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'Better Luck Next Time': The Strange Story of British Dark Rides

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electricBlll

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Hi everyone. For the past few months I have been working on a special project. You will all know Duel or perhaps remember The Haunted House, the first ride project helmed by John Wardley when Tussauds came to the park in the early 1990s. This bizarre ride has a fascinating story to tell, much of which has already been discovered thanks to researcher Michael Eley, (if you haven't read his book Smoke And Mirrors then you are missing out on a great insight into the creative process behind a dark ride).

The original Haunted House was part of a series of theatrical dark rides built in Britain by Tussauds Group at the start of their theme park venture, also including The 5th Dimension and BubbleWorks at Chessington, before big steel rollercoasters took over. Upon opening they were highly innovative for bringing theatrical effects to Britain at a time when there were few true theme parks in the country, determined to make up in charm what they lacked in budget. Still to this day these dark rides are some of the most imaginative and surreal theme park attractions found in the UK.

In Summer 2015, Better Luck Next Time will be an amateur docu-style film exploring how these dark rides were created and the cultural impact they had in an honest but exciting way, as told by the individuals who designed them. Involved in the project are many inspirational people, including designer John Wardley and figures from the original studios that produced these rides. I promise you will be surprised to hear the full stories they have to tell, but you'll have to wait and see!

Forgive me for advertising, if you are interested then please find out more on my cheap free website thingy here, and follow this Facebook page for updates. I will have a trailer ready in November, so do check back in the future!

Will dark rides lead the theatrical entertainment industry again? Perhaps.. Better luck next time!
 
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So a lot has happened since I first announced the project. If you haven't seen the updates on our Facebook page, do take a look here.

Earlier this month we interviewed attraction designers Dan Longley, Graham Owens and John Wardley, with more to come. Some people submitted questions to us and I compiled this little teaser video of them giving their answers.



There's plenty more to come so keep a lookout for a trailer coming later this year, which will give you a bigger picture of what the film's all about. There have been a lot of exciting discoveries.
 
After seeing the 'questions submitted' video on the Facebook page, I too am now very interested in this. Looks like a slick production.
 
Yes unfortunately this won't be a ridiculous egotrip like most of my other videos. It's a film for everyone and I'll be producing it stylishly.

I am working closely with attraction industry people to make it and as reference I have spent almost twice the budget of the Chained Oak Legend film on what I've done so far. I wouldn't release it if the production quality didn't serve the story being told, so this will be a far cry from one of those cringy 'enthusiast makes a documentary' videos. (they are scary)

The further I've been drawn into this dark ride story the more fascinating it becomes, so I can promise the content will be amazing and very insightful. At times it's a very sentimental subject, but will be told in a way that should entertain a wide range of people. And there's always the element of surprise...
 
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Who can criticise it before it's even been finished? Of course, nobody can. But you've started this discussion topic on an internet 'forum' (OED: 'A meeting or medium where ideas and views on a particular issue can be exchanged'), so here goes. I get the impression from what you've posted in this topic that your documentary will take a sentimental look at late-80s/early-90s UK dark rides and laud that period as a golden age, and propose that dark rides in the UK since then have gone downhill.

I can understand wanting to be sentimental about cheap and cheerful stuff that was made in a more naïve era of the theme park industry. It's undoubtedly easier to form a 'cult following' to rides like Bubbleworks and the Haunted House. But let's be brutally honest for a minute. The best dark rides ever built in the UK, if we're being truly honest, were Hex and Valhalla. Will your documentary be pointing out that truthfully the real high point for UK dark rides was actually 2000?
 
Did a big bit of this discussion get removed, or am I just confused?

Anyway, @electricBlll. I don't always agree with you on here to say the least, but putting together something like this takes time, imagination, dedication and perseverance - particularly to gain the good grace and trust of those in the industry.

Glad to see you are determined to do this project proud, I was a little skeptical if I'd be bothered by this video tbh, but after watching the questions video I am actually fascinated and greatly anticipate the final piece and any updates!

Good work mate, I'm impressed, it definitely has an air of something that's going to bring some honesty about behind the scenes in the industry to the fore. John's comments on Haunted House I found particularly interesting as well as disappointing that we still ended up with freaking laser guns when it could have created something spectacular... that guy knows effects, he wouldn't suggest that lightly! Disappointing Towers! (What a surprise - marketing anyone?)
 
While Hex and Valhalla are two of my favourite thematic rides in the UK I do think it is fair to say they came after the "golden age", in the sense that they don't fit the classic dark ride model and were the last hurrah before coasters became the be all and end all. Hex isn't the normal tracked ride with animatronics, instead going for atmospheric setting, and Valhalla is as much ride as it is theme. Not that this makes them bad (quite the opposite it makes them better) but they aren't part of that first wave of dark rides that had a distinct character between them and are now much missed.

As someone that barely got to experience these old rides I am very much looking forward to this.
 
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Sam said:
I can understand wanting to be sentimental about cheap and cheerful stuff that was made in a more naïve era of the theme park industry. It's undoubtedly easier to form a 'cult following' to rides like Bubbleworks and the Haunted House. But let's be brutally honest for a minute. The best dark rides ever built in the UK, if we're being truly honest, were Hex and Valhalla. Will your documentary be pointing out that truthfully the real high point for UK dark rides was actually 2000?
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Honestly Sam thank you for posting that because it's good to have a contrasting view to keep me grounded.

I know exactly where you are coming from with your high opinions of Hex and Valhalla, but I disagree completely that the height of UK dark rides was 2000. This was pretty much the year the theme park industry lost its theatrical talents and swapped its whole ethos of entertainment for one of expensive infrastructure and gimmicks instead. The majority of the leading creatives who had built the attractions industry in Britain left the industry around this time, their talent going with them. Projects became marketing-led rather than creative-led, which is just the standard these days.

That being said, this is a totally sentimental subject, as I think it should be, and you'll see in the finished product that I'm well aware of how ultimately meaningless and sometimes a bit tragic this whole attraction industry is, which I fully embrace and have much affection for. The hint is in the title. That's the magic for me, that people would dedicate so much effort, imagination and technical expertise to creating what are essentially big black boxes filled with plastic ghosts, illusions and other daft ideas, which often don't go to plan. Perhaps more amazing is the influence those early dark rides had on people young and old. Hard to understand if you weren't a part of that culture, but it's a story I think I can communicate in such a way that a wide range of people will be interested.

Going into Hex in particular...
In all my research (which is really extensive if I say so myself) I have discovered that there isn't nearly as much to the story behind Hex as there is in the earlier, clunkier rides. Hex was a one-off project, created by a smaller team of people with a much cheaper budget, much simpler in concept and was ultimately unsuccessful, needing a last minute redesign of the entire experience. Hex was a symbol, if anything, that the 'classic' dark period was at an end. It is a beautiful swansong to that era and fits perfectly at Alton Towers, I wouldn't change one bit of it. But it does get thought of in the enthusiast community as something more profound than it really is, probably because it manages to tell a clever story and is actually subtle with its theatrics (rather than being gloriously flamboyant and humorous like most British dark rides). However when you break it down as a show attraction, I was surprised to realise it lacks the genius put into the other rides I've researched; certainly in the special effects department.

This doesn't matter to me and I don't see it as a flaw in the attraction, but I stick by what I mean as you make the rather uninformed claim that it was the height of UK dark rides. And yes, I will be covering Hex and Valhalla in the film, in as much depth as I can to suite the story being delivered.

Whereas I always thought of cult-y, regionally popular rides like BubbleWorks or Haunted House to be silly daft creations from a more innocent time, the more I research and talk to the creators about them the more I am simply amazed by the diversity of the talent, workmanship, budgets (ahem Merlin) and importantly the love for people that went into creating them. These were the rides that were really breaking new ground in Britain, created by some of the most inspirational I have ever known (who at the time actually had very little experience of theme parks!), whose personalities and skills alone drove the rides to success. Of course in the 80s/90s rides were not nearly as 'professionally' produced or technically-sound as attractions such as Valhalla, or even in comparison to other dark rides around Europe which predate this time. But for entertainment alone, and all the magic was there.

It's not so much a wishy washy vague, sentimental ode I'm trying to tell, it's a genuine story about the people and the time that made these rides possible. And for someone like me who dedicates their life to arts and theatre, I know it's bloody special that this great story ever happened. It's only become relevant to tell in recent times because the industry is changing again on the inside and old values are starting to coming back.

In a way Sam you were the inspiration to create this film, that and when I met John Wardley last year (who is a very kind man), because I want to make a difference to people's attitudes in some way. So if you end up not liking it, it's your fault. :p

TheMan said:
Glad to see you are determined to do this project proud, I was a little skeptical if I'd be bothered by this video tbh, but after watching the questions video I am actually fascinated and greatly anticipate the final piece and any updates!
Good work mate, I'm impressed, it definitely has an air of something that's going to bring some honesty about behind the scenes in the industry to the fore.
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Well thank you, that's very encouraging. If you liked that quick little side video, I suppose you're going to be very impressed when we actually start publishing the real stuff! There were many magic moments in those interviews.
 
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electricBlll said:
Well thank you, that's very encouraging. If you liked that quick little side video, I suppose you're going to be very impressed when we actually start publishing the real stuff! There were many magic moments in those interviews.
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Seriously, you're welcome, thank you for putting the time and effort in to create such a wonderfully informative piece!

Many people have flashes of inspiration and don't follow it through - it's testament to exactly the kinds of people you're discovering and interviewing etc that they to followed their muse if you like and forged ahead to create these little boxes of magic! I am not even a dark ride fan as such, and on the subject of Valhalla specifically I have only ridden that ride once because I got so wet on it. It was a great ride, but I never considered a "dark ride" - it's a well themed very wet water ride, and Hex I find static but a visually impressive trick that would be absolutely nothing without the madhouse it's based around so yet again I find myself completely agreeing with you.

Unexpectedly (admittedly) loving this topic!!
 


The first trailer for our project, it's been a fantastic journey and there's a lot more to come.

We've also discovered a lot about Around The World/Doom & Sons, and will be covering Toyland Tours and Hex too.
 
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This looks really interesting! Impressed that you've managed to interview so many people who were involved.

Not sure how much the trailer represents the finished film, but I think this would be even better if you went for a 'normal' narration voice and really focussed on making this feel professional.
 
I've been working on tweaking the narration and bits actually as it doesn't reflect the tone of the film, but yes the actual episodes will tell the full story very honestly and trust me it's a genuinly fascinating story that these people have to tell. The trailer really is just a glimpse and it's not as sentimental as it seems.

And if you like archive material then all that I've worked very hard to discover is real treasure, that's mostly been forgotten about for decades.

However the most important thing is the people and their memories, something that really touched me in making the film. And we're going to meet plenty more people as we go along.
 
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electricBlll said:
I've been working on tweaking the narration actually as I don't like the way it camps up the trailer, but yes the actual episodes will tell the full story very honestly and trust me it's a genuinly fascinating story that these people have to tell. The trailer really is just a glimpse and it's not as sentimental as it seems.

And if you like archive material then all that I've worked very hard to discover is real treasure, that's mostly been forgotten about for decades.

However the most important thing is the people and their memories, something that really touched me in making the film. And we're going to meet plenty more people as we go along.
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How long will the film be in total?
 
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