I don’t even think there should be a category for “Best Theme Park Halloween Event” at next year’s theme-park awards — because if Fear Island at Fantasy Island Resort doesn’t win the award, it’s rigged, null and void. This event is PHENOMENAL!
2025 brings a permanent fear zone which is an immersive themed space complete with a bar, food stalls, stage and theming — with the Psycho Mansion walk-through fun-house as the backdrop to this spooky central zone.
The zone then spans down a path filled with photo-ops, theming and a permanent home for The Ravenous scare maze, which has been flipped around to really extend the scare zone that has been created at the park.
Horror has a new home — and it wipes the floor with absolutely everything that any other theme park has conjured up in 2025. It is on a completely different level to the other parks, offering something very different and very immersive.
Fear Island feels as though the heart of an independent horror attraction (where effort and creativity thrive) has been embedded within a theme-park environment. At nightfall, the beautiful Odyssey roller-coaster is dimly lit, its twisted track hovering above the scare zone — it looks phenomenal at night as the park is trialling a nighttime event this year to gauge how it goes.
If successful, the park will look into introducing more evening events. But it doesn’t even need to be trialled — it just needs to be done. This space is perfect for night-time events and looks nothing short of incredible. Having it as a free-to-enter space is also a great thing: there’s no charge just to come in and soak up the atmosphere, and believe me, this space has it in bundles!
The performers were varied and came out on stage providing entertainment throughout the evening — and I hope that this is the case during the day also, as they were great and provided a wonderful flow to the evening’s festivities.
Smash burgers were on hand during our press night which we were kindly invited to and they were nice if albeit a little pricey (£13) had we had to pay for them but Fantasy Island have some of the best theme park food out there so if this is too pricey simply head into the pyramid for a bite to eat (I highly recommend the Italian place opposite the Harrington Flint ride or the brand new for 2025 Lost Island Grill)
It absolutely baffles me how theme parks get Halloween so wrong year after year after year in the UK. And whilst certain events have improved on last year, other parks have seemingly gone backwards with copy-and-paste line-ups and no effort made to improve.
Enter Fear Island’s brand-new zone complete with new entertainment and even a new scare maze called SNAP! that feels as though it has been around forever. It is one of the most immersive and — quite frankly — beautiful clown-themed scare mazes I’ve ever done and completely redefines the whole clown scare maze genre, everyone keeps it safe (and boring) but that certainly isn’t the case here.
The Ravenous is back again with a few changes and an extension to last year’s iteration, and the actors were the same as last year – they know their roles and they absolutely smash it every single time. Hats off to the hillbilly who always stands in the queue line (whose name I still don’t know) he is, without a shadow of a doubt, the best scare actor I have come across every scare season; his interaction with guests is second to none — and I’ve been on normal event days and absolutely nothing is different in performance or scale compared to the press night, it’s just high quality and consistently good!
That’s what I love about Fear Island: they don’t just go all out for the media and press and then half-ass their way through the rest of the season. They keep the bar high and keep it aloft throughout the entire Halloween season.
9 Circles is back again in 2025: in this scare maze you navigate it alone and it’s a great experience, a little unnerving in places. But on this occasion (compared to last year) there weren’t as many actors. While the high standards of theming within the maze (some of the best theme-park scare-maze theming by far) were evident, the execution/jumps on this occasion were lacking due to the lower actor count.
Out of all of the mazes, 9 Circles was most certainly the weakest — but even that is still leaps and bounds above many other theme-park mazes in the country by quite some distance.
Fantasy Island shows the UK every year what they’re capable of in terms of theming. The indoor pyramid is the best themed indoor space in the country, and at Halloween they flex their muscles and really deliver something truly beautiful.
The roaming actors were PERFECT! Fear Island is an absolute MUST-DO event every single year — and with this permanent zone you will not be disappointed with your visit.
The event is catered for all ages with the addition of Psycho Mansion (a family-friendly walk-through) and the entertainment — and I can’t say enough good things about it.
Fear Island in 2025 is not just award-winning in my eyes — it’s a bloody work of art and deserves its flowers!
Check out our VLOG below of the evening’s festivities and hats off to the creative department for blowing us all away once again. I cannot wait to see what they have in store for 2026 — because if they keep expanding and growing like they are with more mazes and more experiences, it’s not just the theme parks they’ll be leading — it’ll be the entire UK scare-scene.
