After experiencing the horror and mayhem of Psycho Path in 2024, we were massively excited to return in 2025. Not only had we heard that some of the haunts had been updated, but a new haunt was introduced in the form of “Psychotorium,” and we had no idea what new devilish devices the team had cooked up for us. Psycho Path itself is an entire scare park, filled with not just eleven haunts, but games, rides, bars, food vendors, and a stunning array of entertainment – both scares and fun.
This is an entire evening of entertainment, with hours of mazes and some of the most physical experiences in haunts out there. Fancy crawling under floorboards, being locked into vans, sliding down into ballpits, and being electrocuted? Then Psycho Path is your haunt!
The cast of Psycho Path are arguably the park’s strongest asset – the interactivity and theatricality of every single actor, whether in a haunt or roaming around, is incredible. Immediately upon entry to the park, you are harassed down a small tunnel by inmates – and they aren’t scared to get too close! Pinning us to the walls within moments, we knew we were in for a wild ride. Some of the roaming actors on site are engaged in distinct storylines, including soldiers arresting escaped prisoners right in front of us!
Psycho Path haunts traverse the line between scare maze and immersive experience, leaning heavily into theatrical vignettes instead of just jumping out from crevices with guttural screams. Don’t get us wrong, they do that too, but there’s a heightened level of presence and interaction between them and their audiences. Highlights of the night were the cast from both “Psychotorium” and “Crawl Space”, who weren’t afraid to get up front and personal with us. We had one-to-one interactions with characters in these mazes and others, some forcing us into corners and others even licking our glasses. The family at “Crawl Space” are some of our favourites, with Monnika (one of the sisters) leading the charge at the ticket booth at the front. And in all of these, we had actual conversations with innumerable characters – the improv talent of this cast was impeccable!
When traversing the many mazes of Psycho Path, you’ll meet a dastardly brood of creatures and fiends, each dressed to shock you. The new “Psychotorium” had both inmates and guards attired in a completely believable manner. In fact, this was one occasion where the costuming extended to us victims, for we were all instructed to wear orange jumpsuits emblazoned with our new home the penitentiary’s information.
We were also, as last year, cursed by the masked dolls of “Dollhouse The Factory”, being seemingly personifications of that uncanny valley effect that one so often feels when staring into the black eyes of living, yet lifeless, dolls and mannequins. Similarly, but in the makeup department, “Crawl Space” is excellent at makeup and prostheses – we can’t stop thinking about those very sharp(en) teeth from the sister who herded us into our cramped cubicles at the beginning.
There was a great deal of excellent costuming and makeup, but sometimes we did feel it needed a touch more work, for example in “Vandalise”, where some of the outfits were a bit simpler than those from elsewhere in the park.
We were very impressed by how Psycho Path took such a vast site and made it easy to navigate and enjoy, all whilst providing kind and friendly service. The entrance to the park has excellent signage and good lighting, meaning that we had no trouble locating it. Once inside, the park expands from a central covered hub full of music and entertainment, and periodic maps are displayed on screens to help you find your way. If you are ever lost, members of staff are always there to show you the way, whether as a regular park worker, or a costumed cast member. In this way, Psycho Path really stands out. The cast on the doors of the haunts know their way around and will tell you in character where you need to go. They really know their stuff and will be able to point you in the right direction, albeit evocatively.
All the staff we interacted with were very helpful, answered questions, and were patient with any requests. We noticed nothing that would be unsafe here. Even if you felt threatened by the characters, safety was well considered and ensured.
Much of the information you need about Psycho Path is on their website, which lays out the FAQs very clearly. One slight difference between this and other parks is that the haunts and other attractions are listed on the ticket page, which you need to proceed to before you know exactly what is available. Whilst we don’t mind this, it does mean there’s not a central page for what’s on offer, which to the uninitiated might be off-putting. We’re all for mystery, but perhaps a little more of a spotlight should be given to all the terrifying and fun happenings at the park.
As mentioned in our review of the casting, Psycho Path is a really unique scare park in our view, as it bends very much towards storytelling and immersive theatre. From the very beginning, even before you arrive at the main park, you take part in a mini-maze as soon as you scan your tickets, attacked by prisoner-attired psychopaths as you try to escape. As you exit and enter the larger park, you are surrounded on all sides by roaming actors and huge set pieces and props, creating an intensely fun and horrifying world.
In “Psychotorium,” you are committed to a penitentiary, forced to dress in a prison jumpsuit, all starting with each audience member taking a call from their lawyer at a pay phone, and then locked into individual cells. The rest of the maze felt like you were dropped right inside of a movie, the characters real and yet somehow also bigger than life. We were forced to make beds, individually tied into working electric chairs, forced to pull ourselves out of the jail via rope, and even climb into a moving compartment that was going to cremate us!
The immersion didn’t stop with “Psychotorium”, with other highlights of note being kidnapped and forced into a van in “Vandalise”, crawling out of bathtubs and into ball pits in “Crawl Space”, and traversing an actual pirate ship and the below decks in “Cutthroat Island”. And while we didn’t include it in our scoring as one of the haunts this year, there are experiences like “Thunder Dome” and “The Hunt” where you get to fully participate in immersive worlds with crazed killers where you have to run – or fight – for your lives.
We’re hugely impressed by the set designs and special effects at Psycho Path. Not only does each maze offer unique thrills: the technical wizardry employed here is astounding.
The newest haunt, “Psychotorium”, included sets that travelled the whole prison experience, from a phone call with your lawyer at the beginning via an old rotary device, to the prison exercise yard, and all the way to the electric chair, and inevitable crematorium. Each of these spaces was fantastically constructed, and that you had to interact with some of them, such as the phone and lying down in the crematorium, was an unexpected bonus. Small spaces are manifold, but we were in awe with the use of pyrotechnics and electric shocks (painful!), the former of which would presumably have to be reset for each group – superb! Other effects included air blasts and climbing through a “wall” with a rope.
Other haunts had simpler sets. “Vandalise” takes you on an actual journey strapped into a van, but once you’re free to wander large set pieces, like a trio of mangled scarecrows, were visible at some points, but didn’t seem to be utilised. Other environments included clambering through vehicles and being temporarily imprisoned in a wooden shed.
For the more sensorially inclined, “The Darkness” is perhaps the longest blindfold maze we’ve ever taken part in. Air blown upon you, walls covered in what felt like greenery and moss, and people touching you with various objects all featured. New to us was that sometimes you got your hand unexpectedly held. Heat also featured here, as well as terribly clangings and screamings that could keep you up at night.
Other interesting design features included “Cutthroat Island”’s fully constructed pirate ship, which you could hear swaying with the sounds of water and sail, even if we were inland (as our pirate captain captor pointed out). In iScream, you’re going to get clowned! We were told that this maze was updated from last year, but we’re not quite sure what the difference was. A white-out room disorientates, whilst clambering through the back of ice cream trucks, clowns popping out, is unique. And, just to warn you, you might get a bit wet!
21. How scary was it? (35% of score): 6.16
22. How well did they provide scares to everyone in the group? (15% of score): 9.22
23. How predictable were the scares? (25% of score): 7.41
24. How well did they provide a wide variety (types) of scares? (10% of score): 6.44
25. How strong was the ending / finale? (15% of score): 6.53
We think Psycho Path takes a very different approach to scares compared to a lot of your run-of-the-mill haunts. There aren’t a lot of jump or shock scares in these mazes, although “iScream” is a good example of a maze with scares meant to startle you. Most of the other mazes, however, rely much more on psychological scares.
There’s a sense of intimidation and victimization in “Psychotorium”, where we were both observers of prison violence but also subject to ridicule and verbal abuse as prisoners ourselves. The best example of psychological scares in the park was certainly “Crawl Space”, in which every room we entered created a sense of unease, with quite disturbing moments with actors that made us feel quite uncomfortable. The actors, not being afraid to pin us to walls or forcing us to our knees and licking us, created an intense sense of unease and danger.
And yet, scare factor is not everything Psycho Path focuses on. In fact, we think there is a bit more focus on just plain fun, with “Cutthroat Island” being quite a good example – the actors in this maze weren’t scary (although catching a STD could be considered frightening, of course!), but instead a good deal of fun as they made their way around sex dungeons playing disco music.
Psycho Path offers insane value for money – you need hours to experience all of the entertainment it has to offer, even with a Fast Pass. The haunts took us 107 minutes to go through, and that’s not even including “Psycho City” (which was closed for our visit) or experiences like “Thunder Dome” and “The Hunt”, which are more like participatory immersive games than scare mazes. Each of the mazes are thorough, averaging around 15 minutes in length, which for single scare mazes is quite long!
Add to this the funrides, entertainment stage, endless food stalls, and roaming actors on all sides, and you’ve got a chockablock night of entertainment – potentially even more than one night if you can’t fit it all in! £35 seems to be about the average price of a haunt these days, but instead of a 20-minute maze, you get hours and hours of endless fun. What makes the experience even more valuable is that each and every scare maze is completely different, and the interactions with the cast and immersiveness of the worlds make for an unforgettable night.
Lintz Hall Farm, Newcastle upon Tyne, United Kingdom NE16 6AS