Throughout October, Kyle has been reviewing some of the UK's best scare experiences as part of his annual 'Halloween Horror Visits' series. For the third and final part, he ventured to Leicester's 'Xtreme Scream Park' to check out the award-winning attraction for the first time...

The aptly-named ‘Xtreme Scream Park’ returns to Melton Mowbray’s Twin Lakes Theme Park this year, fresh off the back of winning ‘Best Scream Park’ award at this year’s ‘ScareCON’. In many ways, the advent of an entire roster of such awards goes in some way to illustrating just how expansive and popular the Halloween scare maze industry is becoming, and by extension how competitive any such accolade and recognition is to win. Having already ventured earlier this month to the shocks, snatches and surprises of Alton Towers’ Scarefest 2016 and Screamfest Burton, expectations (and tensions) were high for this final Halloween visit, to the award-winning scares of the Twin Lakes. 

The event did not disappoint - from the outset the adage of location, location, location rings true as erected gothic archways, eerie scarecrows, pillars of flames and selective lighting accentuate the already spooky setting and create a far more unnerving and genuinely spooky atmosphere than many equivalent parks and events achieve. This is bolstered by ambient music that pervades throughout the park as a myriad of excellent street performers and actors dressed as undead brides, scary clowns and gas-masked wearing loons to name a few pop up with alarming regularity - often unexpected and out of sight.

Even queuing up for the mazes, you can expect to be surprised by a stray actor or characterful ticket attendant, and at one stage a stilt-wearing maniac peered in through the window of the men’s toilets screaming at us to ‘hurry up’. Elsewhere, our visit to one of the shops to buy a few bottles of water seemed to temporarily be a safe, brightly-lit haven, until a creepy demonic-looking girl casually saddled up to the till beside us, staring eerily yet silently before letting out an otherworldly crackling noise in her throat. 

You never feel completely safe or at ease at ‘Xtreme’, which is absolutely perfect for this calibre of attraction.

The costume and makeup work are generally superb, the conviction and efforts of the actors faultless, the language suitably blue and the diversity of performers and characters on display broad and impressive.

A selection of alternate entertainment is on offer - including stage shows, outdoor music, a bar, and a handful of open fires and chiminea to sit around - but the scare mazes are the real attraction here, and Twin Lakes boasts six. With the event closing at 10:30pm each evening, and each of the six mazes being of considerable length (and what seemed to be significantly above industry average), it’s difficult to recommend allowing yourself to be too sidelined by the other entertainment distractions on offer, particularly if you are part of the slightly later 8pm entry (there being staggered entry from 7pm onwards).

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Of the mazes, as with any such scare event, there is a real spectrum of both scare and effectiveness. The weakest offerings, ‘Belvoir Dungeon’ and the Circus-themed ‘Twisted’ offer a handful of jumps and the occasional bout of disorientation or narrow gaps to squeeze through, but are generally quite tame and passable affairs - though ‘Twisted’ offers a superb and imposing finale that shan’t be spoiled here. Certainly don’t make the same mistake as we did in leaving these two lighter mazes until last - unless you need to calm your nerves for the drive home, of course!

Pushing further back into the park, the mazes expand in design, ambition and intensity. The pitch-black disorientation of ‘Hunted’, for the entirety of which you are hooded and having to navigate via a rope, initially brought home the same concerns as last year’s ‘The Haunting of Molly Crowe’ at Alton Towers, whose scariest feature was the frequency in which I banged my kneecaps off of wooden posts, but thankfully ‘Hunted’ is far more sensibly laid out and easier to navigate. For many, the hoods and unknown factor will make this an intense experience, and there are a handful of surprises dotted throughout to keep you on your feet.

The best offerings though, are the trifecta of ‘Ash Hell Penitentary’, ‘The Pie Factory’ and ‘Stilton Hall Hotel and Hell Spa’. Each are distinctly and superbly themed - ‘Ash Hell’, expectedly, takes the form of a nightmarish prison with an imposing guard tower exterior and a terrifying warden setting the tone of this ’11/10’ intensity experience from the offset, whilst ‘The Pie Factory’ is a deranged, horrifying trip into hillbilly hell with a demented, porcine twist and ‘Stilton Hall Hotel and Hell Spa’ offering up one of the longest and most effectively-realised mazes you can experience. All three are brilliantly executed affairs - the set design and invention on offer is thoroughly impressive, particularly given their size - you will walk (nervously) through ramshackle cabin homes, an industrial warehouse, a hair salon from hell and countless other locales and set pieces, all faultlessly brought to life, and that’s without evening touching upon the narrow tunnels, low ceilings, locked rooms and other surprises and physical challenges that pop up with surprising frequency.

The makeup and costume work throughout is also terrific - from a demonic, The Ring-esque girl leaping out at you in ‘Stilton Hall’ through a prisoner gruesomely missing parts of her leg in ‘Ash Hell’ to the genuinely disturbing pig noses and make-up of the residents of ‘The Pie Factory’, the host of crazed, terrifying characters on offer look fantastic and convincing throughout, and rarely (if ever) register as simply actors.

The only slight critique was that in some of the longer mazes - namely ‘Ash Hell’ and ‘Stilton Hall’, occasional bottleneck areas, such as the narrow squeezes and low tunnels, meant that queues formed inside the mazes themselves. In ‘Ash Hell’ in particular this became notably problematic, meaning pretty much the entirety of second half of the maze became a slow-moving conveyer belt of people which robbed it of much of the tension of navigating through in your own small group, losing in particular a lot of the uncertainty of what came next when you could see and hear it happening to the slow-moving line of people ahead of you. However, this is a relatively small gripe of an overall fantastic experience, and nothing that slightly more staggered entry will not solve. 

It is worth pointing out that the attraction should be commended for keeping even it’s lengthiest queues moving at a very brisk pace - even at peak length, we queued for no longer than ten minutes for a maze. I would have gladly waited a little while longer though to avoid the aforementioned bottlenecking inside the mazes affected.

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In all, it isn’t difficult to see why ‘Xtreme Scream Park’ proudly clutched it’s ‘Best Scream Park’ award from the hands (claws?) of it’s now-numerous competitors. ‘Dungeon’ and ‘Twisted’ might be forgettable, almost disappointing affairs, but the other four mazes offer some of the most distinctive, effective and thrilling experiences you will find at any Halloween scare attraction. Its best offerings are long, visually striking and brilliantly executed affairs, distinctive and characterful and peppered with enough surprises, disorientating challenges and scares to make each corner and twist of the path an invitation to terror.

As the booming Halloween and scare park industry in the UK goes from strength-to-strength, ‘Xtreme Scream Park’ easily represents one of the strongest, most consistent and frequently terrifying experiences fans of horror can enjoy. 

And with the trifecta of Alton Towers Scarefest, Burton Screamfest and Xtreme Scream Park now complete, I draw my Halloween Horror Visits 2016 to a close, with shredded nerves, an exhausted bladder and a sudden penchant for something light, fluffy and whimsical to help calm the nightmares.

Quick, someone pass me the Christmas CDs…

XTREME SCREAM PARK 2016 runs at the Twin Lakes Theme Park until Monday 31 October 2016.

To book your tickets, head on over to the official website by clicking HERE.

Press tickets to Xtreme Scream Park were provided courtesy of Twin Lakes Theme Park directly. The author gratefully acknowledges their generous invitation.