NEW – Purgatory Town

Condemned souls wander the streets, trying to cross over

NEW – Creature Campus: Shock to the System

The Sarpedon Society’s creation is fighting back

DeadBeat

Experience an all time low

Stitches

What is The Toymaker hiding?

Survival Games

The games have changed…with new scenes and characters for 2025

The Crows of Mawkin Meadow

Where The Crows go…nobody knows

Lucifer’s Lair

Spend time with Lucifer and his minions

IT 4D Experience

Come face-to-face with Pennywise, in 4D

Review

Thorpe Park once again invited us to their VIP Launch Event for Fright Nights, which we are extremely grateful for. Fright Nights 2025 focuses on making the award-winning event more consistent, and is hosted on Lucifer, promising everyone A Hell of a night. Here’s our thoughts on everything following that night, and the first night of the event that was opened to the public.

New for 2025

2025 only introduced one new attraction, Purgatory Town. Adding to an already strong central line up is difficult, but Purgatory Town does just that. An ‘interactive’ scare zone based in Big Easy Boulevard, there are many characters to meet here. All are souls who are stuck in a town for lost souls, who have died but are stuck between heaven and hell.

Every character has their own extensive story, and the more you speak with them, the more you get to know it. They also encourage you to speak with others. These characters vary from a gravedigger who always preferred to company of the dead, a vampire couple looking for host the biggest party ever, bakers who have a certain…acquired taste (no, we won’t donate our toe fungus for your ice cream cake!), Edgar Allen’s Poe supposed-brother and many more.

Purgatory Town has minimal theming, and isn’t a scary zone. What it does offer however is additional – included – atmosphere across the park, as well as a layer of interactivity with actors which you don’t get a chance to have elsewhere on park. The custom audio for the area certainly helps with this too. As such, Purgatory Town is a welcome addition, helping to extend the park’s line up for Fright Nights further!

Two of the park’s existing mazes also saw changes for 2025. The most notable was Survival Games, featuring new characters and story, as well as now being a single-route attraction, as opposed to splitting guests up. Whilst this means the attraction is less-intense than previous years, it is still the most intense attraction at the park. The new storyline revolves around a new serum, Sirex, which has made the assassins more viscious, reducing the need for them to wear armour, and focus more on their main goal…killing you.

There have been tweaks to the main portion of the maze to turn it into a single-route attraction. This also means the maze is significantly longer, and still features the classic chainsaw ending to get people running for the exit!

Trailers also introduces two new scenes. Beyond the Veil replaces Knock Knock, and serves as a nod to the short-lived ‘Roots of Evil’ maze. The room remains heavy on the forest theming, but also features plenty of space for actors to hide to hit a really good scare. X24 replaces Breakout at Brainsburys, and is a nod to the much-loved Experiment 10. This strong clinical room is a bit more open than its predecessor, but features strong smells, and good opportunities for scares.

Trailers also includes a new pre-show, in the cinema room, featuring a video from the Director. The ending also features updated TVs which show videos that were used for the finale of Experiment 10 in 2012.

Both Trailers and Survival Games also now feature pre-recorded safety announcements, both of which are indoors. Trailers is in the Foyer as you go in, Survival Games just after the first flaps. This helps make these announcements clearer, and helps hosts a lot!

Creature Campus also evolved for 2025, with the new tagline of Shock to the System. This year’s dance show is raised onto a stage, along with the same backdrop of last year, making it easier to view the show when it gets popular. The story this year revolves around Medusa’s Sarpedon Society of Gorgons accidentally creating a group Frankenstein-esque monsters, called The Franks, who are immune to Medusa’s stone-turning abilities. Featuring more props and effects, this is once again a really strong dance show

Back for 2025

Everything from 2024 returned for 2025. Stitches and DeadBeat have received a couple of minor tweaks, but otherwise remain as strong and consistent as they have previously. Though some people may find keeping all mazes less exciting, it should be noted that these still receive excellent reactions from the majority of guests!

The Crows of Mawkin Meadow is also back, and once again has a different layout. This version is the longest yet, but still features the meancing-looking Crows, humans who are turning into crows and – new for this year – humans being burnt at the stake in a horrifyingly brilliant finale. Dense on fog and with excellent lighting, once again, The Crows is much more like an outdoor maze than a scare zone.

IT 4D also returns in the Sunset Cinema, and yes, the staff members still have the yellow coats and little red balloons!

Last, but definitely not least, is Lucifer’s Lair, back for its third year. Once again, Lucifer and Lillith are the focal point of the zone, regularly roaming around the area with their demon-minions. The area features several shows, including the Opening Ceremony for Fright Nights, Lillith’s Deadly Sins (a dance and live music show), Hell’s Angels (the pair of circus-like stunt performers), live music from the Rocka and the absolute highlight of Fright Nights, the Hellfire show, a fire and dance show. Lucifer’s Lair is, in our opinion, the crown jewel of Fright Nights and serves as the perfect central hub for the event. This is even better now that Lucifer himself is the focal point of the event’s marketing, and you get the chance to meet him!

Overall Thoughts

2025 might not bring about a new maze (the first time this has happened at Thorpe Park since 2010!), but there’s still plenty of new things to help the event feel fresh compared to last year. More importantly, the event is still very strong, building on the successes of last year, and it certainly feels like the event will remain consistently strong (one of the hardest things for a Halloween event) for the whole duration of the event!