Thorpe Park Fright Nights 2025
Overview
Fright Nights takes place annually at Thorpe Park in Chertsey, not far from Heathrow or central London. It always draws a crowd and is popular for its mix of scares, rides, and shows.
Atmosphere and Setting
Depending on when you arrive, the atmosphere changes throughout the day. From morning to early afternoon, you wouldn’t know it was a scare event. Come 3pm, you hear the haunting sounds fill the park and the mazes open. Come dusk, the lights change, and the atmosphere ramps up.
Being set within Thorpe Park, you already have a location set up for large crowds. Additional food stalls and stages are put in place to cater for the volume of people and to provide somewhere for the different acts of the evening.
Scare Factor
This year, I really felt that there weren’t enough actors in the mazes. Each scare hit the front, and what followed was not much for the rest of the group. I’d say the most scares were in Survival Games, where the story has been updated.
Sadly, mazes such as Dead Beat, Trailers, and Stitches didn’t deliver many scares for this reviewer.
That said, the walkthrough The Crows of Mawkin Meadow actually managed to get a few scares even when it was still light out. With this walkthrough scare zone, they managed to build tension and create scares from the erratic movements of the scarecrow characters.
Theming and Design
Theming across the mazes is great, particularly Dead Beat, which conjures up the nightclub vibe perfectly. The design of the mazes does limit the actors’ ability to scare multiple times, as the scenes are quite small, and once they have initially scared the group, it’s difficult to hide. To be honest, the theming throughout is wonderful. Survival Games is lacking a little, as even with the updated storyline, it sadly has the same look and feel as previous years.
Actors and Performance
Generally, the actors put in a lot of effort and energy into their scares. Though due to design limitations, it was difficult for them to hit multiple people in the group. As we had been to two additional events this weekend, sadly what did show was that the actors didn’t quite have the energy we have come to expect from large-scale scare events.
Variety and Line-up
The line-up at Fright Nights is great. Every maze is unique, and they’ve managed to avoid standard clichés you experience at other events. For example, Dead Beat, with its backstory and setting, is fantastic.
Along with the variety of mazes, you also have dance shows, roaming actors, and circus acts around the park, adding to the party vibe.
Operations and Queue Experience
On our visit, it has to be said the staff were on top form — the security especially, observing any misbehaviour and sorting it out in a prompt, professional manner.
Queues, on the other hand, were a nightmare. Long waits for all mazes and rides meant we only just managed to get through each of the mazes. I feel the park needs to expand its maze offering to spread the crowds out further.
Value for Money
If you attend this event and pay the online price for park entry plus the mazes and car parking, I can’t confidently say this is value for money. Even with an annual pass, the price is still close to £30. Unfortunately, I feel you can get better scares at a lower price at multiple events around the country. I appreciate that events like this cost money to put on, and by having an upcharge it manages queues to some extent, but to get further value I feel the event needs more.
Final Thoughts
Fright Nights is a fun day and night out. You do, however, need to be aware that if you attend on a weekend, you aren’t going to get many rides and will just about get through the mazes before the park closes. This doesn’t mean don’t go — while the scares weren’t strong, most of the mazes are stunning. The Crows are great and worth multiple walkthroughs. Just be prepared to queue or consider going on a quieter weekday.
Fright Nights runs through to November 2nd, and tickets can be found here
Thorpe Park Fright Nights 2021
It’s been 20 years since Thorpe Park first created the Fright Nights event. Mazes have come and gone with some a fond memory and others that we would rather forget. So what’s on offer at Thorpe Park to celebrate 20 years of Fright Nights?
Mazes
Trailers
The new maze for 2021. This maze instantly grabs your attention with its retro signage and theming. This continues into the maze as you enter the Superspark Cinema. A great intro scene sets the mood perfectly as you go from screen to screen. Each one a different movie with nods to previous Thorpe Park attractions. The actors were engaging and managed numerous scares throughout. The theming was superb with each scene offered something different. This is a stand out maze and is exactly as we hoped it would be. Standing as a great maze in its own right with enough nostalgia for the fans. If you only do one maze this Fright Night this is the one not to miss.
Creek Freak Massacre
This maze remains largely unchanged since 2019 where we had a fantastic time. I feel that with 2019 being so strong it was going to be hard to beat. Unfortunately while we still enjoyed our run in Creek Freak it wasn’t as strong as 2019. The actors worked the space well and a number of scares landed but we just felt that the maze lacked the chaos and energy of 2019. I’m hoping this is down to being early in the run and I look forward to visiting again at the end of the season to see how the maze has grown.
Platform 15: End of the Line
This is the last journey from Platform 15 and I feel this maze has reached the end of the line. It’s a fun maze that is far more creepy than scary. The theming is fun and the actors really add to the creepy atmosphere. There were a few new additions to the maze with a great little scene to the right near the entrance that just adds to the overall uneasy feeling throughout. The finale of Platform 15 was really strong in 2020 but we felt that this year it just didn’t pack the punch it did previously. If you’re a fan of Platform 15 you will enjoy this as the natural ending to the series of mazes.
Scare Zones and Shows
The Crows of Mawkin Meadow
From the start this zone is something special. It’s not like anything experienced in the UK. The zone takes you through the alternative path by Colossus taking you past what was Saw Alive. The theming is great and you feel transported to somewhere other than Thorpe Park. The actors manage to produce scares over and over again. Making use of the scenery perfectly. The sound track made the experience all that bit more eerie along with great lighting and effects. This is exactly how scare zones should be done and I hope something that can be built upon with other scare zones over the next few years.
The Swarm: Invasion
When we visited this zone it felt like not a lot was going on. There were only a few interactions but overall it was fairly quiet. There were definitely additional theming elements so I feel like our visit was just badly timed. Will definitely have to see if this changes when we visit again.
Amity High vs LycanThorpe: LoveBITES!
It’s a good idea to combine these two zones this year. Having the conflicting high schools in one area enables great interactions between guests and actors. The actors were fully engaged with guests having fun and improvising with people constantly. We didn’t manage to catch the show but based on previous years I’m sure this would be a fun dance routine. This is always a fun rather than scary zone and we feel it works well as it is and there is little that would need to change.
Creek Freaks: Unchained
This area was fantastic in 2020 and this definitely continued this year. There is new theming and we feel the actor interactions were even better. From character to character you had really fun experiences that make this zone an area you can go through over and over always experiencing something new.
Birthday BASH
This zone is whacky and at first a little confusing but as soon as you watch the fun stage show the whole concept comes together nicely. The actors in this area were incredibly engaging with absolutely fantastic interactions. The costumes are great and all the actors work incredibly hard. We said it last year but having an area like this is a fantastic addition to the event and something we hope continues into the future.
Legacy – A Fire & Light Display
Sadly on our visit this show wasn’t working so will update our thoughts when we next visit.
Overall I feel Thorpe have created a great celebration of 20 years. The new mazes and zones are absolutely superb. There are a few small improvements needed to the older mazes but nothing that couldn’t be solved with a few tweaks hear and there. We would definitely recommend a visit if only to visit and experience Trailers and The Crows of Mawkin Meadow.
The event runs until the end of October so get on down if you’re in the area. Do
Fright Nights Fearstival 2020
With 2020 being quite the odd year for us all Thorpe Park decided to go in a slightly different direction by creating Fearstival, with no indoor mazes and a large number of scare zones.
Fright Nights Fearstival begins at 3pm and as it starts a brilliant piece of audio is heard throughout the park introducing you to the event. While this audio was strong we felt that as it finished it left a bit of an anticlimax as it took a few more minutes for the scare zones to get started. We feel this could be improved so that when the audio ended the actors were already in position ready to delight and scare.
Scare Zones
CREEK FREAKS: UNCHAINED
Entering into the Creek Freaks zone we were met with chainsaws and hillbillies. They’ve now left their building and are running riot in the area just outside. The actors looked menacing and lured us further into the zone. The area was jam packed with actors all with lots of energy, often found terrorising unsuspecting victims. The setting was excellent with fun theming and interactive scenes like the Buckwheat recruitment office. You’d be lucky if you didn’t leave running.
Terror at Amity High
The vampires are back at Amity High. This was one of our favourite elements of the night. We experienced really brilliant interactions with the actors whose characters were on point. The costumes were great making use of transparent face masks so you could still see the actors makeup and fangs. The feud with the werewolves of LycanThorpe High culminates a few times a night in this scare zone, we experienced this at 5pm, this was was impressive and mesmerising. A really neat concept that could definitely be explored further over the next few years!
The FEARSTIVAL Arena
Again brilliant interaction between the actors and the public, the costumes in this area were great with a real mixture of characters. Favourites were the twins. We would have liked to have seen more on the stage but appreciate there could be some restrictions in the current climate. Again a really great concept that in a post COVID world could create many possibilities.
The Howling of LycanThorpe High
This area is similar to the vampires in Amity but this time with werewolves. Again lots of fun interaction getting people involved. There is only a slight negative here and that is when the feud is happening at Amity this zone becomes rather quiet with limited entertainment.
THE SWARM: INVASION
This is a scare zone that works so very well. A very clever use of Swarm Island. We really have to give it to the actors, the conspiracy theorists with their occasional motivational speeches came across so naturally that for a split second one could have believed an alien invasion had happened. The actors really added to the swarm story line along with awesome costumes!
The Crows
Only spotted these characters once as they pop up at random locations across the park. The masks are brilliant and as the Crows are completely silent they have quite the eerie presence. Not much in the way of scares but very good at creating an uncomfortable atmosphere. Would have been fab for them to be roaming more freely and could’ve produced some excellent jump scares.
Scare Mazes
Roots of Evil
Sadly this maze didn’t deliver. We had already queued for nearly an hour and due to the length of queue, by the time we got to the front we were being put through very quickly. This created a situation where we were catching up with the group in front, we held back and the group behind us caught up. This sadly meant actors were struggling to hit any of the scares.
Unfortunately the queue line positioning (back stage and along with random props) enabled us to see other people go through the maze spoiling one of the scares.
This maze has a fun concept with costumes enabaling the actors to camouflage themselves well. We can imagine that if we didn’t have the batching issues some scares could really hit well. We would have also liked a bit more of an introduction at the start to set the scene.
We are disappointed to report that this maze didn’t really stand up particularly well and hope that feedback from opening night help improve it as the season progresses.
We are visiting again at the end of the run and will update this section after our second visit.
Platform 15
Wow what a difference. This maze was everything we’d hoped it would be and more. It was long with wonderful theming, the smells, space, lighting and smoke were all very effective. The sheer number of actors in this attraction was great to see, they really gave it their all. They used the space really well changing the type of scare so that you never knew what was going to come next.
The finale was just fantastic. A great use of lighting and actors to create an impactful dash to the exit. We really think that reversing the route works in its favour.
Summary
Overall all of the scare actors were fantastic. We really loved the make up and costumes, the intensity and quality of the interactions were fab. Personally we feel the scare zones had a few missed opportunities for good jump scares but were still a lot of fun. The experience prior to and during Roots of Evil was a real shame. The long queue time could have been saved with the addition of some queue line entertainment. Thankfully the night was saved by the excellence of Platform 15 really ending the night on a high!
Fright Nights Fearstival runs on select nights until 1st November. If you can get hold of a ticket we highly recommend visiting for some great Halloween fun.
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