Fear Forest Review

Fear Forest was a temporary scare attraction for the 2014 Halloween season, running on 31st October & 1st November at Portland College in Mansfield. Created by GNG Entertainment Ltd, it featured 3 scare mazes, plus rides and stalls for guests to enjoy.

Before we even got started with the individual scare attractions, I was thrilled to see some roaming scareactors. They looked great and really added to the spooky atmosphere, keeping the queue line entertained and scaring the little kids. I would like to see more of this at scare events; it’s a nice touch and a great way to set the tone for the evening.

Creepy Cottage

The first of the three attractions, Creepy Cottage, was designed with younger guests in mind. I don’t have kids so I’m speculating here, but I think this little maze would definitely have succeeded in giving youngsters a really fun, scary experience. A lot of the adults seemed quite frightened too!

One or two great setpieces with individual scares, plus misdirection, jumps and spooky dialogue made up this fun walkthrough attraction, which took place partially on the ground floor of a house, with the remainder in the back garden (a great use of the space). This was perfect introduction to scare entertainment for younger thrill seekers!

Scarytales

Presented as a series of live action spooky stories, this was the highlight of the evening. Guests were taken on a journey which began through a wardrobe à la Narnia, into a sinister storybook world made up of various rooms with different characters and themes.

Each segment was immensely enjoyable; we attended a tea party where we were offered rancid cake (it stank), we met Santa (he isn’t as jolly in real life), and encountered a life-size Jack-in-a-Box.

The rooms in this attraction had an astounding level of detail. They were beautifully lit, and the actors inside were all superb. Unlike some scareactors I’ve interacted with this season, all of these stayed in character and were keen to engage us, making for a very theatrical experience. This was very narrative-based, and as with Creepy Cottage, it was designed for a wide age range, so overall it was light on the big scares. That being said, there were one or two amazing impact scares, one of which made a woman’s legs give way! Sometimes, watching someone suffer can be as good as getting a good scare yourself!

The Fear

Unlike the first 2 mazes, The Fear seemed to be aimed at guests who were a bit older, and was presented as being scariest of the evening. In terms of jump scares, it certainly was that! I got a great target scare.

The maze was very heavy on the strobe but I was pleased to see one or two scene changes. One of these featured a row of bodies under bloody sheets, but sadly this scene fell flat as we spotted the scareactor before he/she had chance to do anything. The room was lit quite brightly which didn’t help.

On two occasions we were a bit confused by the layout and had to be shown where to go. This seemed mainly down to the fact that some rooms had multiple doors, and the scareactors weren’t pursuing us or steering us in any particular direction. As we ventured further in, I noticed some writing scrawled all over the walls; sinister messages such as ‘she’s coming’, which was a great way to build up the tension. The end of the maze was a bit of an anti-climax, although I loved the sound towards the end, it was really unnerving and effective.