Set within 12 acres of maize in Nottinghamshire, Notts Maze offers over three miles of winding trails, hidden secrets, and endless fun that is (usually) for all ages. Nonetheless, during Halloween, this attraction transforms into “The Labyrinth: Backwood Terror – The Hillbilly Harvest”, an immersive live-action horror maze (which is literally inside a corn/maize maze!). Based on the strange tale of Whitley Farm, which is now overtaken by a dark force driving its inhabitants towards insanity, this haunt tasks you to navigate a nightmare maize maze full of disturbing noises, dancing lights, and horrific hillbillies. Along the way, you can reveal scattered runes to decipher for a sweet candy reward, all while trying to escape the cruel hillbillies and survive their Harvest (of you!).
The cast at Notts Maze was hands-on and interactive in wonderfully horrific ways. Everything started in the parking lot, where a chainsaw-wielding clown prowled the grounds, hunting for victims and even carrying a patron away at one point over his shoulder deep into the maze. Whether he knew the person or not, it was stunning and extreme! Later, upon entering the high corn, a little eerie girl with a bloody face suddenly leapt onto a man’s back from behind, which genuinely made him (and everyone watching) jump. As we got further inside, a hunter with a bow and arrow stalked through the corn, targeting tattooed “skins” and adding another layer to our growing anxiety.
At stretches, it felt like there were not quite enough performers, but the maze was huge, and the troupe were spread throughout, so the surprises came from every corner. As we were departing, a clan member decided we had performed poorly on our paper assignment of collecting runic symbols scattered through the labyrinth. He grabbed it from us and wiped his behind with it, creating a crazy and gross finale of interaction.
True to its theme of a hillbilly harvest, many of the costumes, makeup and masks were reflective of this, featuring a lot of plaid and denim as well as some stellar straw masks. There was also a strong hillbilly pig woman who constantly stalked us as we got lost in the maze. There were a few characters who seemed a bit more random, however, with a little girl in black and a man in face paint and top hat, and we weren’t sure how these characters fit in. Yet, the masks and makeup we did see were very thorough – we even noticed the clown who was wearing a mask had had his face painted underneath the mask, which blended well around the areas creating a very real effect as if the mask was real. While some of the character concepts confused us, most we saw were very frightening, and the masks were quite memorable!
Customer service at the maze was great – the staff at the ticket desks were lovely, and there were plenty of parking attendants to light the way and show us where to park. We could have done with a bit more lighting on the signage indicating the entrance to the maze, but navigating wasn’t too difficult, and once you park up there’s obviously only one entrance into the attraction, and this is easily indicated on the site. As a side note, we could have done with a bit more information online prior to our arrival. The event has its own website separate from Notts Maze, which was helpful, but there still wasn’t a ton of information about what the actual event experience would be – although maybe this should have been obvious, it was a corn maze after all!
The pre-haunt area of this maze was extremely minimal, with some concessionary vendors on the outskirts and then just outside of the corn with limited signage, and some light and smoke. However, there was the aforementioned queue actor, a clown wielding a chainsaw who roamed throughout the audience, creating a very menacing atmosphere before standing at a table to tell us to enter the maze to meet his terrifying friends.
Due to the nature of the corn stalks being as tall as they are, and with the extensiveness of the grounds, you are fairly immersed in this maze the deeper you get into it. Almost immediately upon entering you basically just can’t see anything else other than the corn. Because of this, you are completely ensconced in the world around you, never knowing where the next horrifying creature may come from and often losing your bearings – and worse yet, getting completely lost! The end of the maze was back near where the start was, but for us this was still quite difficult to locate and took a good amount of detective and guesswork.
This maze obviously relies very heavily on its natural surroundings, with its acres upon acres of corn stalks encompassing you for your entire journey. While special effects were quite minimal, there were very strategic moments of light, fog and music, sometimes lighting your way and other times indicating that you were entering a creature’s territory. There is also a watchtower near the center of the maze, its rotating yellow lights and siren providing an eerie and post-apocalyptic feeling. We also heard pre-recorded chainsaw sounds and screams. All these sound and light effects were quite useful in us navigating back out of the maze, always knowing that nearing a specific effect meant we were closer to safety. However ultimately, there was quite a lot of the maze that didn’t have any effect, often leaving us encircled by the endless dark and corn.
21. How scary was it? (35% of score): 8
22. How well did they provide scares to everyone in the group? (15% of score): 10
23. How predictable were the scares? (25% of score): 8.5
24. How well did they provide a wide variety (types) of scares? (10% of score): 7
25. How strong was the ending / finale? (15% of score): 4.5
“The Labyrinth: Backwood Terror – The Hillbilly Harvest” relied mostly on two different scare tactics in this attraction, with lots of jumpscares as well as a hefty amount of stalking. Some characters would stalk us for extended periods of time, constantly behind us during every corner, and sometimes coming across us repeatedly by using shortcuts unbeknownst to us – the characters always knew before we did if we were lost or at a dead end! One memorable moment was when a remarkably creepy character walked side by side with us for quite a while, getting their frightening face next to ours before beckoning us to come closer, and then screaming at us when we did! There were a lot of screaming moments from out of nowhere, causing real jolts. The scares here often came from the fact that we were in a dark corner with very little sound and lighting, when suddenly a creature would emerge from between the stalks, reaching towards us screaming, groaning or making other ungodly sounds.
“The Labyrinth: Backwood Terror – The Hillbilly Harvest” at Notts Maze does what it says on the tin – a corn maze with all manner of frights within! The experience you get in the maze is what you make of it: you could wander around a bit, or you could do a deep dive into the depths of the maze, trying to discover all the characters within. The scavenger hunt provided by the attraction gives you a reason to get lost and explore every nook and cranny to find the clues you need for a prize at the end, and by finding all these clues you will have discovered all the terrifying secrets and characters within. But it’s important to note that this is a slightly themed corn maze – there’s some fog, sound, lights, and characters, but there’s no scenic design or story to coincide, so if you’re looking for your typical scare maze this is not it. We gave ourselves about an hour in the maze, but you could spend more or even a bit less.
The exterior of the maze has a small bar and concessionary stand, and other than an initial roaming actor at the beginning the main event is the maze itself. This maze is best enjoyed in slightly nicer weather when it’d be fun to ramble through the corn, but on colder nights you might feel a bit rushed to get away from the elements. We really enjoyed ourselves – a little more ambience both inside and outside of the maze would be welcome, but the team did a great job with such a massive site!
Lime Lane Woods, Arnold, Nottingham, United Kingdom NG5 8 PW