Zigzagging your way through the port town of Ipswich, if you take the trails eastward to Trinity Park, you’ll come across a most eerie scene. This is Trinity Scares, a haunting ground for both dreadful creatures and your challenge for the evening. Spread across three scare mazes, a big top entertainment area with plenty to keep you warm after experiencing the chills within, and an additional caving attraction, Trinity Scares is a sprawling, unique scare park where you will experience both shocking frights and extremely creative interactive designs that will leave you clambering away for your life.
The cast across Trinity Scares brought a strong sense of atmosphere to bear on us, with plenty of moments that stood out for their inventiveness. “The Nightmare” had an almost pitch-black descent down a slide where someone sang a lullaby at the bottom in a quietly anxious touch that showed acting could be understated as well as in your face. A clown lurking behind a door provided one of the biggest jumps of the evening, and although this maze wasn’t the most interactive, there was plenty of movement and stalking from the cast. Performers appeared and disappeared, creating tension, even if some direction was lost at points when we were told to head through doors that turned out to be locked while others were left open. It felt like this section could have done with a little more engagement or payoff, but the atmosphere was maintained throughout.
“The Haunting” began in a different season, disguised as a twisted Christmas. A talkative, mischievous elf drew the group in with lively interaction before handing over to a sinister Krampus who loomed never too far away. Then, we were onto the Big Top where two clowns commanded the stage (and us guests!). Some were pulled from the group to take solo teacup rides with the clowns in the fairground area, spinning us wildly whilst straddled by the clown who never lost eye contact; while others were forced onstage to hula hoop under bright lights and emotionless clapping. One guest was even “kidnapped” and taken into a caravan for a one-on-one fright, while the rest of the group waited, only hearing distant screams. Later, we were led into a pitch-black maze populated by warped, animal-headed figures brandishing blades in utter feral chaos. The variety of acting and interaction here, be it playful to very frightful really made this maze stand out from the three.
In “The Cursed”, the scenes shifted again to a country, almost haunted farmyard setting. Two ghostly girls invited us to play catch with their teddy bear, their innocent demeanor masking something darker as they warned everyone to be careful of their mother. Moving on, we encountered a scarecrow who followed for an uncomfortable stretch. A Jason-style figure wearing a red hockey mask later appeared, blocking our path and getting very close, creating a tense bottleneck moment. The sequence built, but ended when the expected chainsaw finale never happened. The sound was heard close by, but the performer didn’t give chase, leaving the ending feeling a bit unfinished.
We found a lot of different types of costume, makeup, and masks peeking out of these mazes. “The Nightmare” had simple, appropriate attire for the scenes in question, whether that was brightly painted clowns, a maniacal creature in the lift, face smeared green, or a nun in full habit. Dressed in traditional green and red, the Christmas elf in “The Haunting” was on point, whilst Krampus’ emaciated and long mask was quite frightening to see.
One of the stand-out costuming and makeup efforts in “The Haunting” has to be the clowns. One of our party was beckoned to take a personal teacup ride and so was able to observe the makeup up close for an extended period. This was incredibly detailed, a collection of white paint and colourful swirls that were expertly applied. Add to this the swirling contact lenses and you have one of the most complete looks of the Halloween season. Moving on from here, other bizarre beasts emerged from the mist: a nurse with her face completely bandaged and bloodied and animal-headed figures with ominous masks that were neither creature nor man.
As with many of these mazes, “The Cursed” had a really good variety of costumes. Whilst farm girls innocently played, scarecrow monsters with heads wrapped in burlap and leaking straw were skulking in the barnyard. Masking continued later, with a devil doll faced creature silently pursuing us, and more unique beings too, such as one with lots of hair on its face with skin pulled taut. Separately, we did notice a lone white-faced clown floating through the final part of this maze, whilst the rest of the characters were more killer in nature. This seemed slightly out of place, but perhaps he was a killer clown? Regardless, masking here was particularly startling.
Trinity Scares is easily located but a short drive from Ipswich, and is well marked from the road. We had no difficulty parking, and the attendants pointed us clearly to where we needed to be. Staff were really helpful in checking us in, and each of the maze attendants was cheerful. The site itself is arranged in a hub and spoke pattern, with all the mazes leading off from the central entertainment area and thus easy to find.
We did note a few things that could be improved for next year in terms of safety. Particularly in “The Nightmare”, the pitch black of this maze is sometimes punctuated by steps up and down. It was really hard to see these and although we shouted behind us “step!” we think that unless the person at the front of the group was a master spotter this could be difficult for some. It would be great if any time steps were present that these could be marked in some fashion, perhaps with glow in the dark strips to minimize disruption to the immersion of the darkness. Likewise, certain elements like the climbing wall and low ceilings also need to be marked, because otherwise you may just walk into them. We didn’t notice anything like this in “The Haunting” and in “The Cursed” there was only one step down after the farm scene that might have been useful to mark. It’s a fine line between preserving darkness and this type of marking, so we know it’s difficult, but there might be some creative and subtle solutions to try for next time.
We found lots of information online beforehand to guide our journey and appreciated the comprehensiveness of Trinity Scares’ website, as well as their great email communication.
Each of the mazes is fronted by a pre-haunt area of a sign indicating its name. There are some horror-icon statues, such as Frankenstein, near the entrances to the mazes, but not specific to their themes. The strongest storyline of the night was in “The Nightmare” which presented us with incarnations of those terrors of sleep we all experience: fantasy dragons, decrepit churches, spider’s nests, clowns, and innocence turned curdled. This was less obvious to us in “The Haunting” and “The Cursed”, although we can deduce that the locations were haunted in the former and cursed in the latter.
Batching is done extremely well here with quite small groups of four to six people, which does maintain immersion. Inside, environments do vary and sometimes the fact that these are built environments is visible, but the darkness shrouds much of this. The atmosphere on site afterwards is nice, with each maze feeding back into the main entertainment space.
Trinity Scares makes good use of special effects, including lighting, but especially sound. Soundtracks are different throughout and create distinct locations as you experience them. The effects and scenes themselves are also particularly interactive here. “The Nightmare” did this well with some unique challenges we have to navigate, including a climbing wall, tunnel, two rickety bridges that moved beneath you (including one with the illusion of water created by shredded white and shimmering paper beneath), giant elastic webbing you need to manipulate to get through, a slide, a room that got smaller and smaller, a birth canal, and a toilet that sprayed us as we passed. Scene designs are otherwise simple, but accompanied by air cannons with cable to brush your feet and animated screens that one minute are a mirror and the next are showing you beings from beyond this world. It was a very active experience and left us with that disorientation one often feels upon waking from a bad dream. Oh, and one further thing – there’s a magnificent and completely unexpected mechanical element at the beginning that was absolutely shattering and incredibly well executed. We can’t spoil that surprise!
Other scenes included a Christmas grotto with fairy lights and holiday music, a big top that looked like it was being decommissioned with chairs haphazardly strewn in the corners, a twinkling fairground with rideable rides, and twitching animatronic bodies in “The Haunting”. The further we went in, the more terrors emerged from these scenes, with a man being electrocuted behind barbed wire with sound and light effects, crawling through corrugated metal, further air cannons, and an eerie room bathed in black light and fluorescent masks adorning every wall.
Finally, “The Cursed” was more of a journey than the others. Much of this maze is arranged in marquees, which you travel between across the grounds of the park, low lights guiding your way. Unique water effects were used here, with juice being disgustingly extracted from a skeleton’s mouth and gushing into a barrel below. The four main environments were a dark maze, a low wooden maze, a hay bale maze called “Rat Race” where you need to do a lot of crawling through the bales, and a high wooden maze of pallets at the end. Also of note here was the very detailed farm or barnyard set, with many implements laid out and large jars placed at intervals, creating an almost Mediterranean feeling. Beyond, scarecrows were raised before us, making us not quite sure who or what was real.
21. How scary was it? (35% of score): 6.67
22. How well did they provide scares to everyone in the group? (15% of score): 9.33
23. How predictable were the scares? (25% of score): 6.67
24. How well did they provide a wide variety (types) of scares? (10% of score): 6.92
25. How strong was the ending / finale? (15% of score): 5.42
We found that there were a mix of scares here, from your typical jump scares to more creeping, individual interactions. Because some of these scares work by surprise, we’re keen not to spoil it for you, but suffice to say that jumpy pops struck us from behind doors quite a bit! Scenic effects will also throw you off balance, as creatures are suddenly illuminated in hideous detail from the pitch. Because batching was small, everyone got a good scare as we went, including some wonderfully skin-crawling one-on-one frights.
We thought the entertainment provided by the mazes was most enjoyable – these are long mazes and really make you travel the site! Outside the mazes themselves, there are some fantastic entertainments on offer. A main stage in the Big Top has acts programmed throughout the evening, in the spirit of the circus, high hoops and all. Around this, you have a mechanical pumpkin (think a bull, but this really is a pumpkin!) throwing its riders in the air, and fairground games and rides. Going beyond inclusive activities, there is “The Cave” experience, a rambling man-made caving expedition where you can climb through some very tight spaces and land in ballpit crevasses. Watch out – when we say tight, we mean tight (although one of us is 6”1’ and did just fine). With a reasonable ticket price and over 44 minutes of maze time, not to mention all the other fun you can have in an evening here, Trinity Scares is a scream you shouldn’t miss.
Felixstowe Road, Ipswich , United Kingdom IP3 8UH
