This year there are two Tulleys Shocktober Fest new mazes for visitors to enjoy and we were kindly invited down to their press night to check out these brand-new additions.
Purgatory and The Carving are the names of the two brand new mazes at Europe’s Largest Scream Park in 2024 so let’s get straight into this maze review here on Lift Hills and Thrills.
Purgatory Tulleys Scare Maze – SPOILER-FREE REVIEW
1892, in the dead of the night and without warning the Havistock family abandoned their country house leaving all they owned.
They were never seen again.
Rumours quickly spread around the local village that the house was haunted and an evil spirit still remained within the walls of Havistock Manor.
The Manor House stayed empty for 130 years, no one dared to enter for fear of releasing whatever lay within.
Two years ago the Manor was sold at auction and brought by an American investor, Austin Johnson who immediately ordered restoration work to begin on his new home. Accident followed accident, tragedy followed tragedy until his entire restoration team quit the job, and the house lay still once again…or does it?
What dark force still resides in the shadows of Havistock Manor?
Do you dare follow the light?
Are you prepared for Purgatory?
Purgatory was the only maze of the evening where filming wasn’t allowed and there is a reason for that, the reason is, the maze needs to stay dark.
Equipped with a nifty piece of tech you must navigate your way through the Manor House as you encounter all of the ghoulish delights within.
The tech used in Purgatory is very clever indeed, it’s immersive and having something that adapts to your surroundings is very clever, the set pieces are quite simplistic in design but effective.
I was hoping that we’d be going through a Manor House of quite extensive detail as Tulley’s normally do but this particular maze certainly felt more basic in design similar to the Malefica maze at Fear at Avon Valley.
Malefica is quite cheap in design with fabric cloths providing most of the detail but Purgatory at Tulleys at least built a handful of facades and interiors.
What let me down about Purgatory the most was the batching as we sadly kept meeting groups in front within the maze, with the tech at your disposal you need a clear run-through of this maze to get a full effect because if you hit another group in front of you the tech will blend with theirs and ruin the experience.
Batching needs to be much wider between groups in Purgatory and it’s a nice addition to Tulley’s line-up it just wasn’t on the mind-blowing scale and detail that Doom Town, the park’s previous new maze brought to the table.
Purgatory feels like a step back in the theming department but a step up in terms of engagement and immersiveness with the scares.
The Carving Tulleys Scare Maze – SPOILER-FREE REVIEW
When the clock strikes 9, the true harvest begins
The seemingly perfect Appleton family invites you to their annual Halloween dinner. On the surface, the Appleton’s are the quintessential all-American family, but as the clock strikes 9, their charming facade shatters. The once warm and inviting dinner party morphs into a nightmarish ritual where their true nature emerges.
In this gruesome haunt, you’ll explore the Appleton farm estate, where every corner hides dark secrets and sinister intentions.
Can you survive the night and escape the clutches of the Appleton’s?
When you watch the trailer for The Carving it feels as though you’re going to be invited for dinner (the synopsis also confirms that) but when you walkthrough the maze itself you don’t get this story told to you in anyway shape or form.
Whilst the maze starts out by entering a house you’re not in it for very long and before you know it you’re thrust outside and into a very long winding outdoor maze section that is absolutely nothing to do with the story that’s been told.
You’re invited for a Halloween dinner and before you know it you’ve been booted out of the house and into some weird outdoor creature gathering, I was completely detached from the story after what was quite an exciting opening.
Tulleys Shocktober Fest mazes utilise the farm fields in certain areas and any time the mazes go outside they lose immersion and detachment. That’s why Doom Town was built as a custom set because whilst it’s outside it’s immersive and there’s plenty to see whereas with The Carving it’s just wooden plinths and a few actors dotted around in a muddy field.
The Carving had so much potential to take guests around this family home where they could have incorporated various rooms of the home and even a garage scene and more but sadly it wasn’t meant to be as this new maze for 2024 was arguably one of the weakest we did all evening.
If you’re detaching me from the story you’re telling within minutes of the maze starting then you haven’t sold it to me.
The actors are always great but you can only work with what you’ve been given and whilst it’s only slightly better than what was there before it, it sadly just didn’t hit home for me.
Doom Town changed the Tulleys Shocktober Fest game of what a scare maze should be and wouldn’t look out of place within a giant attraction such as Halloween Horror Nights but sadly both The Carving and Purgatory just weren’t strong enough for me this year and were sadly two of the weakest mazes at the entire event despite incredible actors scattered throughout both.
Find out more about Tulleys by visiting their official website at https://www.shocktoberfest.co.uk/
