2023: The Curse at Alton Manor

[JSG093]

I do think Curse improved some areas from even the original Haunted House (in my opinion) such as the bats area into the shadow scene, the spiders scene which was originally reliant on UV to hide a lot of black walls becoming the attic and the mirror corridor being a better replacement for the failed flying ghost.

But yeah The Haunted House was a lot more ambitious with the biggest loss being the swamp finale which was disappointing to see Curse rely so much on the old Duel ending. The Curse opening day was one of the best days I've had at Towers though helped by with it being indoors it was a genuine surprise, hopefully to be replicated one day if project Horizon gets off the ground!

 

[Ash]

Two of the newest and arguably best effects, the disappearing mirrors and swinging Emily, are both poorly executed in that people seem to miss the mirror effect as they don’t look to their right and follow each mirror/screen and similar with swinging Emily. Due to its position and lighting, your attention is drawn away in front.

Which in my opinion is a real shame as they’re both great

 

[Euro Theme Park Archive]

Also that now curse has something duel never had:

Effects.

Duel’s new effects were quite awful but something nobody seems to have picked up on is almost all the new animations in the Curse are repurposed from the zombie animations from Duel, so it can’t have been all that bad.

The new finale is also a big downgrade from Duel in terms of scenery, although of course Duel’s finale had mainly static props where CAAM has screens etc.

My main disappointment with CAAM is the scenery in many places is quite basic looking or just walls of printed vinyl graphics.

Overall though it’s a more entertaining ride than Duel, which was a very rushed incoherent project.