The Boiler House

Alton Towers Scarefest, Alton Towers, Staffordshire.

CONTAINS SPOILERS

          On Saturday 17^th October, me and 8 other Scare-E TV members joined force to venture to Alton Towers, to see what this years Scarefest event held in-store for us!

          After a full day in the park we thought we had better head out towards the hotels to go and attend the two other attractions, Field of 1000 Screams and The Boiler House.

          After being through Field Of 1000 Screams we headed over to The Boiler House before ending our night in the hotel bar. What I really loved about it from outside was the news van setting up the story of the psychotic murdering escapee twins. I thought this was a really nice touch! The speakers at the back of the van played the sound of sirens and helicopters, this was very clever as it really sounded like helicopters were landing/taking off above your head. We were given the rules by an employee before two bangs and we were allowed in.

          The first character you meet runs out of the building in front of you, he was very shaken and makes you come inside. What hit me first was the smell of burning and the overall heat, you really did feel as though you was in a boiler house. We was then lined up along a corridor with some shower cubicles at the front of us and behind us. It was really off putting the fact the actor kept staring at one of the curtains and speaking to it as though somebody was stood there. He rushed off down a side corridor and run out of one of the curtains in front of you, it gave the group a sense of what was to come, or did it?

          He ushered the group on to another room, he lined us up against a wall facing some furnaces, this room was VERY warm indeed. At the sound of an air blast an actor wearing a doll’s mask leaped out from behind our group and brandished a knife towards the shaking actor, and then towards our group. Another air blast beckoned and the actor tackled the murderer who then killed the actor with his knife and we began our journey.

          The next room was another boiler room but this time it was the turn of the female doll faced murderer to make her appearance. She stood in front of the group tilting her head from one side to another looking at us and covering her mouth. She then ran off to the side and let us go, not before the male twin lunged through a drop down to the group’s right.

          The next scene was a large room filled to the brim with lockers either side of us. It was a very large space and all the group expected an actor to be stood amongst the lockers to slam them and give us all a fright, but this didn’t happen once and we were left to walk through them with nothing happening.

          We all then entered a room with blueprints stuck on the walls, a table in the middle and a lot of objects dotted around, this room was just a blur as all I remember is that the female actress was stood in the room and an air blast went off as the male jumped through another gap in the wall to attack us. That led us to the claustrophobia wall.

          This was a long section of ‘bouncy castle’  material wall with air blown both sides, you had to walk through the middle as the air bounced you from one side to another. It was a nice effect but I really didn’t see how it fitted into this industrial attraction?

          The next and penultimate scene was a large room with pipes along both walls, coming from the walls, into the walls, into the roof etc. the female actress was on the left and jumped out waving her hand at us. Whilst on the right the male jumped out showing us his knife again. We then entered a tunnelled area where we had to duck down. This tunnelled area twisted and turned before we reached the final exit.

          This attraction just did not make sense, whilst it didn’t scare well, the theming and overall atmosphere instead made up for that. The masks that the actors used just didn’t scare in that type of environment they would be best suited for an attraction themed to a doll factory etc. The fact that the two murdering actors were also very quiet, infact, silent characters, didn’t work, this may have been due to the masks, but it just didn’t work.

I give this attraction – 5/10

This review was written by Mark Lofthouse