It would take some doing this scare season for us to attend a worse event than Alton Towers Scarefest as sadly the Staffordshire theme park put on one of the worst events we’ve visited this Halloween. With a copy-and-paste line-up, zero park-wide theming and a very poor run-through of their brand new for 2024 maze leaving a sour taste in my mouth towards my home park but one event has definitely taken the title for the worst scare event of 2024 that we’ve experienced so far and unfortunately, it’s Hellfire Caves. One of the most badass locations in the country!
Last night we visited the beautifully creepy Hellfire Caves in West Wycombe, a location synonymous with devil worship, ghost hunts and a vibrant history of cults and more Halloween-tailored content. A location that doesn’t need any actors or glitz or glamour to be scary but on this occasion, this naturally scary location became about as scary as a Disney event.
The Toymaker’s Tunnels was the theme of the Hellfire Halloween event as we are introduced to a variety of the Toymaker’s toys in the tunnel but the immersion of the event started and finished with the first character we encountered who enthusiastically immersed me and got me excited about what I was about to witness yet the illusion came shattering down the second we stepped inside the bowels of the caves themselves.
The sign at the front of the event was rather creepy, a lovely canopy had been erected to keep people dry in all weather and a lovely little lighting package added an ambience to the pop-up bar serving a variety of drinks, the eerie exterior of the cave created a very fitting ambience ahead of our experience.
Sadly the ambience all but disappeared as we stepped into the caves as while we met lots of bubbly and interesting characters in the maze, they were all clowns.
A toymaker maze with just clowns seems quite lazily done. There was no variety of characters we encountered nor did many of them interact with us they would just stand by in the creepy caves. Yes, this would be intimidating to some but we just casually walked on past them all without a whimper.
Some characters came out of the shadows in the caves and that added a creepy little appearance effect but nothing happened, we just carried on walking and even within the wide open spaces of the caves where you could have some dialogue-driven experience or storytelling, there was nothing other than characters walking behind you.
One little game of hide and seek was more funny than scary and it’s such a shame because the girls working within the maze were just doing what they’ve been told to do but sadly there was zero direction or structure to the experience and I genuinely felt bad for them because they’d gone through the effort of getting into costume and character and some of the stare downs and interactions were deserving of being inside a maze of an attraction who genuinely gave a shit about providing a decent Halloween event.
£16.50 to walk to the bottom of a cave and back again, we were out of the ‘maze’ in 10 minutes and we all felt rather cheated. It costs £8.50 to walk around in the day, it’s creepier, better value for money and we were in the same caves for over an hour during my first ever visit last month. That says all you need to know.
Lacking in direction, story and ideas the Hellfire Caves Halloween event is the first event this scare season that I wouldn’t recommend people visiting whatsoever.
With Scarefest at Alton Towers, they at least have a great young family-targeted product despite the adults missing out on just about everything whereas Hellfire Caves doesn’t even utilise the beauty of the caves with the majority of the maze plunged into darkness other than flashing lights. With such uneven surfaces and low lighting, not to mention low ceilings it feels like an accident waiting to happen if you’re jumpy.
Be very careful traversing the maze and whilst the characters can’t touch you, all it takes is one jump or step back and you could hit your head so be VERY careful!
I never take much joy when writing bad reviews but sadly we have to be honest and this is one event I will not be visiting again.
Check out our much more interesting trip to the Hellfire Caves in the day HERE
