Journey to Hell: Freak Nights Review (2026)

Journey to Hell has a dedicated page within Blackpool Pleasure Beach’s website, where you can find some information, though it isn’t detailed, including confusion around the actual closing time of the park. Parking is available in one of the dedicated lots for a fee, and once inside you’ll find the park divided into different sections: the South Park, where the rides are open during the day, and the North Park, where you’ll find both rides and scare mazes after dark. We did find navigating the park rather difficult in the low light, even with a map, and we think it would be helpful in future years to introduce clear signage at regular intervals showing exactly where the mazes and scare zones actually are (for example, we found out only afterwards that there were two sections to the “Moonshine Massacre” scare zone, of which we only saw one, and the entrance to “The Veil” was practically missable).

The park itself is very professionally maintained, with excellent and helpful staff. One of the biggest areas of variability was the level of entertainment provided before each maze. “Dead Line” literally faces the main stage, so everyone in the queue received repeated, sustained entertainment in the form of stage shows. In large contrast, “Eternal Abyss” has a simple concreted area with no sightlines to anything, save for some music from the mainstage, with that concreted area calling out to be a natural stage for either dedicated shows or roaming actors. We just think a little more entertainment in the queues of “Eternal Abyss” and “The Veil” would be warranted.

Once inside, groups were batched with upwards of 11 people, and we did very occasionally bump into other groups in front of us.

Journey to Hell takes you from the paranormal to the archaeological and lastly into the repulsions of corporate life, though not each expedition is quite as immersive as its foundation implies.

A family tries to resurrect their lost daughter, who has prematurely crossed the line between the living and the dead in “The Veil”. “Eternal Abyss” seems to undertake an Indiana Jones-style escapade, with you setting out to travel to a temple (ostensibly Angkor Wat) in search of a cursed relic. “Dead Line” meanwhile uses an area originally branded “Impossible”, which is reskinned with corporate imagery and posters of people asking to hold your calls. The plot centres on late-stage corporate horror, with staff being terminated (quite literally) from their jobs and the idea that you might be next!

Of the trio, “Dead Line” has the strongest all-embracing concept, even if the implementation of the other two leaves us wanting more.

From ghostly ghouls to cursed shrines and corporate fatalities, the effects at Blackpool Pleasure Beach offer blazes of visual interest, while the standard of implementation differs significantly between the haunts.

We saw some unusual imagery in “The Veil”, which whilst using flats did flesh out its universe with a coffin chamber, dining room, and eerie door simply marked “The Veil”. Candles flicker at certain points as focuses of resurrection, whilst sound echoes with calls towards the veil itself. “Eternal Abyss” is somewhat less imposing in its scenes. The experiences are mainly a series of corridors with lanterns and simple designs, clearly utilising the backstage area of one of the previous attractions at the park, judging by the Egyptian hieroglyphs on one altar which would obviously make little sense at Angkor Wat. Considering the early potential of discovering an antique temple in search of a relic, the comparatively modest appearance is a little unfortunate.

Entering “Dead Line” you can see that it is relying on relatively simple sets which are repurposed from the “Impossible” attraction that sits on the site, alongside mirrors and ringing phones that provide a soundtrack. There are some more horrifying and unexpected pieces of theatre amongst the minimalism, with a corporate employee stabbing herself in the neck, with blood gushing from her mouth to quite good effect. At the climax, the dead CEO has been strung up by another and puppet-mastered with attached strings used to move his lifeless corpse.

Really great haunts can conjure all manner of horrific monsters, with brilliant characterisation bringing that world to life. We found here a real range of performances, some promising, whilst others never quite found their footing. Upon entering “The Veil” an almost circus-like character strides down from the stairs to greet you and this actor had great charisma, drawing you into the macabre world within. Other performers, however, seemed most pre-occupied with telling us to hurry through the haunt, leaving a lot less room for characterisation and story that might have made the tale more twisted and engaging. Attire was gothic in nature – all suits and black dresses, with one character emerging from above the flats to scream at us in the end with a decrepit white painted face.

The painted, screaming creatures we awoke in “Eternal Abyss” are mainly clad in leotards, and for the most part emerge from the walls to growl, grunt, and gesticulate at you. Although these figures provide jolting encounters in the corridors, it does feel like a limited range of characters than could inhabit a temple. It also leads to an uncomfortable question: if this is Angkor, a real temple inhabited historically by real people, is there not a problematic issue with depicting those people as monsters?

“Dead Line” had the most performance-led cast, with forced smiles and menace, from check in to termination. Actors were good here at delivering a little patter, including the receptionist at the beginning, anchoring the corporate premise. Later, though, when accosted by women in capes who accused us of making a complaint (and the dire consequences that would result in) the interaction felt a little weaker and forced. There are some interesting ideas here, but ultimately the good interactions we did have felt slightly incongruous with the acting and looks of actors later in the maze.

The levels of scares within the three mazes were extremely variable, with “The Veil” being the most successful of the trio to create a sense of unease and terror. “Dead Line” attempted a single jump scare in the maze of mirrors with a woman screaming. Overall this maze did effectively leave us with a sense of psychological unease in the sense that no matter how hard or how long you work, it’s the work that ends up killing you, and you have no control over the process. However other than putting us in this mindframe, it’s hard to point out any other moments we found potentially scary. “Eternal Abyss” had a much heavier hand when it came to jump scares, this being the actors’ primary method of attempting to terrify visitors. Actors stalked and jumped – many loudly hissing and grunting. The vocal exertions and physicality of these actors should be commended, but unfortunately the bright hallways and fire exit lights littered throughout the corridors guaranteed that actors frequently failed in their attempts to hide in the shadows and surprise us. We absolutely have to call out an actor trying to grab at visitors’ feet on the stairs as we descended at some point – this is critically unsafe and a definite no-no at scare events!

As previously mentioned, “The Veil” was the most successful scare maze of the night, and the attraction utilised several different varieties of scare tactics. The circus-like man who took us up the stairs had a jittery robotic feel to him along with a creepy grin that really made us uneasy, which a young girl in a bedroom moved around on a bed almost as if she had broken limbs, before deftly jumping up and blocking our escape. Other less successful scare attempts were women in veils yelling at us to “get out” and then the final scene – we were told to line up against the wall as a strobe effect took place and a wailing woman in white appeared from up above one of the walls. Unfortunately, she appeared behind the very wall we were asked to stand in front of, meaning that a majority of us missed what was going on and led to mostly confusion of what we were meant to be doing rather than the shocking finale we assume they were attempting.

Our total maze walkthrough time at Journey to Hell was 17 minutes, which makes the £40 ticket price rather steep. But, in truth, you are also receiving access not only to the mazes, but to some rides by night, including the actor populated dark rides of Alice’s Wonderland and Ghost Train (which is, incidentally, the oldest still functioning ghost train in the country). To be fair though, this event is only open for three hours and therefore with line wait times you’ll likely only have time for the scare mazes and maybe two rides. We do hope the park improves upon its scare mazes in the future – “The Veil” specifically has really good roots and great potential. If space is a problem, we think re-skinning the “Impossible” building as more of a circus theme, while perhaps generic, is a much more natural transition. Overall, we think purchasing an all-day pass to the park with access to the scare zones and rides at night is definitely a must, but if you’re a scare enthusiast you might want to take a rain check on the mazes until another year and just enjoy the atmosphere around the park and classic rides within.