-worldly style as it was mostly just people in boiler suits.
Creed Farm
Creed Farm doesn’t feel like it has massively changed since we last went through it. Sadly batching became our biggest issue with the maze as it just became a massive conga-line so the actors weren’t able to decently land any scares. The chainsaw finale featured some of the closest chainsaws we’ve seen for a non-contact maze. They still don’t do much for us sadly.
Hillbilly Joe’s Zombee Zoo
We’ve always loved the concept of Zombee Zoo and have been lucky with some runs in the past in this fun maze. Unfortunately bunching again quickly became an issue so we didn’t have an overly impactful run, but it is still fun. Loved the Zom-bee yet again, honestly a hilarious addition to the Zombie menagerie.
Hellcatraz
Last maze of the evening was the new for 2024 Hellcatraz. From the start this is a very different vibe to the more traditional mazes at Screamfest. You enter through an individual cell, so you will be separated from the rest of your group. It’s also a full contact maze, so you will be touched and manhandled throughout the maze. Some of the contact felt a bit hesitant and repetitive, but we did have a few occasions that were much more forceful and entertaining including one particularly dizzying one. The exit also had a nice final touch as well. We really liked that Screamfest have tried out something a bit more intense and feel that maybe with a bit more full contact scare experience for some of the actors this could easily evolve into one of the most intense mazes in the UK.
Summary
We had some solid runs in some of the mazes during our time at Screamfest and really enjoyed the atmosphere that this event had on a very busy Thursday evening. If you’re in the area and fancy some family friendly scares, and one much more intense one, get yourself along.
Screamfest runs on select dates through to Saturday 2nd November.
Screamfest Resurrected 2021
Next up on our road trip of terror, was a visit to Screamfest, branded with Resurrected for its return in 2021. The event is located at the National Forest Adventure Farm near Burton.
As we had several events to get to, we weren’t able to spend as much time on the site as we’d like, which is a shame as there was a lively atmosphere on our visit with plenty of food and drink options as well as midway style attractions and a few fairground rides, all topped off with the brilliant duck pool DJ booth and some roaming actors.
Attractions
Hillbilly Joe’s Zombee Zoo
We headed straight for Hillbilly Joe’s Zombee Zoo. We love the concept behind this maze as you go through a unique zoo and meet the inhabitants. We got a couple of solid scares in here and it had plenty of humour, with the actors being on point and full of energy. The perfectly timed aubergine being a particular highlight.
Creed Farm
The exit for this brought us to the entrance for Creed Farm, a new for 2021 attraction set in a maize maze. Starting with a good take on a blackout, you soon meet the farmers and as well as a few traditional scares this attraction also has some slightly more theatrical scenes. It was fun, but nothing spectacular.
Le Theatre Noir
We then headed for Le Theatre Noir. First up this is not a scare maze, and whilst we appreciate the attempt to do something different, sadly the execution just didn’t work for us. Conceptually we feel that there’s a lot of potential here, but would need a rethink if it was to return. Spoiler, you we’ll get unnessecarily wet in this experience.
Love Hurts
Love Hurts was next, and sadly we didn’t have a particularly good run through. The start is always entertaining, but no real scares hit in this relatively short maze. The finale in particular was poor as we were bunched up with other groups to create a crowd of about 25 people.
Freakout on Tour
Last up was Freakout on Tour, an interesting take on the traditional clown maze. So far this year clown mazes have pretty consistently been the strongest on offer and Freakout on Tour was no exception. Great theatrical opening, and lots of high energy clowns providing a variety of scares and humour. Nice one, sorted.
Summary
Overall we had a fun time at Burton, with the Zombee Zoo and Freakout on Tour being our highlights. Screamfest Resurrected runs on selected dates through to 30th October, but has already as out.
