Final Scores – By Category:

Cast (20% of Final Score): 7.96

Costuming (10% of Final Score): 7.06

Customer Service (10% of Final Score): 6.7

Immersion (10% of Final Score): 4.53

Special Effects (15% of Final Score): 3.65

Scare Factor (20% of Final Score): 7.06

Entertainment & Value (15% of Final Score): 5.75

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Final Scores – By Attraction:

Attraction 1: 6.25

Horror Car Wash at Sunderland Live is an incredibly unique experience. Trapped in your vehicle, you must navigate a series of enthusiastic ghouls to complete your car wash – and yes, you will get suds and a shine!

Throughout the car wash there were many maniacal characters scattered around. They were immensely enthusiastic, even despite it raining the entire time we were there – they were definitely troopers! The cast really got up close and personal, even opening the doors of cars and lunging at their occupants, and in some cases jumping into the windows of cars while they were driving away! There was a nice variety of characters, and each and every one of them came in for as many scares as they could get. One even reached into our car to honk our horn and comment on our zombie air freshener!

This good grouping of characters had decent costuming – think clowns, Michael Myers, and zombies. Some masking was obvious rather than blended, but those masks themselves were rather twisted and disturbing.

It’s important to remember that, as a drive-through attraction, you are less close to the actors in general, and so we saw this level of costuming as appropriate to the haunt, even if it was more minimal.

In order to access the Horror Car Wash, one had to line up in your car with that queue showing how very popular it was. The line itself, whilst having attendants on hand, seemed slightly mismanaged, allowing for two lines to merge into one without any direct oversight at the merge point, leading to disputes amongst the drivers. This line – which lasted an hour and a half – was disproportionate to the length of the experience (which was about 10 minutes in length). It would have been very hard to have made our timed slot had we not arrived significantly early. We’re not sure how this could be mitigated in the future, as the event was simply very sought-after.

Moreover, there was no signage to the Horror Car Wash on the road at all. This would have been very helpful, as we were left wondering what exactly the queue was for initially. Information available beforehand was quite limited, and could have benefited from a dedicated website.

We definitely think there could have been a lot more done in terms of immersion at this haunt. There’s not much pre-haunt atmosphere – no signs or branding and only minimal lights. When you get closer with your car to the entrance there was one fire dancer as well as a few actors who did start to accost guests in their car, which did help to prime us for the scares of the night. Due to the nature of this attraction there’s no obvious storyline here, just a few characters in costume attacking cars and providing a bit of a car wash as a benefit! But we do have to commend the line flow once the attraction did start – while the wait was painful, the attraction from the start to the finish flowed well and we did feel immersed in the experience once it actually began.

We think one of the areas this haunt could improve upon would have definitely been in terms of special effects, especially sound and props. There was no sound design at all, whether that be in the queue for the attraction or in the car wash itself. Luckily one of the vehicles next to us was blasting fun clubbing music just as a monster was jumping into their window, which brought a bit more liveliness to the experience. It would have been great to have some kind of sound design and some fun props or animatronics, especially in the queue up to the car wash itself. However, there definitely was water and suds involved in the attraction as the clowns attacked the car with sponges and jet sprays – just make sure that you put up your windows in time otherwise you might get a face full of soap! This attraction ultimately was more about your interaction with the actors more than anything else, with a bit of fun lighting to coincide.

There were some good scares here, especially when the actors went for the doors of our car, opening them unexpectedly or (in some cases) jumping through the open windows of other cars and riding along! But, the feeling overall was more unsettling: that not knowing whether someone would grab you through a shut car door. The scares were created through that unknowing and whilst not intense, they had a fun jolt.

Most cars were attacked that we saw, some even having their boots opened and lunged through, but that was the limit of the type of scares. The ending was – indeed – a car wash!

For a ten minute experience you do get a lot for your money, with very up close and personal interactions with the cast and a mini-wash of your car to boot. This was definitely a unique experience, and we had fun watching all of the monsters attack all of the people in their cars, including going through the backs of their cars! However, we did queue up for over an hour and a half for this experience, which seems quite excessive for what you receive. We ultimately were hoping for a bit more than we got with the experience. We appreciate that regardless that the weather was quite bad, the few roaming monsters and a fire dancer that were there did continue on.

We have a few possible suggestions for future years for this haunt, perhaps the ability to tune car radios into spooky music, a radio play, or maybe into the sound for a movie playing – almost like a drive-through film? Ultimately we enjoyed the experience but we definitely needed a bit more to entertain us in the queue outside of the car wash itself to make the experience a complete one.