Hex - The Legend of the Towers
Hex - The Legend of The Towers (often simply called Hex) is a Vekoma Mad House at Alton Towers, which situates itself somewhere in the Towers complex where not many people can find it and thus makes it one of the most underrated and ignored rides on park. It is known for blurring the lines between excellent and terrible effects both aurally and visually, as well as spooking, confusing, amazing and annoying visitors.
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Planning and Construction
Tussauds needed a new interesting dark ride after going for 6 years without building one, and so asked the holy John Wardley to create (or steal) a new ride concept. After much brainstorming, he found that the rich ponce Talbot family who used to own the Towers estate had been cursed at some point in the 1800s after the 15th Earl of Shrewsbury didn't pay his tax and some local tree was cursed by the government to kill off his family for revenge. So John Wardley took the idea and visited the tree, proclaiming it was alright and went off to soup up the story.
Because Tussauds could not get permission to actually build the ride in the Towers complex, they had to rent a tarpaulin from the local garden centre and camouflaged it in with the ruins themselves (See: Ninja), completely succeeding with baffling visitors. The ride itself, a Vekoma Mad House was chosen at random out of a tombola by John Wardley (in fact, the ride ended up being a pirate ship INSIDE a tombola) and was then dipped in the ink of squeezed Gothic books to make it look 'spooky', then installed in the tarpaulin to look like it had been there the entire time. The famed Octagon room just happened to look like that at the time of finding. Including the blatantly obvious dummy under the white sheet.
Finally, a few wires were sellotaped together to control the effects. Occasionally Quite often, these wires become unstuck and it takes several weeks for new sellotape to be ordered to stick them back together again, resulting in the audio effects being too loud or too quiet, the effects in the octagon to be operated at random, and/or the projector to mysteriously change direction.
Storyline aka The Crimewatch Re-Enactment
At some point in the 1800s, the 15th Earl of Shrewsbury was returning home to Alton Towers after a banquet at a Sizzlers restaurant one stormy evening and a government man disguised as a old crone was standing in the middle of the road.
- Earl: WTF you doin' on the road, crazy bint?
- Crone: Gimme your money plskthnx.
- Earl: Ahahahahah. No.
- Crone: I'm government, ya git, tax. Oh and I curse a local tree.
- Earl: Oh shiz.
Pathetic fallacy arrived in the form of many dark cloud as well as a strangely green effect on the sky and a Pikachu accidentally electrocuted the tree, making a branch fall off. Meanwhile at Alton Towers, a member of the Earl's family suddenly and mysteriously... DIED. This made the Earl mad about not paying tax and so wrapped the tree in duct tape because it was the only thing he could be bothered to use.
Cue the Smugshot.
But then the Earl got bored of nobody dying and so put the Fallen Branch on eBay to see if any bidder would buy to pay for his tax to vanquish the curse. Somebody probably did bid on it and that's the last of the story.
Originally, the story was about some professor person who was giving a boring lecture about the Towers ruins and that the visitors got trapped inside the vault from the storm of Pikachus outside. Unfortunately nobody understood this and so the current story was instead used because it actually made some sense, thus calling for a new rushed and stupidly melodramatic voiceover by one Jim Carter and his impeccable dulcet tones.
Ride Experience
You enter the queueline through the Towers ruins, where you walk in a zigzag past old history artefacts and broken televisions. A certain number of people go onto the ride, the first part being the pre-pre-show where a portrait of the 15th Earl is shown for dramatic effect. You then enter another room, the pre-show where a Crimewatch Re-enactment is shown on a broken projector (Originally meant to blow up in the middle of the room for some inane reason) of the Earl meeting the Government Crone.
You then enter the Octagon room where the music is played either really loud or really low, the special effects do or don't work and a broken television flickers. There is also a broken air-con which doubles as a really bad wind machine. You then go down some very long corridors for dramatic effect where you wait for 15 minutes because the ride usually fails before you get to ride it.
You then enter the vault where the thing you're sitting on swings up and down whilst the set thing behind you revolves somewhat, and towards the end you see some random tree demon thing at the top of the ceiling. Nobody still knows what this is all about. You then leave the ride feeling either satisfied or confused by the experience. Riders exit into Her Ladyship's Gardens, located in the middle of nowhere, to confuse the mind even more.
Reception
The ride has recieved mixed reviews. Most Alton Towers enthusiasts regard Hex as a "classic" attraction for its mysterious and unique qualities; they often express their approval by listening to the theme tune several times before going to sleep or writing haikus about it. However, members of the general public are usually heard to give such statements as "Huh?", "Umm" and "Innit" upon exiting the ride.
Future Plans
Alton Towers announced on the 31st June 2010 that the whole Towers complex will be removed at the end of 2012 to make way for the SW7 project. Shortly after this announcement, a planning application was submitted for a giant you-know-what shaped station building on the site of Hex. Although Alton Towers are yet to confirm exactly what SW7 will be, it is now highly rumoured to be a rollercoaster named "THE FLYING KINKONATOR!!", as suggested by a chav on the Alton Towers Facebook page.
A spokesperson for the Official TowersTimes Forum Decisions Society (OTTFDS) released the following statement:
We have contacted the United Nations about the future plans of Hex and, after much discussion, every country involved agreed to declar nuclear war on the Marketing Department as soon as Hex is closed. This way, we hope, the "FLYING KINKONATOR!!" will never be built; and we can all die whilst hugging/kissing/loving the fallen branch.
