The seven horror mazes (the most ever):

• The Walking Dead: Living Nightmare - returning for a second year, an indoor free flow horror maze where you must try to escape from the notorious Negan. It is fully immersive with large scale sets and superb attention to detail throughout. Fans will no doubt love all the carefully recreated scenes from the hit TV show, including the hospital, prison and school bus. The opening sequence has been updated, replacing the previously very effective scare, but doing more to introduce the story.
  
  
• The Walking Dead: Do or Die - brand new to Fright Nights for 2018 and replacing last year's Sanctum. The attraction includes both indoor and outdoor sections, so we suggest waiting until it's dark for the best experience. A short introduction takes placed on a school bus, before each group is sent out into the maze encountering a series of well crafted scenes, which are quite heavy on blood and gore. The parts in-between scenes are a little lacking with unthemed fencing and empty space so there is room for improvement, but it's much stronger overall and we expect that this will be the most popular of Thorpe Park's new mazes due to the IP.
  
  
• SAW Alive - it still has some of the best scares of all the attractions at the event. All the iconic scenes from the movies remain, and the actors are some of the best. Come face to face with Jigsaw and his victims, as they complete 'games' to test their will to live through physical or psychological torture. Don't forget SAW The Ride next door, the horror movie themed roller coaster, even better at night!
  
  
• Blair Witch - a new outdoor horror maze for Fright Nights in 2018, which is similar to the previous incarnations but with much more going on along a shortened route. After being gathered in a campground and given an introduction to the attraction, we ventured off into the woods encountering plenty of very enthusiastic actors along the route and eventually reached Burkitsville for the big finale, which was brilliantly done and had us running out.
  
  
• Platform 15 - this predominantly outdoor horror maze gets better every year. Our guide was fantastic, both creepy and funny in equal measure, as he led us down to the tracks to encounter the mysterious Sleeper Express. For the first time all of the effects were timed perfectly for maximum effect, the indoor sections were as gross as ever and the tunnel much much darker. The finale was far better too.
  
  
• Vulcan Peak - a new hooded scare maze for Fright Nights in 2018 taking place inside the former I'm A Celebrity attraction building. The queue area and pre-show build up a decent atmosphere with some tribal features in a jungle setting, then you are instructed to place a hood over your head and navigate the maze in complete darkness with only a rope to guide you. Sadly very little happens throughout the entire experience, and a lot of shuffling along is accompanied by a few sound effects and the occasional feeling of brushing past things.
  
  
• Dead Creek Woods - another new addition. It's like a mash up of the original Blair Witch and Platform 15, taking place along a wooded path with a series of sets along the way. In this scare maze a virus has taken hold and the victims have been quarantined, but it's not long until things go awry and you are forced to flee or risk being infected. We really enjoyed our run through, with some effective scares and plenty of actors. We recommend waiting until it gets dark to experience this at it's best.

Other scares:

• Screamplexx Cinema - a nice little extra for Fright Nights in 2018 with a selection of short horror films, but contrary to the sign they are not in 4D. We experienced Death Scenes, the seventh slice in Bloody Cuts' anthology made by a young team of UK film-makers on low budgets. It was a great film, but we were surprised that none of the cinema's effects were utilised or any scare actors made an appearance.
  
  
• Containment - this combined escape room and horror attraction has returned for another year. The puzzles have been updated again and are even more challenging, but the premise remains the same, with four rooms based on four fears. The scare actors were once again fantastic, doing their best to completely terrify and distract us, but sometimes giving us clues along the way too.
  
  
• New for 2018, roaming characters help to spread the fear across the theme park, with the clowns of The Big Top: Showtime and vampires of Terror at Amity High keeping us on our toes throughout the night.

Because four of the seven horror mazes are considerably better in the dark, try to plan your visit carefully and make sure you do the other three as soon as they open.

Overall the event remains one of the biggest and best at a UK theme park and a staple of the Halloween season. If the organisers had been slightly less ambitious with the number of new experiences, and focused on the quality of a smaller number, it would have been perfection.

We stayed at the on-site Thorpe Shark Hotel so were relieved that it had been designated a Safe Zone. The convenience of sleeping just a few steps away from all of the action in the theme park, combined with a hearty breakfast in the morning, made it ideal.

Thorpe Park Fright Nights continues on 11th - 14th and 18th - 31st October 2018, with the park open 10am-10pm every day and the horror mazes from 3pm.

FRIGHT NIGHTS TICKETS FROM £37.50

FRIGHT NIGHTS BREAKS FROM £82 PP