Humdrum at Hinchingbrooke

Heyy, 

Finally. The day has come where Mr. Warehouse and I finally get around to completing our Save The Dates, I mean, only eleven months, one week and five days to go! All that is holding them up now is me pulling my finger out and writing on all the names of recipients. Soon, I promise everyone - Soon!

Other than that what has been happening in life ... Well, this weekend was one I had been dreading, not going to lie. With the schpoopy season in full swing, I feel, as does the bezzie, Miss Tweedle-Dee, that we really have lucked out this year. October is nearly ended and we have not visited one pumpkin patch, only shopped in Home Sense once or twice and barely done anything Halloween-y. I suppose what with Miss Tweedle-Dee visiting Mrs Tweedle-Dumb and her Husband in Los Angeles and me popping off to Krakow with me Nanny Pumpkin most of October was gone before we had even started. Nevertheless, we threw ourselves into it this weekend, and, as with last year, I feel that we continued with the mini tradition we have here and visited a horror scare maze. 

Mr Warehouse, Miss Tweedle-Dee, Miss JoHo (an old work colleague of Miss Tweddle-Dee and Miss TweedleDumb's) and I set off after the sun had gone down yesterday, en route to what is dubbed one of the scariest horror events in the UK - Hinchingbrooke House! Now I must say that I did hype it up last time we spoke in my blog post (The Horror at Hinchingbrooke House: The Beginning) but when the website is literally entitled "enterifyoudare.co.uk" and reputable (if you can even call them that nowadays) newspapers like The Sun calling it an "absolutely terrifying experience", I was in no doubt that it was most certainly the case. Waiting in the car park for the rest of the group to arrive, "The Horror at Hinchingbrooke House" loomed over us with all its terrifying trees and foreboding walls. You could hear the petrified screams of people and the roar of chainsaws. "This was not just a silly old Halloween maze for kids!" I thought to myself as we walked through the gates. 

Near to Huntingdon and nestled in the Cambridgeshire countryside, an award-winning, interactive and realistic horror experience trapped, I mean, encapsulated audiences within the famous haunted grounds and house. However as we stepped through the first couple of rooms, immersed in some of the most famous characters from both mine and probably your most feared horror films and TV shows my overriding feeling wasn't fear or terror. It was disappointment. 

Within the confines of the house we experienced the already forewarned dark rooms, forests, and mazes, however, the 13 sets and supposed around 80 actors were far from lurking in the darkness, and almost at times seemed non-existent. I do not recall walking through the attraction meet my maker with the likes of Jigsaw from the SAW franchise movies, nor did I have my nightmares come true with Freddy Krueger from the Nightmare on Elm Street films. I did however drown it all out with a visit from Jason Voorhees and walked through a very simplistic set up of Purge night. There was plenty of inspired twists the likes along the Texas Chainsaw Massacre and for me, whilst that is one of the most terrifying (because what happens if they are real, what happens if something went wrong, what happens if someone swapped it out with a real chainsaw?!) it was still a little too much which left me, at least, feeling as though they heavily relied on the noise and fear of chainsaws and not the attraction as a whole. I don't think I even saw the most popular of movie spooks this year, as Pennywise was nowhere to bee seen. My question was where is IT?

Now don't get me wrong, they did an OK job. Yes I hyped it that people touch you and reach out more than normal and I won't lie, I did scream and jump a few times, but certainly not as much as last years visit to The Howl - "5 huge Horror Mazes with live creatures at every twist & turn" based on a farm out towards Leighton Buzzard. Whilst "The Horror at Hinchingbrooke" was (still is) an extremely scary experience, being voted one of the scariest events in the UK, I really thought it would live up to more than an overuse of chainsaws and strange mazes where you knew hardly any of the characters. I suppose what also didn't help was the waiting around and the queuing as other groups in front of use kept getting held up or slowing down. In my last blog post I described it as "not for the faint-hearted" and that I shall "prepare my vocal cords for near explosion as I scream and (attempt to) run from the scaries and the baddies and the meanies" but sad to say that a combination of maybe knowing what was coming, the waiting around and maybe the camaraderie of the other groups, it just was a bit more of Humdrum at Hinchingbrooke. Maybe next year will be scarier as I will no longer be a Miss and instead be betrothed ... 

'Til next time, Love A.Lou xx