Can you escape The Asylum?

Thorpe Park had been running their Halloween event, Fright Nites, for 2 years by the time 2005 came around. They decided to refresh the event, rebranding it as “Fright Nights”, and to re-do their mazes. Their more popular maze, The Freezer, needed little work, so a rebrand and a reversal of the route, for operational reasons, was enough.

And so The Asylum was born.

Even years after it has closed, The Asylum is thought of as synonymous with Fright Nights, and is every bit as iconic as the event itself.

The premise of the maze was simple. You would walk around an asylum which was taken over by dangerous people, looking for an escape. And the maze itself was even more simple: the majority of the maze consisted of chain mesh style fencing and intense strobe lighting. The boundary of the maze was all made of mirrors too. As a result, this meant the maze felt very disorientating, and seemed a much larger space.

Scares would come thick and fast, and actors were always very intense. The maze also featured loud blaring sirens, mimicking an emergency, as well as a legendary soundtrack provided by Midnight Syndicate. 

The maze also featured a chainsaw runout finale. Although in current UK scare industry this is very common, back when The Asylum was first introduced, this was much less heard of, and as such, really got people running for the exit…and beyond!

Running for 9 seasons, the maze is the joint-longest serving maze at Fright Nights (along with Saw Alive). It has also been inspiration for many scenes in many other Fright Nights mazes since, including The Big Top (the playground strobe section), The Walking Dead: Living Nightmare (strobe section), Trailers (dentist scene) and more.

Unfortunately, in The Asylum’s final season in 2013, the maze made national headlines as some people found the theme of the maze insensitive to those with mental health disorders. The name of ‘The Asylum’, along with the park referencing crazed inmates as characters, was picked up and many people felt this was a negative stereotype. The park maintained that it was never intended in such a way, and was all about specific context (and indeed, many scare events do similar themes, including to this day). In any case, the park had been considering retiring the maze prior to this, and this was a final decision-maker.

In short, The Asylum will likely always remain Thorpe Park’s most iconic Fright Nights attraction. It’s simplicity and latest legacy will always remain.