Halloween Haunt Fest is a brand-new scream park located at Hertfordshire County Showground just a stones-throw from the ancient cathedral city of St. Albans, and an easy journey via train from London itself. With four mazes, a DJ stage, fire performers, fairground, and a whole host of roaming actors, there’s a lot to curdle your blood here. The mazes themselves span several themes – most notably two officially-licensed ones based on the “Texas Chainsaw Massacre” and “Winnie-The-Pooh: Blood and Honey”, alongside two unique creations in the form of “E.D.E.N.” (a sci-fi journey to a new earth gone horribly wrong) and “The Trials of Jane Wenham” (recounting the tale of a historical alleged witch who lived locally in the early 1700s).
We visited just prior to their public opening for press night and want to note that this fact is reflected in our review. We can’t fault the dedication and love of the creatives behind Halloween Haunt Fest – in fact, we know from running immersive and outdoor events ourselves it’s very challenging! However, we did run into quite a bit of snagging the evening we were there, including sets that seemed a little unfinished and incredibly long waits for haunts to open. Since writing, the organizers have been in touch, and are putting in place measures to rectify these issues for the public opening. Whilst time limits don’t permit us to visit again this season, we do hope to see what they create in 2026.
The cast across the mazes showed strong energy and role commitment, particularly in “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre”, where performers grew more intense deeper into the haunt. The section featuring a woman being “sucked” into a lift stood out as a rather shocking highlight, and the surprise attacks from behind with chainsaws added a genuine jarring moment. In “E.D.E.N.”, the alien creatures created havoc as they swarmed the starship, ready to doom us to a deep space freeze, while “The Trials of Jane Wenham” benefitted from a large and eager cast of villagers with finger-pointing accusations that brought a tangible threat to the experience – there were so many of them! Even “Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey” impressed with its full roster of costumed characters that made the environment feel alive and populated.
Some areas could enjoy greater variety and interaction. In “E.D.E.N.”, while the aliens looked fantastic, they offered limited engagement with us, relying more on presence than performance. The actors in “The Trials of Jane Wenham”, though energetic, seemed too confined to their scripted lines, which is especially disappointing given how lively and spontaneous they were as roaming characters outside the maze. “Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey” also leaned on jump scares, missing opportunities to channel the eerie personalities and darkness of the film’s characters. We think it could have been interesting to make each masked beast respond differently to us, breaking up the scenes of horror. Even “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre”, while thrilling, could improve consistency. With more variation in delivery and creating more interactive and improvised scripts, these mazes could really hit home in the future.
Costumes, hair and makeup were appropriate for all the mazes at Halloween Haunt Fest, with each maze having strong components in this area. The cast in “The Trials of Jane Wenham” were very cohesive, all of them designed so that they belonged to the world they travelled in, but also related to each other, creating a very strong theatrical troupe. Similarly the cast in “E.D.E.N.” fit well inside the destroyed space world, with some of the most exciting monster designs we have seen in a long time – we stopped in our tracks for a while and let the monsters attack us just to get a better look at the head to toe transformation of these characters – really fun and super unique!
We’re of two minds regarding the costumes and mask work for the two IP mazes. At the beginning of the night we were told that the masks were the original from the movies, with “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” masks being sourced from the US and the Winnie-the-Pooh masks also being from the original movie. The costumes and hair/makeup from the latter were quite effective – specifically we were quite impressed with how well the Pooh matched with the character for the movie, especially with how much bigger than life he seemed. “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” was a bit of a letdown for us, however, mainly because the masks just didn’t seem to fit! To be honest it’s been decades since we’ve seen the movie, so maybe this too was an homage, but we just couldn’t take the characters seriously as we saw so much skin around the necks and collars of the actors wearing the Leatherface mask. It’s a fun concept to maybe incorporate the original masks, but perhaps this wasn’t the appropriate course to take, and more well-fitting masks should have been used.
Being a press and preview night, we knew there were bound to be some bedding-in to be had, as is the case for any large-scale event. As such, it felt that some aspects could have done with more finishing, with the waits for haunts to open being especially long. Because there were no announcements as to when these attractions would open, we were left uncertain in lines for a good while. We’d really suggest that (even if they are estimates) times are given for the opening of each maze, which would go a long way to helping alleviate some of the impatience we saw developing in the queues. Staff need to be more receptive to patron questions and be able to get the answers via radio if necessary.
It was fairly straightforward to locate this scream park, but there were not that many parking attendants, which meant that we had trouble initially knowing which section of the carpark we were supposed to go to. Similarly, upon exit we could have done with a few more attendants pointing the way.
Safety-wise, we were a little concerned about some of the aspects we saw. Not only were some mazes a bit unfinished, meaning that we very easily strayed into backstage areas that weren’t properly roped off, but also ramps and stairs were still being nailed into place and were particularly slippery in the rain. Moreover, simple safety measures, such as making sure that marquee weights were angled along the perimeter in a flush manner, rather than jutting out into walkways, would have rectified another safety issue easily. As we say, we know this is a new event, but these are just a few areas that could be improved.
We can’t fault them for the wealth of information available online though, with a professional website and team answering questions with ease.
Unfortunately there was very little pre-haunt atmosphere at each of the mazes, with simply a cardboard cutout at the front – although each of these were themed and did provide a bit of the aesthetic of what was on offer. There were also indoor marquees outside of most of the mazes, and although this was welcome as weather cover, there was no theming or soundscape here to provide a bit of atmosphere. The ambience upon exiting the mazes was similar, but did spit us out near the maze entrances and on the path to the other mazes, so did keep us in the world of the scream park.
Some storylines were really clear, such as “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” and “E.D.E.N.” “The Trials of Jane Wenham” was billed as being based on a historical character, and while it was obvious the storyline was something about a witch, we missed any story specifics that would have made it unique. “Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey” was honestly really confusing – if we hadn’t seen the sign and already seen the movie we’d have been relatively clueless about what we were seeing. Obviously there were Piglet and Pooh masks, but the thorough-line just felt like it was missing here.
All-in-all, most of these mazes were let down by the batching, with sometimes a dozen people let in at once and with groups bumping into each other almost immediately within the mazes, causing pauses and queues that really let down the experience, especially the “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre”. The tableaus here were so intricate and infamous, but we were distracted by the other audiences around us and by the queuing, not to mention that all of the mazes were badly lit and incomplete, meaning that we never really felt we were living in the world around us. “E.D.E.N.” was the exception – this maze was well-lit, well batched and with a fun set design, and we really congratulate the park on the immersive setting it created here for its first time.
The soundscapes at Halloween Haunt Fest were, surprisingly, some of the strongest we’ve heard all season, with numerous sound tracks and sound effects in each and every room of all four haunts, creating a very unique storyline as you progressed through the mazes. The park didn’t rely on a single soundscape for each maze. Instead, each room was themed with specific sounds to match the environment around you. This included the cluck of chickens and other ominous sounds of the farm in “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre”, the sound of alarms and destruction in “E.D.E.N.”, and sounds of the forest in “Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey”.
Other effects sadly were mostly limited to fog, sounds and lights, with no fun effects that we remember like air cannons, birth canals, or animatronics. There was also a real issue with lighting in some of these mazes, especially in the IP mazes where there was far too much light, meaning that you could see all of the gear and actors, limiting the immersiveness of the space and the ability for the actors to scare us, as they were immediately seen when you entered a room.
However, there were some good attempts at interesting set designs, with each and every room in “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” a fun homage to famous scenes from the film, and similar homages in “Winnie-the-Pooh”, with beautiful attempts at creating the Hundred Acre Wood and the hilarious hot tub death scene. “E.D.E.N.” had an ambitious set design, with collapsed tunnels and large recreations of a destroyed space ship, which were really quite intricate and made us feel we were on a spacecraft in the process of being destroyed. We were equally impressed with the set design in “The Trials of Jane Wenham”, which incorporated a more modern and open world design with well placed olden-days set pieces that effortlessly paved the way for the audience’s trajectory while also giving actors interesting ways to move about the space.
21. How scary was it? (35% of score): 5.81
22. How well did they provide scares to everyone in the group? (15% of score): 7.13
23. How predictable were the scares? (25% of score): 6.56
24. How well did they provide a wide variety (types) of scares? (10% of score): 4.94
25. How strong was the ending / finale? (15% of score): 5.5
Unfortunately, scare factor was a bit of an issue in all of these mazes due to a mixture of incomplete design, incorrect lighting and inexperience of the actors within. We think a lot more training for the actors in these mazes should have been done, as the scares often seemed awkward and hackneyed. We also think batching was a huge problem for these scares – apparently the park was planning on batches as big as 16 people to be let in at one time – fortunately the groups seemed to be a little smaller than this at times, but we were often in groups as big as 12, and due to groups being let in quite quickly after one another this often led to queues within the mazes themselves. This made the larger rooms and vignettes really awkward, and we often felt like we were spectators at a zoo, with audiences surrounding vignettes on all sides, sometimes watching and seeing each other more than seeing the actual cast and action in front of them.
However, there were some standouts in the night, especially one of the iconic family dinner scenes in “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre”, which saw Leatherface drag a woman around the dinner table – the entire vignette was really disturbing, and the cast were particularly enthusiastic in this maze the deeper and deeper you got. The cast in “The Trials of Jane Wenham” were by far the most talented and passionate of the night. They started off as roaming actors since the maze wasn’t complete until a few hours in the night, and they were exorcising witches right, left and centre. Inside the maze themselves there were equally fervent, their energy addictive and radiating throughout the attraction, although sometimes losing their sinister nature.
With ticket prices at around £40 and walkthrough time of only 17 minutes for the four mazes, a minute-per-pound value of only 0.43 is by far the lowest value of any haunt we’ve attended this year, almost 50% lower than even the lowest of our currently scored attractions. With none of the mazes being complete, this unfortunately lowers the value even further, and it’s clear that the inexperience of the actors and the work that needs to be done on the mazes overall means that we can’t unfortunately recommend the park this year. It’s clear that there’s immense passion and ambition behind the park, and we think the ambience created in such a compact site is commendable. There’s so many food and drink options on top of fairground rides and some of the most hard working roaming actors we’ve seen all season, not to mention a very talented fire performer, so we know Halloween Haunt Fest has a really solid foundation to work off of for next year. Understandably for a new haunt there’s a lot of costs to cover, but for a new haunt that isn’t fully realised, it’s hard to expect audiences to pay this high price tag when there’s other nearby scare parks at similar prices with much more to offer. We know for a fact that other audiences on future nights had a much better experience, with the park learning a lot from their mistakes on their first night, so we’re hopeful that Halloween Haunt Fest will be a star attraction in the years to come.
Dunstable Road, St Albans, United Kingdom AL3 7PT