Scare Kingdom Scream Park, located at Hawkshaw Farm near Preston and Blackburn in Lancashire, boasts a terrifying ~45 minute trail of seven scare areas and intense scare zones, marketing themselves as one of the UK’s Best Scare Attractions with up to 100 actors and 164 rooms. This was our second trip to Scare Kingdom, and we were thrilled to see much of the park had been reskinned/upgraded from last year, with an additional entertainment area in the centre of the trail and an add-on experience called the “Interrogation”. Scare trails are arguably becoming our favourite way to experience horror in the Halloween season, and Scare Kingdom overall doesn’t disappoint with their wide variety of terrifying worlds, incredible cast of actors, and unique scare zones guaranteed to spook and thrill in equal measure.
Cast performances throughout Scare Kingdom were generally strong, but became delightfully ghoulish when they were one-on-one interactions. This was particularly notable with some of the introductory vignettes, laying out the stories of these decrepit haunts we’d be treading. We had a slightly horrifying conversation with a gentleman in the alleyway in front of a mortuary allotted to bodysnatchers, who wanted to know how many bodies we needed to dispose of (14, in our case). Inside, a very enthusiastic mortician/bodysnatcher warned us fervently not to enter the cellar, so of course we did (at the urging of a giant of a man, looming over us with dread in his eyes).
Other eerie performances included the very twitchy clown at the entrance to her carnival, who puppet-like made one of us dance with her atop a plinth, whilst at the end two grinning chainsaw clowns viciously attacked us, showing no let up in their rapid assault.
There were some slightly less convincing performances within the hospital and junkyard scenes, but being early in the night this might have been because the actors were just getting warmed up.
Costume and makeup were applied fully at Scare Kingdom, but we think that the wardrobe department was slightly less convincing that at other scares we’d attended. Some of the best effects were the use of fluorescent contact lenses, which allowed you to lock eyes with the demonic, but attire remained on point and simple elsewhere. Strongly clothed were the bodysnatchers and clowns, who fit their settings and were fully believable.
Don’t get us wrong: each costume suited the world in which it was realised, and the two queue actors in the playground at the beginning of the trail had some stunning looks. One was a neon-splattered masked man with a knife, the other a vampiric creature with an intelligent, depraved look that set your teeth on edge. We think there’s huge potential for bringing that level of costume and makeup to the rest of the trail, and know that it would elevate the experience.
Pulling up to Scare Kingdom, we found that signage into the trail was minimal, marked by one sign. Once we were in, we found plenty of parking and a well-lit and accessible entrance.
Upon arrival, we were greeted by a friendly and helpful security guard, who told us all about how the evening would unfold and directed us to wait in a heated cafe area for the doors to open. When the doors to the main entrance did finally open, it felt slightly unclear about where we should wait to be checked in, and the automatic doors themselves seemed to be glitching and could not be opened unless we slid them ourselves. Similarly, once we finished the trail, we could really have used some brighter lighting to find the exit, which was completely dark and we only found it by asking a security guard, who didn’t quite know what we were asking. We wondered whether these might have been teething problems for opening night, but it did mean we felt a little confused at some points.
Nothing along the trail was dangerous and the light, although low and atmospheric, was more than ample to guide our way safely.
There is a good amount of information available on their website and we found most of what we had questions about answered, although some attractions don’t appear to be listed.
Scare Kingdom’s trail is long, winding, and takes you through a number of really chilling environments. The prehaunt areas were effectively rendered, if simple, evoking the feeling of being in front of an old church, mortuary, or carnival in one case.
A strength of Scare Kingdom is the narrative nature of the storylines to each haunted zone. Most begin with a tale about what you’ll find within, usually told most eloquently by a member of their dastardly troupe. For example, the bodysnatcher’s mortuary was very focused on that early 19th century atmosphere of thievery and dissection, with just a touch of madness thrown in.
We’re absolutely sure that the immersion inside the haunts themselves would be magnificent, based on past experiences. Unfortunately, this was being constantly broken by the poor behaviour of other patrons, who insisted on having scares repeated for them as they recorded what we assume was social media content, whilst screaming and then talking loudly afterwards in a way that made it clear their reactions were manufactured. Much as we understand the need to showcase terror, this meant that we were ripped out of the moment, with actors directing their scares towards this group, only to sit and not interact with us. It was disappointing, because we saw such strong performances, not to be able to feel those ourselves. We would suggest that if such filming is needed for promotional purposes, it should be done when other guests are not present in order to preserve the experience for everyone.
There are several areas before, during, and after the haunted zones where you can grab a drink, enjoy entertainment, and calm down after your frights. You begin in an area with a tent and small cafe, and then midway there is another area with food, drink, and an entertainment stage. Whilst we were there, no entertainment was available and the ambiance wasn’t turned up yet, but it’s very lovely to see the introduction of a midway pitstop, which can make a big positive difference in the evening.
Scenic design was quite strong in practically all of the mini-mazes within the trail, with particularly good designs in “Manor Mortis”, where we explored extremely detailed haunted halls, and probably our favourite “Body Snatchers”, where we navigated Brimstone & Black’s Funeral Parlour, even being forced to climb down into the cellar. We roamed through wine cellars, tiptoed through a chapel, and were chased by a horde of zombies through an entire car junkyard. Some of these sets were massive, and the addition of special effects such as smoke, strobe lighting, incredibly strong and frightening air cannons, the longest birth canal we’ve navigated this season, and even a pneumatic tilting table in the seance room upped the ante of the experience. Each of these mini-mazes on the trail had their own pre-haunt atmosphere, soundtrack, and distinct world of characters, which created for an incredibly extensive trail that took us from clowns to graveyards, and from mortuaries to infirmaries.
21. How scary was it? (35% of score): 6
22. How well did they provide scares to everyone in the group? (15% of score): 5
23. How predictable were the scares? (25% of score): 7.75
24. How well did they provide a wide variety (types) of scares? (10% of score): 6
25. How strong was the ending / finale? (15% of score): 9
Scare Kingdom relies a lot on shock factor. There are jump scares throughout, with some special effects also providing pop up scares. We think the most effective menacing and disturbing scares came from the junkyard scare zones, with frightful zombies chasing after us relentlessly – the cast were physical and brilliant here, and we really felt preyed upon.
Our favourite bits of the night were the several opportunities for choose your own adventure scares, where scare actors split us up from our group and made us go down different paths by ourselves – which caused a great deal of disorientation and feelings of isolation – not to mention the relief of finally finding our group again later down the line!
The biggest downside for us, as mentioned previously in this review, was that the areas somewhat failed to give good scares to everyone in the group due to the specific group in front of us who kept repeating the scare over and over to get good coverage for the camera. This meant that once a scare in a room had happened for this group, no one in the subsequent back of the group or even the start of the next group received the scare.
Time varies for how long it takes to get through this experience, especially if you decide to stop at their pitstop along the way, but when we attended, it took approximately 45 minutes (this is after taking into account all pauses between zones along the way, so this time is purely for only the scare area walkthroughs). This is quite a lot of scare time for only £33, and with seven different zones, you get a lot of themes and characters to interact with along the way.
Entertainment value was an issue for us last year upon our first visit to Scare Kingdom: there seemed to be no emphasis on creating additional entertainment areas outside of the main zone, with a food vendor and single musician failing to create an atmosphere inviting enough to make us stay longer than we had to. Scare Kingdom has done a lot of work this year to improve upon this, with now having a pitstop midway which includes more food and drink, an entertainment stage, and an additional “Isolation” experience available for an extra fee. We still feel like there could be improvements to create a consistent atmosphere on the site, especially at the entrance and exit of the haunt, which have nothing to offer for a festive atmosphere. The two “roaming” actors who greet audiences in a creepy playground at the start of the maze could have been multiplied and placed at the entrance/exit to help with the atmosphere. These two actors were fantastic, and we hope the attraction uses their cast a bit more outside of the mazes to create a more cohesive scare world.
Hawkshaw Farm, Longsight Road, Blackburn, Lancashire BB2 7JA