Pleasure Beach Resort in Blackpool has added a terrifying new attraction to this year’s Halloween event – and it incorporates a favourite ride in a way thrillseekers have never experienced before as guests will be able to walkthrough River Caves as part of this years spooky event.
Titled Abyss the brand new live-action scare zone will have guests walking through the trough of the 120 year-old River Caves, a mix of a behind the scenes tour and a scare maze all in one as this sound like one exciting addition but there’s a very interesting twist.
As mentioned by Pleasure Beach in todays press release the ride built in 1905 will feature easter eggs hinting at the story behind the parks new Intamin Gyroswing, AVIKTAS.
Now this set my curious mind ablaze.
Yes, it’s the closest ride to the AVIKTAS construction site but with a current reimagining underway for the ride will the reopening of the River Caves add some backstory or addition to the lore of AVIKTAS, will the rides somehow be linked when they both open?
It’s a though that has been pondering in my mind long before todays announcement but with the extra effort that Pleasure Beach have gone into in regards to promoting AVIKTAS and the convenient closure of River Caves for refurbishment around the same time as the construction of AVIKTAS was announced I can’t help but think that each attraction would link to each other.
With all of the extra branding that seems to be going into the promotion of the new gyroswing I wouldn’t put it past Pleasure Beach to extend the lore of the ride into the River Caves in some capacity.
After some digging (no construction pun intended) we discovered that AVIKTAS is actually based off a poem that Amanda Thompson herself wrote but this hasn’t been officially confirmed by the park.
I’d be very intrigued to see what easter eggs for AVIKTAS lie within the River Caves as this ride was creepy in the day let alone at night time!
The ride is also a favourite of Hollywood horror royalty and Wednesday director, Tim Burton.
‘Abyss’ is the fifth, additional live-action scare zone joining Journey to Hell’s line-up, which also includes four returning zones; a mixture of both ride-based zones and walk throughs.
‘Down the Rabbit Hole’ sees the park’s usually beloved Alice in Wonderland ride transformed into a nightmarish world where Alice and friends have gone insane. Grotesque figures lurk around every corner of the ride, hoping to terrify unsuspecting guests into madness.
‘Cabinet of Curiosities’ is the lair of a macabre collector and home to the inexplicable and the bizarre. Each gruesome creature is more disturbing than the last and guests must flee through a maze of horrors.
‘The Ghost Train: Vault of Shadows’ returns for its third year, but this time it has been updated with new characters and a new storyline. It is set inside the world’s first Ghost Train; notoriously one of the most haunted attractions in the world and said to be haunted by ‘Cloggy’, a former ride operator whose footsteps can still be heard.
Finally, ‘Twisted Tunnels’ takes place in a 100-year-old network of tunnels that were once used to travel between rides. Guests will discover they are not alone as they navigate the winding, Victorian-esque passageways beneath the disembodied noises of the theme park above.
CEO of Pleasure Beach Resort, Amanda Thompson OBE, said:
“Last year’s Journey to Hell events were our best ever, and we knew we had to raise the bar yet again.
“River Caves has its own unique, 120-year-old legacy, so transforming it into the terrifying ‘Abyss’ for Halloween allows people to experience it in a completely new way, ahead of its re-imagining.
“Our thrilling rides and our own eerie history set us apart from other scare attractions, and this year promises to be a Halloween event unlike any other.”
