Swiftly moving on, the first maze was Trailers. It’s good, I like the Director (wish I could hear him though) making a return, that was sweet, but other than that… they aren’t ‘new’ rooms are they? They’re an actor swap and a new coat of paint. We managed to get in the front of the group and skeddadle away from them, so it was a great, quite isolated run. Full of actors too. All had at least one, usually two, and they did make The Big Top scene a lot scarier too. I don’t like the sleeper express scene though, sticking two rooms together kind of goes against the spirit of the maze, and let’s get real, it the same acting style as before so the changes feel very cosmetic.
However, could’ve been me, but the actors kinda sucked at hiding. Like, yes, I can see you with your head looking around a corner scooby-soo style. It couldve been these god awful black and yellow ‘NO ENTRY’ signs they’ve put up, which basically means ‘THERES AN ACTOR IN HERE GUYS!’. The guys in the Creek Freak room blended in though, didn’t see them, not until and axe was a foot from my face anyway.
I can tell this attraction has been passed down a lot from a lot of creatives, and I feel it’s lost it’s showmanship and edge. The new scenes, to be frank, are too little too late. I love the idea of a modular maze like that, but I think they didn’t do anything when they had the time. I hate how you just walk in and the screen is already a portal, I want to have the bit where it turns into the portal. It’s had too many script changes and not enough upkeep or new scenes. But I’ll tell you this, Trailers… is 𝒯𝒾𝓇𝑒𝒹.
I don’t know what they’re doing with all that paint money, but they need to get that money and put it into some solid arrangements. Some real p l a n s man.
Trailers don’t know whether it’s coming or going.
Trailers got paint peeling and is on a crutch man..
I think it’s ready to cross the rainbow bridge now. I love it, but we gotta put it down.
Next up was… ‘Dead Beat’. It sounds weird to say it properly, I think they want you to say it like Dead bead, but I guess that’s how most people are going to say it down hereX Please don’t expect much from it. It’s… good. The outside is just next to slammer with really loud club music, but to be honest, I don’t really vibe with that kind of music. It’s just kind of ‘let’s dick about with the wavelengths a bit’ and have a really heavy bass and that’s about it. I know there’s probably some artistry in making it I’m missing, so please, enlighten me but you won’t change my mind, you know.
You start in a little tent outside with a TV displaying whatever cool graphics, and an actually funny bouncer guy. That was all cool, and then you go outside the main building, where there’s a second little queue and some posters. The funniest one was with a plane and it just said ‘fly high’ which was just a little funny. Sorry. The exit and entrance are right next to each other, which kind of ruins the bouncers’ “I haven’t seen anyone leave!” Joke.
Anywho, in the maze I thought the scenery was actually pret- oh my god it smells like shit. Yeah, it smells bad. Like a mix of wee-wee, poo-poo and VOMIT. Nasty, but I guess it fits. I mean, I’m not in my time for it yet. I’m not a clubbing guy I reckon. Like, do I come off as a clubbing person to you? No. So I guess I wouldn’t actually know.
Now, I thought what I could see was actually quite good. What I could see. A lot of the maze was sticking your hands out in front of you dark, so the scariest bit was the thought coming into sharp deceleration by the aid of a wall. The fact the actors liked crawling made this scarier ten fold. I liked the bit where theres a guy on a rail above you. He was cool.
Other than that, the strobe maze was okay, and it lacks an ending really.
They also did the ‘big bad’ thing, where they make a character the villain, and set you up to expect to see them in the maze. They literally say this in a documentary about The Big Top and what went wrong in the first year of it. And they set him up anyway.
And you don’t see him in the maze.
They set up this ‘DJ Canistro’ (that’s a Stoopid name, sorry) and I know he’s in there somewhere on a balcony, but it was simply too dark. Couldn’t see him. The mannequins confuse me too. Like, you aren’t fooling anyone here chief. Also, tried to see how glued the drinks are to the tables, and my guess is that they carved it all out of stone because that’s welded on there.
The guy on the rail on the ceiling was cool though
Also it’s missing a finale. You just kind of walk out. Props for realism, I guess. But yeah uhh… that’s about it.
Stitches was great as always. The opening scene has had a slight script change (if I could hear her) and everything was about the same. I was at the front of this one, and I kind of skeddadled away from my group, so I was almost alone. A few actors did straight ignore me though. Bungee cord wasn’t running, had a big curtain around it.
Apparently, I was cycling this thing in max verstappen speeds, as I caught up with the group in front of us. Didn’t get monkeyed as a consequence. Shame.
Survival games was my favourite of the night, I managed to stay in there for a while. I was full force dragged into the maze to, I took the blow for the other people in the queue we were talking to who were terrified. The beginning scene had a change, pressing buttons in the cage to shock and kill a guy. I shocked and killed the guy. Anyway, I noticed there was a lot more ‘funnelling’ (this is what I’m going to call actors trying to get you out of the maze as quickly as possible, splitting up groups ect.) this year, so if you kind of just.. disobeyed them, you can easily get tons of time in there if your cards right.
Chainsaw runout was great as always, thought it was great.
we got some food, and watched the end of a show and looficers lair (yes, I’m calling it that!) where there was this woman with a buzz saw and a pipe making sparks and sticking her face in it and stuff. I’m not a spark expert, so they could be completely docile by nature, like a slapping lava situation, but it was still pretty cool. Though, the demons costumes down and loofies have got a downgrade, I liked the cool candles they had on them last year but now they are just wearing black robes and it’s kinda lame.
A few run through a of the crows, who I thought were good this year, topped off our day. My partner in crime was not so interested in the whole non-threatening teen vampire stuff’ and I suppose I’m not either, so we gave it a miss. In that case, I guess I’m more partial to loofies where theyre throwing knives dangerously close to skimpily dressed women strapped to a wooden board, but it can’t be everyone’s cup of tea I guess. But they do need to have a new show, the high school theme is well tired I believe.
Anyway, the crows were great! The new house scene was good, and they have a new bit of a skeleton burning on the stake which was cool. There were also a lot more fake crows, and while it’s upsetting to not see the masks in action, I did get a good look at how they’re made… There’s a perfect mix of cramped spaces and open spaces to be chased in circles around a bay bale, which I thought was seriously missing last year. My only problems was that it was too short and you’d maybe see about 3 crows maybe…? The multiple paths doesn’t really work anymore without the saw queue line anymore, it just makes it shorter and to be frank I’d rather just have one solid route at this point. But they are my PERFECT BABIES AND STILL A HIGHLIGHT, OKAY?
We got a ride on swarm in the dark, 30 min queue, back row. Good ride.
Also night ride flying fish
F o u r l a p s p e c i a l
Left at 8:30, didn’t need anymore time and got home and couldn’t sleep. But it seemed like no-one did that night either.