WHAT: Screamfest Resurrected
WHEN: 14 October — 31 October, 2021
WHERE: National Forest Adventure Farm (Tatenhill, Burton Upon Trent, Staffordshire, DE13 9SJ)
PRICE: £22–28
OUTDOORS: Partly
OUR RATING: Skip It!
We knew we wanted to take a drive up to Leicestershire to see some of the many haunts the area has to offer. We chose to start our Halloween-month-of-mayhem off with Screamfest, a new one for Storefront City. While this did provide a somewhat entertaining night, unfortunately for us avid haunt-goers it was just a bit of a letdown.
The general ambience of Screamfest is a bit of fun — it’s got your usual large event space with quite a few food trucks, a music area, several hangout zones and some fun fair rides. We quite liked how it was all laid out. It did seem like the space welcomed a ton of people to sit down in between their experiences and have a fun pint (of Hobgoblin no less!), but the enchanting spell wasn’t quite strong enough to pull us in. Unfortunately, while there were some of the usual walkabout scare actors, they honestly weren’t very impressive or scary — we’re still a bit annoyed at the It impersonator — very committed in his role but just the simple addition of a clown collar would have been useful to show he wasn’t obviously wearing a mask….
Creed Farm
Our Scare Factor: 4/10
Atmosphere Rating: 6/10
Storyline: Creed Farm provides fresh meat of the highest quality. Come on down and experience the harvest for yourself.
This event is apparently new for 2021, and after going through all the haunts it was rather obvious — it did seem more fresh compared to several others. Now, that may just have been the fact that the haunt was completely based outside in their corn maze, but in reality this did in fact have a bit more effort put into the ambience, storytelling and costumes. The main evils were of course the scarecrows of the corn maze, and we definitely experienced a few jumps! There were also some really funny puns, and as always we appreciated the dichotomy of fun and terror.
The attraction did start off with a dark follow-the-rope experience for a few minutes, and while an actor did try to scare us during this, there was no usual attempt to entice the rest of our senses like in customary follow-the-rope attractions, which seemed like a grave lost opportunity. However, our main grievance with the rope part was that there was absolutely no hand sanitiser at the end, which really should have given us a hint of things to come with the park’s complete disregard to this being a supposedly post-pandemic event.
Hillbilly Joe’s Zombee Zoo
Our Scare Factor: 2/10
Atmosphere Rating: 6/10
Storyline: Come on down to the Zombee Zoo, the best day out in all the south! Have we got some sights for y’all. Zombee Zoo celebrates its 2nd anniversary…and we’ve only had 362 days worth of zombie disasters!
An incredibly unusual take on the zombie genre, this maze mixed its source material, combining traditional zombie apocalypse with the oddly pervasive fear of the Deep South. Be prepared for winding passages, lots of ducking, and oddly bizarre (and hilarious) costuming (including, for some reason, an eggplant).
The assortment of characters is downright strange and whilst not particularly scary, there is good attention to maze detail. A creative concept, some of the scares were definitely on the more fun side — and one is left quite sad for all the captured and helpless zombies that had been rounded up for our entertainment.
Le Theatre Noir
Our Scare Factor: 2/10
Atmosphere Rating: 4/10
Storyline: There’s no people like show people…until the coven takes over. Take your seats. The performance is about to begin.
Another new scare for Screamfest this year and it was painfully obvious! We absolutely loved this concept — we were so surprised we were in for a theatre in the round experience and, honestly, this was the only memorable event of the night. A completely different haunt, this time we were purely spectators sitting to watch a performance. There were some really fun effects and great light illusions, with amazing movement from some of the performers.
But in the end the concept was simplistic — we could have done with less sparks and more storytelling. We luckily had a good seat but with unraked seating and the scare actors mainly performing to the centre of the few middle people in the front row, most of the audience got left out, and in the end we were just left thinking, “That’s it? What was that?”
While standing in other haunt queues we heard similar reactions from patrons who were disappointed and confused by the experience. We really hope that Screamfest keeps the theatre in the round haunt with their attention to the light and water effects, but with perhaps more thought given to the immersive and storytelling experience.
Love Hurts
Our Scare Factor: 2/10
Atmosphere Rating: 4/10
Storyline: Welcome to the Diced Heart Pub. Owned by Professor Heart, he wants you to find his (well, actually your) soulmate at one of his famous speed dating nights. Just pray you’re not one of the rejected.
With very interesting theming and a novel concept, “Love Hurts” should have had you winning the dating game. With some engrossing effects, including slopes, ducks, and water with smells, the overall experience was made difficult by the enormous batch sizes that let to queueing within the haunt itself. In fact, more importantly, batch sizes proved an issue the entire night, with numbers far exceeding those of pre-pandemic times. Not only is this likely not particularly safe (no social distancing to be seen), but it makes the experience less intimate and places an undue strain on the actors. It is fantastic attractions have recovered so well, but thought must be given to audience experience as well as the bottom line.
An absorbing idea from the outside, one questions what the interior had to do with it. And unfortunately, the payoff at the end seemed slightly anticlimactic to us, with a commonly used effect that was a tad off for the theme of the maze.
Freakout on Tour
Our Scare Factor: 1/10
Atmosphere Rating: 3/10
Storyline: The funhouse was the first step…now experience Hell’s favourite attraction…on tour! It might be time to run away from the circus! Freakout is back but not as you know it…
Horror and clowns just seem to go together, so we were really excited for this one, especially as funhouse theming can lead to some serious scares through misdirection and illusion. When you enter, you are greeted by a set of several doors — does the choice effect your experience? We don’t know, but clearly the clowns were out for us at every corner.
We felt that, in truth, there were very few creepy clowns in this maze. At least one had a freaky feel about him and made us jump (a testament to a good scare actor and makeup), but the rest relied on saying “hello” loudly, which isn’t particularly scary. In terms of theming, in the main a hall of mirrors and red/white flaps were the extent of it.
Final Thoughts: If you’re a local and have a few nights to experience the haunts that Leicestershire and the surrounding area have to offer, then yes, absolutely go, you’re bound to have an entertaining time. However we think other attractions are more worth your time and money, and this one probably isn’t worth the multi-hour drive from London.
N.B. from Alicia: A day later and honestly the two most salient memories I have are of one uncomfortable sexual comment one of the in-haunt scare actors made to me, and then another similar comment one of the roaming “scare” policemen made to me, which I then ignored him for and because of this he said that it was no wonder I didn’t find a date at Love Hurts. Now, haunts aren’t normally completely politically correct and obviously come with their numerous problematic imitations of cultures, and both these comments were very tame, but I still just found them in poor taste, especially in the UK’s current climate regarding police and women.
P.S.: Looking for a different slightly more haunted experience nearby? Look no further than Whatton House of Horror.
