With 11 mazes, cabaret, numerous entertainment stages, a fire and laser show, roaming actors galore, and a site jam-packed with food, drink and other entertainment, Tulleys Shocktober Fest is billed as Europe’s Largest Scream Park, and its proximity to London makes it one of the easier scare attractions to visit if you live in the capital. Tulleys Shocktober Fest is hands down one of the most impressive scare parks in the country, and for its 29th year they did not disappoint!
This year’s Tulleys Shocktober Fest Scream Park showcased an impressive variety of performances across its mazes, with several standout casts bringing energy, humour, and genuine scares to the night.
Among the highlights, “Electrick Circus” delivered one of the evening’s most entertaining experiences. The lively clowns filled the maze with mischief, popping from around corners, blocking paths, and leading guests astray. Their physicality and spontaneity made the attraction unpredictable and fun. “Wastelands Penitentiary” also shone thanks to its relentless energy. Actors appeared from every angle, shouting from cages, lunging through bars, and immersing visitors in a chaotic world of rioting prisoners. Their full-throttle commitment gave the maze real drive and excitement.
“Purgatory” stood out for its effective use of atmosphere and character. The eerie nuns and the flickering lantern mechanic created genuine tension, while one actor’s fixation on the light as if a moth drawn to a flame added memorable personality. “Haunted Hayride: Route 666” offered a generous cast whose short but spirited performances (from dysfunctional families to cryptic masked figures) balanced humour with unease. “Chop Shop” opened with great intensity as actors swarmed from truck beds and scenery, their energy making for a chaotic, cinematic experience with shouts down to us and playfully jestful interactions that felt refreshingly different from previous years.
Other mazes, such as “The Carving”, maintained steady momentum with well-timed jump scares and performers who embraced their rural horror personas. While brief, these encounters kept the maze engaging. “HELL-EMENTS” offered a different kind of performance, relying on tactile interaction with touches, whispers, and close encounters that built suspense in the dark.
Yet, not every maze reached these heights. “Glitch”, despite being new and featuring a fair number of actors, suffered from shallow characterisation. The performers, playing androids or guards, gave short, repetitive interactions that failed to bring this digital world to life. “The Village Coven of 13” also fell flat, with witches that looked impressive but relied too on repetitive tsk-ing and murmuring, leaving little sense of individuality.
“Creepy Cottage” and “Doom Town” both showed potential but lacked variety in their performances. While “Doom Town’s” undead were consistent and appropriate, the acting could enjoy more distinct roles to match each setting, adding richness and realism – such as a shop attendant in the Blockbuster, or a server in Greggs. “Creepy Cottage’s” cast, meanwhile, leaned on jump scares that couldn’t quite match the sophistication of the set design. “Chop Shop’s” second half lost steam with too few actors populating the blood-streaked corridors, diminishing the tension built in the opening (we were wondering where all the chainsaw artists had run off to).
We would definitely say Tulleys Shocktober Fest once again delivered an impressive night of theatrical horror, powered by passionate and energetic casts. While some attractions relied too much on effects or repetition, the best mazes (notably for us “Electrick Circus” and “Wastelands Penitentiary”) proved that committed performers remain the heart of the Scream Park’s success. The stars of the night overall were actually the roaming actors, who provided the best and most realised characters, and who had intense interactions with anyone who came upon them. Creepy creatures menaced and chased guests, ladies in waiting taught dance moves, and a trio of nurses had in-depth tongue-in-cheek conversations. With a little more balance in character variety and pacing, and with a lot of these improvisation and actor talents seen from roaming characters brought inside the mazes themselves, Tulleys’ next season could be its most immersive yet.
Oddly, we think “Haunted Hayride: Route 666” probably beat the actual scare mazes this year in terms of costume and makeup, providing some really good looks for the huge variety of characters on display. Tulleys also raises the stakes with the character design of their roaming actors, which are certainly the most aesthetically interesting of them all, from a crazed boar-head butcher to deranged botox-masked characters, and of course their iconic creepy twins. The roaming character designs are complete from head to toe, and arguably some of the strongest we’ve seen all season.
We do think a bit more of this interesting character design could make its way into some of the mazes, however. There are incredible and eerie bagged head prop creatures in “The Carving”, and we were hoping to see some actors dressed like this. Some of the makeup is also a bit simplistic, and we’d love to see a few actors the haunts, such as “Doom Town” and “Chop Shop”, delve a bit deeper into more unique territories. And unfortunately we have to call out “Glitch” – sadly the alien-like creatures just did not do it for us, especially having already seen some amazing sci-fi characters in other mazes this season. The costumes really looked like they were wearing white jogger sets…and it just all went downhill from there.
We were thrilled to have such a high level of customer service at Tulleys Shocktober Fest. Approaching by road, you are immediately met with a series of black-on-yellow signs that guide you to the entrance, which is visible and emblazoned with the festival’s distinctive branding. Parking is also available in plenty, and attendants made sure that we parked up easily. Make sure to note your row number though – that will make things a whole lot easier for you when exiting the park.
Once inside, you are given a map of the site, which makes internal navigation easy. Throughout the evening we didn’t see anything that would come close to a safety issue, and it’s clear that Tulleys are particularly concerned with providing a secure experience.
We didn’t have a lot of interaction with staff during the night, but those working the front desk explained how our tickets worked clearly (both with wristbands and confirmatory punch cards) and the shape of the evening. At the entrance to each maze, ticket takers seemed engaged and helpful.
Tulleys maintains a very strong web presence, with lots of information on the attractions themselves, dates and times of operation, FAQs, and how to book tickets. All our digital interactions were also prompt and courteous.
The pre-haunt areas for all the mazes are relatively strong, with the highest marks as usual going to “Wastelands Penitentiary” and the massive set design on the exterior, which is home to their infamous fire and laser show. We were also impressed with the pre-haunt areas of “Doom Town”, which is a village graveyard that gives very Haunted Mansion vibes in the best of ways, “The Carving”, with corn stalks and a giant American flag, and the automotive set pieces surrounding “Chop Shop”. Many of the other haunts, however, are much more paired back, although all have at least a bit of theming to prime you for the experience. We do think the pre-haunt area for their new maze “Glitch” could do with a bit of a rethink. The LED screen is around the corner from their queueing area, which seems a bit dead, so perhaps this could use a little rejig.
We also think the exiting strategy for most of their haunts is great, all spitting you out into the central action of the park. Yes, some exits are in quieter areas than others, but there’s always something to do when leaving a maze, and it all feels quite interconnected.
For the insane queue sizes that this park sees, we’ve got to commend Tulleys on their batching system – despite larger group sizes in some of the mazes, we rarely had queueing situations within mazes themselves, except within “HELL-EMENTS” and “The Village Coven of 13”, but due to the dark maze nature of the former and the giant birth canal of the latter, these are to be expected. Tulleys seems to have nailed the process of somehow getting the hundreds and hundreds of customers through mazes, and yet still maintaining the integrity of audience experience.
There were some real highlights this year in terms of SFX within almost every single maze. “The Carving” has fun sound designs, progressing from banjo music to oldtime Americana to more sinister sounds, a few instances of flames and animatronics, and of course a beautiful set design with their high wooden fencing, corn stalks, and creatures with bagged heads. It’s the most cinematic maze in the park, with “Doom Town” a close second, with their intricate sets which drop you inside an actual town, letting you explore each store from a Blockbuster to a Greggs. The theming of this one is insane, and has some entertaining sound design incorporated throughout too, with nostalgic 80s soundtracks playing in each of the spaces.
“Electrick Circus” is always a fun maze, with the use of fluorescence, sounds of electricity over other soundtracks, shaking floors, animatronics, air cannons, a birth canal and a spinning tunnel too. This level of special effects is almost matched in “The Village Coven of 13”, which makes you feel as if you’ve been dropped into a swampy forest, with smoke and laser effects, a drawbridge, and a room with heat at the end which made you feel like the witches were burning. But this year there wasn’t enough smoke in the swamp area, meaning that you could see all the actors and gear around you, and didn’t quite convince you that you were wading through the waters.
Other highlights we must mention are the SFX lantern concept in “Purgatory”, the smell of gasoline in “Chop Shop” and the beautiful set pieces in “Haunted Hayride”. We do, however, think there’s room for improvement in “HELL-EMENTS”, which for a dark maze does have some fun effects but we would hope this many years into the run would have more, “Creepy Cottage”, which in general is due for a reskin, and most disappointingly “Glitch”, which for a brand new maze basing itself on government controlled experiments in the sci-fi realm could have gone crazy in the effects area, but felt empty of most sensory effects.
21. How scary was it? (35% of score): 6.18
22. How well did they provide scares to everyone in the group? (15% of score): 7.78
23. How predictable were the scares? (25% of score): 6.8
24. How well did they provide a wide variety (types) of scares? (10% of score): 5.73
25. How strong was the ending / finale? (15% of score): 6.8
Whilst a no-touch attraction, Tulleys does make sure to deliver jolting scares in some particularly unsettling ways. For us, the stand-out scare of the night was “Electrick Circus”, whose disorientating fluorescent paint and hum of sparks led to an array of scares. Floors shook suddenly, air cannons blasted us, and clowns (of course!) writhed ever forward. Ingenious here is the set design itself, with irregularly shaped doors blocking what you can see, so that when clowns suddenly popped out you had no idea they were going to be there. Many of the scares here included being beckoned forward, only for the assailant to disappear into the shadows, then reappear out of nowhere for a terrifying fright from behind.
Also impressive for making sure everyone got a good scare was “Purgatory”. In this maze, you are sent in two at a time with nothing but a lantern. This lantern reacts to the environment you’re in, sometimes illuminating everything, other times strobing, and sometimes petering out to nothing. This means that when you get a scare, it’s just you and who you came with, with that intimacy making it all the more chilling. And sometimes, you don’t even know where the scares are coming from – in “HELL-EMENTS”, for example, this might be a blast of air, change in temperature, unstable footing, or a subtle feather run across your hand.
We recommend Tulleys to those who want a good dose of fear, but aren’t ready for a really extreme attraction yet. You’re not going to get pinned and pulled around here, and that’s fine. But you will feel menaced at most turns.
At £50 a ticket, this might seem like a steep price compared to other haunts, but for this mammoth scream park it’s actually worth your money, with the mazes wracking up to a whole 75 minutes of walkthrough time, and that’s not including any of the extra entertainment like the cabaret show, roaming actors, fairground rides or stage shows. Yet, we doubt audiences with regular tickets ever get to experience this all in a night. Tulleys is most likely the biggest and most populated scream park, and with this comes enormous queues.
We do tend to tell everyone that fast pass is the only way to go if you also want to enjoy everything else the park has to offer, but Tulleys fast track system means that you’re actually paying extra for each fast track you want in each maze, meaning the price does rack up. Splurging for at least a few fast tracks is the best way to go, this way you can bypass the queues for some of the more popular mazes, but save your money on others – giving you plenty to spend on food, drinks and other fun elsewhere in the park.
Turners Hill Road, Crawley, United Kingdom RH10 4PE