**Halloween Haunt Fest**

A new multi-maze scare attraction opening for the first time in 2025, at Hertfordshire Show Ground, near St Albans.

Please note: this review contains references to the content of the mazes, so might be unsuitable for some readers. There are also some spoilers for the mazes themselves, but I’m trying to avoid going into too much detail wherever I can.

Every year I work for a scare attraction (see my Projects page) so when I got an invite to go and visit another one, I jumped at the chance - I don’t often get to see these things as a punter! I will briefly mention that I was supposed to be going on the opening night, but due to changes in circumstances I couldn’t make it. I obviously saw the other reviews, so from my perspective I think it worked out for me. I don’t think it would be fair or appropriate for me to comment further on any of that, so this review is purely based on the experience I had on my visit. I also took a friend along so a few of her insights are mixed in here too.

First Impressions

When we eventually found our way in (it was poorly signposted and the entrance from the road is very unassuming, I missed it twice!) and had found where to park (it was very unclear what the stewards were doing when we were so far away from them at first) we headed through the gates and into the park itself. Being a Wednesday night, it was understandably very quiet - obviously this will have had a knock on effect on the performers too, but all of the staff we saw on the way in were very friendly and welcoming. We had a quick wander down through the main route, heading to the toilets (scary in themselves, being absolutely pitch black inside!) and scoped out the layout.

I think it’s fair to say they’ve done the best they could with what they were working with, theme wise. The presumably restricted budget results in some patent cost-cutting decisions. There are a LOT of bright white and unthemed marquee tents, plain white hoarding panels and bland metal fencing for the queue lines. Aside from the entrance boards, the mazes are very understated and plain on the outside. The festoon lights for the event at large are a nice touch though they feel a little too festive - replacing a few of the bulbs with flickering ones might have helped here. I do also think that having the fairground is a nice idea but charging £5 extra each for the rides on top of the fairly high ticket prices is a bit cheeky, we didn’t go on anything, and I don’t think we saw any of the rides actually running a cycle the whole night - somewhat unsurprisingly.

But, we’re here primarily for the mazes, so without further ado, lets take a closer look at them here. I’ve presented them in the order we first went through them, though we did repeat most of them later. We also gave each one a rating out of 10 too.

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre

My rating: 5/10
Friend’s rating: 8/10

One of two IP based mazes, they obviously did a lot of work with the story and theming of this one, I’ve not seen the film but I’m familiar enough with it that I was able to recognise everything easily. Unfortunately the first few actors were giving a very flat performance and we had been batched in too quickly so a lot of the tension was immediately lost when we saw the previous group exiting. There was what could have been a nice moment where we went outside to then enter the house (you can see it in the photo above), but with it just being some random props strewn around in an area that was only cordoned off by more of that bright white hoarding, it didn’t feel very immersive. Some of the props elsewhere in the maze let them down too, along with some extremely dodgy “Texas!” accents; but there were some good “surprise” moments in there too, and of course the expected chainsaw chase out at the end was very nicely done with a good representation of a sprawling forest to run through.

I was leading the group on our first visit, so I caught a lot of the jump scares on entering the rooms, but there were also plenty of obviously missed opportunities where actors just weren’t distributed well enough to make any use of the wall holes or the “scatter” sections effectively and they just felt like empty transitional spaces. We both had a good time overall with this one though, and the second time round was a lot better because of how quiet the park was at that time - it was just the two of us going through which meant they were able to take a bit more time and managed to make use of the wall holes and general layout more effectively. I did feel that having multiple actors playing leatherface was a bit weird and inconsistent though - something that was really highlighted when I saw two of them together at one point. Unfortunately on our second visit, some of the actors also looked like they had given up and it didn’t feel like they were putting much in - I guess understandable with how damp and miserable it was getting outside, especially towards the end of the night.

Eden

My rating: 3/10
Friend’s rating: 5/10

This one was very disappointing for me. It all just felt so empty and dull. Sci-Fi is such a bold (and expensive) concept to make work with a horror aspect, and as a result it very frequently falls short of the mark - as it did here. With a story pitch high enough to go into outer space by itself, it’s no wonder that it is pretty much immediately derailed. The opening room was full of promise, with our group informed that we would be split into pairs to go into “cryogenic sleeping booths” on our trip to Earth 2 (very imaginative naming) so as we were shuffled into the small-ish spaces I was expecting something - anything - to happen, but sadly not. The actor-voiced countdown reached zero and the door on the other side opened with the hackneyed scare maze trope of a shouted “we’re under attack get out now!!” and much eye rolling from us. A huge missed opportunity for some intense isolation based scares in those little rooms.

The scenery was bland and flat, or just woefully underwhelming - particularly notable was the room which just had several pairs of tights strung up above the route for us to dodge. There was a distinct lack of atmosphere with no smoke or haze, and also several effects which clearly weren’t working as they should have - pre-closed-in walls for example, or motionless leg-ticklers - and the comically short crawl space was an absolute waste of time and energy. Making guests crawl through a vent could have been a really nice and appropriately themed part of this maze - I have seen how effectively these sorts of spaces can be used for decent scares, but here it just feels blatantly tacked on and worthless. The actors were doing the best with what they had, with the survivors and [aliens?/zombies?/things? - unknown!] all putting as much as they could into the scenes; but the staging again meant their performances often fell flat or were undermined, my favourite of those was the hilariously civilised “abduction” of the captain into a tiny chamber in the centre of the room that wasn’t able to seal away from view so we saw both actors drop their characters once inside. On our second trip through, the poor actor was stood there expecting to be “grabbed” and ended up looking very confused when they weren’t!

This maze will certainly need a lot of work and reconsideration if it’s brought back for next year’s event.

The Trials of Jane Wenham
The Hertfordshire Witch

Me: 8/10
Friend: 7/10

This was my clear stand out for the night. Despite the very cartoonish UV-painted tunnel of time travel, complete with expositional voiceover “You are now in 1712!” there was then a brilliant scene to start off the experience - a horrible tableau of a suspected witch being hanged and a very convincing staging for the actor to work with and sell the effect. (Apart from on our third visit, where she clearly hadn’t been ready for us so was mid-conversation with another actor and had the noose loosely draped over her shoulders… oops!)

This maze made the best use of the marquee spaces in my view, with us weaving our way through various smaller rooms that served as village buildings such as a chapel, the blacksmith or a tavern. It did start to get a bit repetitive to be funneled back to the central street each time, though it was deftly handled with carefully placed props to bar our way and guide us in the right direction - plus the illusion of being back outside was well crafted with effective use of smoke and lighting. There were also some great changes of levels and spaces here, with the floors, walls and ceilings all differing in a few areas to create effective limitations to our movements. It was also the only maze I noticed them doing anything with smells, though it was only in one room, there was a distinctly rotten cheese odor - at least I’m hoping that it was intentional!

The actors were excellent in this maze, with engaging characters and well considered actions/lines to run through. I was propositioned for work every time I went through, and so took a turn at bartending, blacksmithing and jailing on each of our three trips through this maze: really nice extra immersion and interactivity that was lacking in any other maze. An added extra laugh here was that I am friends with one of the actors inside, so she had mischievously told everyone my name - meaning they all gleefully screeched it whenever I approached. Everyone was having a great time.

I personally feel this maze was somewhat lacking in “proper” scares, and the story was a bit tricky to gleam without multiple trips through (I gather it’s loosely based on a real local witch hunt) but the overall pervading atmosphere of dread and impressive attention to the technical details more than made up for it. The final scene also changed each time we went through, which I found quite interesting, it was nice to see how each different actor in that crucial role approached it differently.

Winnie the pooh
Blood and Honey

Me: 4/10
Friend: 6/10

I have been a bit more generous with my score simply for the fact that I’ve not seen the films, so I imagine that a lot of the content of this maze would be more recognisable or effective for someone who had, but frankly this was my least favourite of the whole night, and it was the only maze we just did once.

This one was very poorly considered and delivered. Another IP based maze, but it seemed to us like they were relying on the borrowed content to do a lot of the heavy lifting because the experience in terms of a scare maze was absolutely horrendous. A nonsensical mish-mashing of random scenes and pointless or ineffective tableaux. It had the most confusing layout and the least to make of or do with any of it - empty winding corridors with just some flashing lights and thumping techno music - any actors we did encounter were fleeting and laughably mundane. At large in this maze, their collective idea of attempting to scare us was to wave their hands suddenly in our faces or slam metal trays down to make a loud noise - very basic and highly ineffective.

At one point it looked like they were attempting a fake out ending, to try to make out that we were in a safe area but it was an empty (or unattended) room so it just ended up being confusing. The inclusion of police officers then gave the following rooms a very strange energy, and we were all left puzzled as to what was going on or where we should be heading. Another comedy highlight was an actor screeching “Tigger! Look at what you’ve done!” behind us as we were leaving the room so we didn’t have any clue what they were talking about. And then we were just back to the strobey rave atmosphere again, draining any chance of tension completely. It really did just feel like a bad night out, trying to find the toilets in a dodgy nightclub.

This maze also ends with a chainsaw run, but far less effectively - it felt really pointless and without any earned threat or menace it left the poor actor hovering near us, impotently revving the chainsaw desperately trying to save face. In my view, a chainsaw run is already a pretty cheap scare tactic, and having two of them in the same park only served to highlight how much better the other one had been used than this one.

Other Elements

Outside of the mazes, the roaming actors were a lot of fun - particularly Nigel (pictured) the nervy paranormal investigator, we spoke to him a few times during the night and he was brilliant every time - he brought a great energy to his character and was very quick thinking with his dialogue too. The soul collectors (we are guessing) were a little odd and one of them was whispering so quietly we didn't make out much of what she was saying. I also don't think they appreciated my "so you want our souls?" joke either, sadly - but I couldn’t resist making it anyway. There were other roaming actors we saw but didn’t get any contact with, but who seemed to making good of their interactions with others.

We received no vocal safety briefings for any of the mazes, the couple that had videos running to do this looked very cheap and didn't go into much detail. Looking back at my photos I notice that the entrances have safety boards, but I certainly didn’t spot them in person, unassuming as they are. All of the staff were very friendly and chatty though so there’s definitely some credit for that.

The food selection was varying - though as expected it was subject to “event pricing” which translates to £5 for a small plate of chips (rising to £10 if you want to "load" them), £3 for one hot wing, £2.50 for one marshmallow on a stick, and an eye-watering £14 for a burger… but despite my objections to the prices, it all seemed decent enough quality. The chips were alright, and the vendor was also very friendly. I later visited the toastie stand where I had a slightly extravagantly priced cheese and marmite toastie, but it was tasty and gave us an excuse to sit out of the rain for a bit longer.

The over-egged “secret bar” was hilariously anticlimactic, given that it was clearly marked on the map and was also incredibly simple to spot - essentially a single shipping container with a lonely staff member and a tiny worktop inside it. Ordering was also another comedy moment: "What would you like?" "Well, what do you have?" "Only one cocktail so that's all I can offer you!" - it turned out to be a very disappointing mostly-ice concoction for £8, which my friend bought mainly out of pity, but the server was having some nice banter and laughs with us while she made it so that was nice.

Towards the end of our night, the weather showed no signs of letting up and things became quite slippery in a few places - the queue lines and paths to the mazes themselves are just uncovered muddy grass so do beware of that if it rains when you go, I almost slipped a few times.

Despite the rain, the event pressed on, though the staff did helpfully and personably inform us they would be closing slightly early because of the inclemency. The roaming actors who did stay out were all furnished with appropriately themed umbrellas, and their spirits were not dampened in the slightest.

Overall, we had a fun night. For a first year, it wasn't what I would call bad at all, though I do think it has been wildly overpriced for a debut. I also found it somewhat cheeky that they were trying to sell expensive merch for an unestablished event - you do have to earn that privilege a little bit more, I think.

There's definitely a lot for them to work on but it's clear that the people there are very passionate about making something of it, and there’s certainly a lot of potential here which could be brought out to shine with enough care, attention and crucially - consideration. At this moment, it does unfortunately feel a bit hastily thrown together.

I sincerely hope they do well enough from their initial venture this year so that they can start to make some decent investments for next year - and perhaps consider taking some more time to focus on the content and efficacy of the backbone of the event - their mazes.

💀💀💀 / 5

EDIT 29/10/25 - Unfortunately the company has just announced that they have suddenly ceased trading and opened up insolvency proceedings. See their full statement copied below.

It’s a great shame to read, I genuinely do think the event had a lot of potential, and I feel very sad for the actors, vendors and other event staff who apparently only found out by text message shortly before this statement was posted.

I was given some complimentary tickets in exchange for my honest opinions of this event.
This event is not affiliated or in competition with the one I work for, that has no impact on my opinions either.
Find out more about my approach in my reviewing policy.