Will
Strata Poster
^
That doesn't bode well, we've rearranged for Thursday. So I've got to drive up to ****ing Yorkshire AGAIN, then Sussex the following day!!! Tomorrow is a designated sofa day.
Onto Burton then - given recent global events, it's perhaps forgivable, but as busy as the place was, I felt like they'd cut their budget this year. Costumes and make-up seemed especially 'mend and make do' in one or two of the scares.
Firstly, I was disappointed to see no tractor ride on the offering, as that's been a staple of every previous year, though the maze that followed was always a little incoherent. The 'maize maze' Creed Farm was definitely different from how it had been previously - there were many scarecrows and the actors in the finale weren't afraid to get fairly full on - possibly too many 'plain clothes' "No, don't go that way, please don't go that way" etc. actors which seemed a bit pointless when we had little alternative!! Nevertheless, this was the surprise package of the evening
Outside of Danny Boyle films or annoying shooty games the brother makes me play, zombies aren't especially scary, but zombie maze was good fun - being batched with a bunch of younger girls who screamed at everything and anything kind of helped!
Clown maze was admittedly overdue a bit of a rethink, but I really missed the comic interaction with the actors that had been there in recent years, when pushing you through the good/bad/ugly doors etc. Aside from one who announced she was my friend, then ran off and left me, they were a fairly quiet bunch of clowns. I attempted to redeem the situation by announcing "Clown!" each time we encountered one. The end mirror maze section was clearly the set from Insomnia, relocated but not repainted. This saddened me.
Compared with recent years, Love Hurts felt like there was a chunk missing, so I think it's been downscaled - the remaining scenes were the same as ever, but it all felt like we were constantly being rushed towards the predictable end scene - that said, it was very busy tonight, so probably trying to keep the wait times down. Tarin STILL hasn't seen Dogma and therefore STILL doesn't get the jokes I make in the first scene every year.
Le Theatre Noir... definitely a fairly original idea, so quite interesting but quickly ran out of ideas towards the end. I also wasn't a huge fan of the sprinklers.
This has turned into a classic Will-moan-fault-finding-exercise, so I feel I now need to add that it was quite a good evening, definitely a lot better than Blackpool and I'm sure I'll be back next year - I particularly like that it's only 40 minutes away
That doesn't bode well, we've rearranged for Thursday. So I've got to drive up to ****ing Yorkshire AGAIN, then Sussex the following day!!! Tomorrow is a designated sofa day.
Onto Burton then - given recent global events, it's perhaps forgivable, but as busy as the place was, I felt like they'd cut their budget this year. Costumes and make-up seemed especially 'mend and make do' in one or two of the scares.
Firstly, I was disappointed to see no tractor ride on the offering, as that's been a staple of every previous year, though the maze that followed was always a little incoherent. The 'maize maze' Creed Farm was definitely different from how it had been previously - there were many scarecrows and the actors in the finale weren't afraid to get fairly full on - possibly too many 'plain clothes' "No, don't go that way, please don't go that way" etc. actors which seemed a bit pointless when we had little alternative!! Nevertheless, this was the surprise package of the evening
Outside of Danny Boyle films or annoying shooty games the brother makes me play, zombies aren't especially scary, but zombie maze was good fun - being batched with a bunch of younger girls who screamed at everything and anything kind of helped!
Clown maze was admittedly overdue a bit of a rethink, but I really missed the comic interaction with the actors that had been there in recent years, when pushing you through the good/bad/ugly doors etc. Aside from one who announced she was my friend, then ran off and left me, they were a fairly quiet bunch of clowns. I attempted to redeem the situation by announcing "Clown!" each time we encountered one. The end mirror maze section was clearly the set from Insomnia, relocated but not repainted. This saddened me.
Compared with recent years, Love Hurts felt like there was a chunk missing, so I think it's been downscaled - the remaining scenes were the same as ever, but it all felt like we were constantly being rushed towards the predictable end scene - that said, it was very busy tonight, so probably trying to keep the wait times down. Tarin STILL hasn't seen Dogma and therefore STILL doesn't get the jokes I make in the first scene every year.
Le Theatre Noir... definitely a fairly original idea, so quite interesting but quickly ran out of ideas towards the end. I also wasn't a huge fan of the sprinklers.
This has turned into a classic Will-moan-fault-finding-exercise, so I feel I now need to add that it was quite a good evening, definitely a lot better than Blackpool and I'm sure I'll be back next year - I particularly like that it's only 40 minutes away