WHAT: Face Your Fears
WHEN: 7 – 31 October, 2022
WHERE: Yorkshire Scare Grounds Scream Park (Hell Lane, Heath, Wakefield, WF1 5SG)
PRICE: £21-23
OUR RATING: Do It!
We ventured back to Yorkshire this year to start off our Halloween scare-season, and what a start it was at Yorkshire Scare Grounds’ Face Your Fears. This almost hour-long experience takes you through many scare zones and attractions during a long dark walk through the creepy woods of an historic 24 acre estate in Wakefield. Having given this haunt a ‘Chance It’ back in 2019, we came to see the new and improved haunt this year and were amazed to see what they had in store for us!
Face Your Fears is cleverly designed, with a creepy path in the woods taking you through completely different scare attractions, but all the while feeling like a total experience from start to finish. Whilst we’ll give you the flavor each of these terrifying experiences, we don’t want to spoil the thrills and chills too much.
They | Them: A crazed scientist unveils his latest invention – the teleportation machine.
Less “Beam Me Up”, more “Chop Me Up”, these experiments have gone horribly wrong indeed. Enter a world of genetic confusion, where some of the dear doctor’s subjects have become hopelessly jumbled with others. Animatronics and actors complemented each other well to deliver short, sharp shocks of terror that made this maze a perfect introduction to the world of Yorkshire Scare Grounds.
Human Safari: Deep in the misty jungle danger lies ahead. Hunters are on the prowl for fresh meat to satisfy their bloody thirsty lust.
Run for your life! The hunters are after you in this most dangerous game. Dashing between the protection of hunters-hides, you’ll need to dodge more than just bullets with these wiley adversaries. Warning: prepare to get wet! Whilst perhaps weaker visually than some of the other zones, the uniqueness of the experience was startling (in a good way), with our good-natured group adding more laughs and screams as we cantered towards safety.
Whitechapel: Take the trail of terror through London’s East End on 1888 where crime, murder & prostition is rife. Killer on the loose.
Wending your way through the hidden back-alleys of East London, this intricately designed and long section of maze plunged you into a different world. Integrating outdoor and indoor sections flawlessly, as you pass between the various establishments (apothecary potions or unknown meat butchered to perfection, anyone?) you’re accosted by the denizens of this cursed city. Maybe you’ll even run into the infamous Ripper himself! We really appreciated the sheer numbers of actors, which is a huge improvement from 2019, each one unique, highly enthusiastic, with equal measures of terror and humour. The set dressing was also studied in terms of the Ripper’s crimes, with the designers doing a great job at eerily recreating a crime scene from Hell.
Dollhouse: We dare you to explore the dark hallways of this life size dollhouse. It’s haunted hallways inhabited with tormented toys & deranged dolls.
Dollhouse was one of our favourite attractions this year – who doesn’t love creepy dolls? This was such an intelligent re-skin of their hotel haunt, and we highly admired the makeup and costume elements for the actors in this one. It was a fully realised concept, and many of the actors inside really did give us a scare. We’re still giddy about the horrifying life-size killer teddy bear! What was great in this attraction is one never knew what inanimate creatures were actually going to jump out at you!
Twisted Tooth Fairy: Disgraced Doctor D. Cay, the demonic demented dentist from hell, opens up the appointment book once more.
What a fantastic idea! While we’re not the biggest fans of the blood and gore elements of haunts, this was definitely a theme we don’t think we’ve ever seen a whole haunt based upon, and we saw a lot of new creature and makeup concepts as well. Amazingly, the waiting room also smelled a bit like antiseptic and menthol – astounding levels of immersion here. Again there was great dedication from the actors, and particularly creepy featureless faces with gigantic bloody smiles – the stuff of nightmares.
Along our route through these haunts we also came upon two “scare zones” in the woods, one an area of the undead with smashed vehicles and police cordons, and a deadly circus path complete with clowns who apparently have a love for wooly hats – ours included!
Final Thoughts: Yorkshire Scare Grounds Scream Park have really upped their game with this year’s Face Your Fears, and we were thrilled with the level of quality from the haunts and the actors, as well as the amazing balance between inside and outside scare time. We also love how long this attraction is open throughout the month, as well as their accessible price point, which all culminates in this being a must-do for any haunt season. And if you can’t make it in October not to worry, they also have haunted attractions for Christmas and Valentines day!
