Horror at Hinchingbrooke House invited us down to experience their incredible walkthrough scare attraction to cap off our Halloween season-long of content creation.
Hinchingbrook House is steeped in history as a stately home in Huntingdon once stayed in by Queen Elizabeth I in 1854 and later became the home to Earl of Sandwich include John Montagu who was the inventor of the modern sandwich.
Now used as a 6th form residence as part of Hinchinbrooke School, at Halloween time (and term time for the students) it transforms into a scare maze that changes every single year, completely different every season.
This year’s maze consists of 18 sets with over 130 actors lurking in the shadows in one of the most intense scare experiences in the country.
An hour-long, this experience is not for the faint-hearted as you are constantly touched, grabbed and physically moved around the various themed sets as you walk through the manor house, around the outside and into a variety of makeshift buildings which house more immersive treats.
Many scare attractions have one themed maze, then another, then another but Horror at Hinchingbrooke House blends them all into one giant maze experience and for the cost (prices start at £24.95 and change depending on the day) you’re getting a 60-minute experience of sheer terror which is great bang for your buck.
For such a large maze I was expecting the theming of the maze to be very lazy but as you jump through each particular themed room there is attention to detail, props, and giant set-pieces and whilst they’re limited to their surroundings they still manage to immerse you in every individual story.
From a high school disco to exploring demented Disney Characters, stepping foot inside Doctor Frankenstein’s lair to a butcher’s yard you know exactly where you are and the maze is flooded with actors.
Walking around this experience I couldn’t help but be blown away by the sheer number of actors in the maze. There was rarely a dead spot and that’s quite phenomenal for a maze of this size and scale.
There were more actors within Horror at Hinchingbooke House than there were at Halloween Horror Nights in Florida, it was flooded and instantly my business mind sympathised with the wage bill that this attraction must have!
After encountering a staggering number of actors and seeing the sold-out crowds at the event I was worried we’d meet up with various groups at some point during our experience and whilst this only happened once, members of staff are dotted around the layout making sure groups are around 2 minutes apart from one another.
Two minutes on this occasion was more than enough time and it felt like we had the entire experience to ourselves for large portions of the run-through which is a bonus in itself, especially with the hundreds of people that were queuing to get into the maze behind and ahead of us.
At no point was the touching or movement too aggressive, it was more hands-on than any other UK attraction we’ve been to that doesn’t require you to sign a waiver but it was done perfectly. No aggression, no hurting, no fuss, just immersive and intimidating scares from a great bunch of actors who collectively were some of the most professional I’ve come across.
Now I said earlier in this review that Horror at Hinchinbrooke House is not for the faint of heart and I meant it. I’ve done hundreds of scare mazes across the globe and I rarely jump as you can normally predict when a hatch drops, a scare happens and if you can see it coming a mile off, you’re never going to jump.
My entire knowledge of scare mazes and my spider sense for predictability of the scares in the majority of them were quickly put to bed as within 10 minutes I was making noises that I rarely make inside scare mazes.
Whilst the jump scares were in many cases ‘traditional’ the lighting and way in which the maze was designed hid the scares beautifully and being randomly grabbed through curtains, from under tables and more was certainly not something that I experienced a lot at many of these mazes and it worked wonderfully.
You can see why this attraction sells out every single year, the team have lovingly created a walkthrough experience in a short space of time (they start work in term time with a turnaround of about a month) and yet still deliver an experience of a higher-quality than the majority of UK mazes and whilst they can’t add permanent sets of the highest theming detail they compliment the surroundings with props and dressing that immerses you.
Detailed bodies, expensive masks and solid costumes combine to dive you straight into the horrors that await.
What I did enjoy was after a 60-minute long sweatathon due to jumping so much, climbing through a circus-themed funhouse and being on edge the entire time, the comedy ending was a fitting way to get the blood pressure down back to normal levels. A little boogie (quite literally) and a dance followed by a few notable cinematic characters and just like that we were out of the maze wondering what in the actual f**k just happened to us!
We rarely give glowing reviews here on Lift Hills and Thrills, we are invited to review an attraction and provide positives and negatives of the experience to inform customers of what to expect. We rarely deliver a review where there are no negatives of note for me to think of.
If you’re a horror fan and you want to test yourself then look no further, we’ve just found the UK’s best and most intense non-waiver signed scare attraction. Truly an outstanding effort from the team and I cannot wait to return next year with them changing it up entirely every single time.
Check out our VLOG of our experience and thanks to Horror at Hinchingbrooke House not only for having us down but for allowing us to film our terrifying experience of your incredible maze.
