I visited The Howl at Mead Open Farm near Leighton Buzzard on opening night Saturday 5th October and was impressed a great deal by the nice compact Halloween event. The Howl has five fun mazes, some really cool roaming street theatre actors and an occasional fire eating act. There’s also a live band playing in the permanent indoor heated restaurant and bar area as well as a couple of outside food and drink options and loads of out door seating as well.
After recently experiencing the bigger budget events at Thorpe Park Fright Nights, Tulleys Shocktoberfest and Traumatica at Europa Park, I was interested to see how The Howl would hold up against the big boys. I’m happy to say that I had a really fun night with some cool creepy moments and some genuine scares in each of the five mazes. The whole event had a great atmosphere and clearly a well oiled and run operation.
Street Theatre
The roaming scare actors were good quality, going every where in the venue terrorizing or creeping people out every where they went. Because of the size of the venue you don’t need to wander far before seeing one or more of them.
The Mazes
The Shed
The Shed was up first for me and I was in the first run through of the evening. I also got to revisit it and all the other mazes three times in total. The sets and effects were good and the actors good value. Sadly, I didn’t have a particular great run through of this maze, so it’s probably my least favourite of the mazes. That said this is probably luck of the draw on my part as many people I spoke to rated this as their scariest of the evening.
Squealers Yard
Next up was Squealers Yard and for me this cannibal hillbilly maze was my favourite of the evening. Plenty of memorable moments in all my runs. Great actors, nice theatrics, some superb scares and really good set designs. Highly recommend this one. Hats off to one of the actors who creepily and engagingly followed me through a few sections, disarming me to some of the upcoming scares.
Toppers Twister
I then went to Toppers Twister and again really enjoyed this one on each run through. The clown actors in the maze were on top form, creepy and scary in equal measure. There are some fun elements to the walk through including one very trippy and dizzying part, but the overall set design didn’t meet the same high quality of the others. Still great fun though.
Red
The exit to Toppers Twister brings you out very close to the queue line for my next maze. Red is a twisted take on Red Riding Hood and as with all the mazes, very good actors. One very big bad wolf wouldn’t let me move on until I could smell and hear him snorting in my face. Red is quite a short maze, and again has some great quality set design, costumes and make up. Oh, and I’ve now been hit in the arm by the same animatronic in two different events.
The Attic
Last up was The Attic, which for me was a good solid maze, with some nice theatrics and as usual great acting. The set as well looked really good and this one had some very strong and unpleasant smells, more so than I noticed in any of the other mazes.
Summary
Overall I had a really fun and enjoyable evening at The Howl, there was a great atmosphere across the entire venue and the whole site works really well. The five mazes all provide quality acting with great costumes and make up. On the whole the set design and props are really good. I’d highly recommend The Howl if it’s local to you and I’ll definitely be returning next year.
The Howl at Mead Open Farm runs on select dates in October through to November 2nd.
