Duel
Duel (also known as Duel - The Haunted House Strikes Back, Dual, Dool, Nazi Zombies: The Ride or The House with Scary Fings dat Pop out and dat, INNIT) is a shooting dark ride operating at Alton Towers. It originally opened in 1992 as The Haunted House, but was rethemed to include laser guns in 2003, as part of Great Dark Ride Interactivity Reformation of the Modern Age. To this day, the ride remains a mysterious and relatively unknown ride, mostly because of the fact that Alton Towers forgot it existed for several years. It is, however, a suprisingly high-tech and world class dark ride, rivalling such rides as Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey at Universal Islands of Adventure and The Haunted Mansion at Disneyland. Also, the ride features extremely detailed theming and convincing ghosts, most of which are Halloween decorations from Faff.
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Construction
It was decided that something should be built on the pathway from Katanga Canyon to Forbidden Valley (then known as Thunder Valley), ready to open in 1992. John Wardley was called in to design a new dark ride for the area, resulting in the concept for an extremely clever and unique experience. The area now known as 'Gloomy Wood' was originally intended to be theme around a haunted swamp, but this was quickly changed after it was realised that the idea was not gimmicky enough.
On completion of the finished ride, John Wardley stated: "This is my dream ride. I have taken into account every aspect of what may happen to it in the future, and am certain that the Haunted House will not be botched up in about ten years."
Ten years later, the Haunted House was botched up. Once again it was decided that the general public were not intelligent enough to understand "Theatrical Brilliance", so the ride became based around Tacky Gimmickiness instead. The retheme included the addition of zombies, laser guns and a Michael Jackson Thriller-style queueline video, just to really rub it in the enthusiasts' faces.
Ride Experience
Queueline
If the queue becomes long enough, riders are directed into the mostly disused outdoor queueline. Here they can gaffaw at the incredibly humourous enscriptions on the tombstones, if they can read. After a bit more wondering around in the trees, now pointless thanks to Thirteen doing the same with its queueline, riders enter the house itself through the front doors.
Entrance Hall, Drawing Room & Station
The Entrance Hall is actually a room stolen from a real haunted house and rebuilt at the theme park. It consists of some horrifying portraits (scary because the proportion and tonal shading is all wrong!) and an aroma machine that emits the scent of 200 year-old elderly people.
Riders then enter the Drawing Room, where some spooky music plays and various effects stop working. For a Victorian-based mansion, many historic errors can be found, notably the television screens. If they make it across the badly levelled pathway (blame the builders), riders enter the station and board their vehicle. Ride operators are forced to purposfully jam the Mack transit system for disabled passengers, in order to stop the cars moving and allow them to board at their own pace. This leaves everybody else on the ride stuck in the darkness for several minutes, often resulting in nightmares.
Poltergeist Room
Moving walls. Done.
Grand Hall
The car enters the Grand Hall, much to the dismay of a pneumatic bust that decides to lurch out towards riders. Suddenly, a large demon flies overhead, before releasing a bit of compressed air and then resetting. After a turn to the right, another demon appears from the darkness, holding a rat and a knife. Cruelty to animals much? He'd be better off with a tea cup.
Crash Column
Legend has it that in this area, the car would appear to crash into a column, before it moved out of the way just in time. Of course the mechanism broke, and the car actually did crash into the column. Call that subtle? Mmm?!
Tunnel of Doom
Riders enter a large stone-walled, dungeon-esque area with flaming torches on the walls with a giant skull-like edifice with spinning disco ball eyes set ahead of them, suiting the "haunted Victorian house" theme. The car passes into the mouth of this disco/skull hybrid and into the rotating brick festival. The illusion of turning upside down was obviously too clever for a UK dark ride, so a face with splitting skin open that sticks its tongue out was randomly added at the end of the tunnel, ruining the whole effect.
This scene was originally planned as the "Gateway to Hell", but John Wardley realised that Thorpe Park had already used that idea for their entrance. The theme was changed before opening to an even more irellevant brick-y tunnel thing.
Giant's Lair
Onwards the car travels into the most non-sensical scene, in which: some bats may or may not be seen flying overhead (depends on the attention-span of the rider); some Tesco Value Halloween props appear in some smashed windows; some more Halloween props wiggle about behind some windows; and a Halloween prop appears in a flashing window.
This scene is left over from the lost "giant sequence", in which large fingers would smash through windows and a giant's head would appear in another window. This was removed after a survey discovered that fingers and windows were not actually scary.
Hall of Spiders
Also recently known as the "Hall of Strobe Lighting", this scene consists of some flashy zombies and wobbling spiders. The car turns many corners before passing under a huge spider that hisses down at riders. However, it is more like a battle between UV and strobes to be honest.
Skelton Corridor
The car passes a badly dressed skeleton with a rake for a hand (commonly named, erm... can't remember at the moment... Bob or something?), which pulls a lever on an old-fashioned fuse box that sparks. The lights then proceed to cut out, although whether this is down to the skeleton or a blown bulb nobody knows.
The car turns a corner and travels down what was once a humorous scene of skeletons in bed, constaped skeletons farting on a toilet, and even a terrorist skeleton. Alas, this is no more, and a static vampire prop replaces all of this.
Originally, this scene featured a ghost that would fly down the corridor above riders, but it broke. Well, it was designed by Sparks Creative Services, what do you expect?
Screaming Room
Also known as the Sound Effect Whore Room, this scene consists of many heads that fly, flash and scream. A horned demon with nice pecs also makes an appearance. The same scream/vomit sound effect is repeated three or four times until riders become deaf and enter the Sinister Garden.
Sinister Garden
The ride vehicles then take a trip outdoors, only to find a warehouse roof blocking out the sunlight, before passing a hooded monk shimmying about in a cloister. Riders are then confronted by the Undertaker, a character famous for his oversized, melted hand that occasionally moves or falls off. The car turns through a U-bend towards a rocky cave, from which the Lunatic jumps out at riders. It often thought that the Lunatic has flatuence problems, but this misunderstanding is simply down to a misplaced 'creaking door' sound effect. It doesn't mean he isn't going to rape you though.
After passing a statue of death, the cars approach a broken pillar standing by itself on a rocky outcrop. Suddenly the pillar turns around, accompanied by Sexy Strobe™, revealing some sort of demon within it that lurches out. Which begs the question: why? After this, riders would have been lead into the dramatic and mysterious swamp finale. But, erm, this is a UK dark ride? Therefore we head off into the Tesco Value Zombie Lab instead.
Zombie Laboratory
Riders approach a few oil drums and boxes, only to be taken by surprise when a pneumatic zombie pops out of a barrel for some reason. After a turn left and another figure appearing in an above window (see, I pay attention), riders pass a static prop in front of a white sheet a "zombie" in a "furnace" and travel underneath some static props with plastic guns "armed zombies" on overhead gantries. Whoever ordered the props off eBay probably accidently typed 2 instead of 1 in the 'quantity' box, becuase the same prop as the furnace zombie makes another appearance as it screams from within a vault that opens. A few more oohs and arrs occur when another zombie tramp pops up from a dustbin, and a large, screaming head pops up in a window.
At the end, riders are literally blown away as they witness the ride's dramatic finale effect: a green light in a hole in the wall.
