To touch or not to touch, that is the question.

A somewhat innuendo-leaning intro, perhaps, but one of the key considerations of surely any modern scare attraction is whether or not they will allow their cast members to physically grab and interact with visitors.

It isn’t difficult to comprehend the arguments against doing so. It’s surely a safeguarding and insurance nightmare, for one, and there’s always the looming hazard of a guest getting grab-happy (or worse) in retaliation.

For as long as we have been reviewing (now the tenth year!), Screamfest at the National Forest Adventure Farm in Burton upon Trent has always been a strictly hands-off experience. Not that this has in any way been a detriment or shortcoming; a regular refreshment of its mazes and some USPs such as its ominous cornfield lends it plenty of frightful return appeal. And in last year’s review, we made a point of recognising how reinvigorated and vibrant the park and its scare actors seemed across-the-board. One could perhaps even argue that not being able to tug, grab and shove necessitated Screamfest’s ghouls and nasties leads to them having to be extra inventive in their character work and interactions – something that is still gleefully on show in the likes of Freakout on Tour and Hillbilly Joe’s Zombee Zoo.

And yet, in a real red letter moment for Burton, 2024 sees them cross that rubicon of physicality as they introduce an all-new maze from the ashes of an old favourite that allows its actors to get up close and personal and, yes, touch you.

Before appraising new arrival Helcatraz, though, the rest of this year’s Screamfest offering is functionally identical to last year’s great offering. The award-winning Insomniac returns, and its victorian era sequences seemed particularly densely populated, which is always highly welcome. The genuinely eerie trip into a young girl’s nightmare remains rich with ideas and Insidous-style creepiness and visuals.

“…whatever Burton’s casting team and directors are doing, they’re doing it well.”

Freakout on Tour, as mentioned, was another showcase that whatever Burton’s casting team and directors are doing, they’re doing it well. With our not being at a media or preview night, or even particularly early in the event’s run, it would be understandable if energy levels had dipped or weren’t at their peak, but every performer was truly giving it their all. Even the staffers giving the safety drills before entering the mazes seemed invested and on the ball.

It’s a thread that runs through each of the returning mazes. More so than in perhaps any year, there were numerous instances where the performers were willing to stop us in our tracks and create mini set pieces or scenarios all of our own. From a hilarious spot of body part bartering with a merchant in Zombee Zoo to a mischievous clown catching the name of a member of our party and deciding to comedically seek her out and toy with her as she trailed behind, there was no sense of these performers simply going through the motions, which can sometimes sap the energy out of a long-running attraction. It’s the second year running that the standards of performer energy and spontaneity have been particularly impressive and notable at Burton, and long may it continue.

Another returnee for 2024 is Area 52, an optional extra experience which sees visitors taken out into the reaches of the farm to paintball their way through invading alien forces. It returns mostly intact from last year, though a neat extra flourish arrives this year in the form of an introductory video which lends the things an extra sense of narrative and production value. As per last year, on the whole it’s hokey, schlocky fun that falls fairly squarely in B-movie territory, but is a neat change of pace and tone from the mazes themselves. At £10 (with additional costs for extra paintballs that if you are not good at rationing you will quite possibly need) it’s a considered extra purchase, especially with regard to the time investment if you aren’t going down the fast track route for the mazes, but it’s overall good, campy fun if you can allot it within your budgets and timetable for the evening.

Elsewhere, Burton’s usual ensemble of food vendors, musical performances, fairground rides, wandering scare actors and a performance stage all return. Set within the National Forest Adventure Farm, it has always proven itself an atmospheric and ambient hub space, landing somewhere between psychedelic rave and farmyard horror. New features and focal points, such as caged dancers and a perturbing electric chair animatronic, along with returning favourites such as the inimitable Nurse Babs and friends wandering around, all infuse the park with character and identity at every turn. It’s just a fun, freaky place to wander about, with an encounter or something to see likely at every turn. By the time Babs had taken over one of the dancing cages and was twerking and thrusting away furiously, only to be chastised by a disapproving undead girl with her dolly, there was no denying you were at Screamfest. Few scare attractions stamp their identity so indelibly and infectiously.

“…Screamfest’s newest outing most certainly doesn’t pull its punches.”

But there’s no escaping the big ticket newbie that is Helcatraz. Having finally seen off what seemed like the eternal Love Hurts (though loving homages and throwbacks to that can be found scattered throughout the park and mazes), as mentioned, Screamfest’s newest outing most certainly doesn’t pull its punches.

An intense venture into a nightmarish industrial prison complex, Helcatraz grabs you – quite literally – from the off, and doesn’t let go. Without wanting to spoil too much of what is a fantastic, very full-on maze, just be prepared to be separated, isolated, touched, shoved and very possibly get rather wet. This reviewer’s Helcatraz journey saw him cut off from the rest of his party for the entire maze, a suitably thrilling and frightening venture into the unknown. As is par for the course here, the design work, lighting and sound work are all excellent throughout. And the actors here are clearly relishing the freedom of permitted contact – hair will be pulled, legs grabbed, and at the point which I was shoved head-first into a narrow crawl space early on the maze, I knew Burton weren’t going to half-heartedly tiptoe into this new approach.

Given the high intensity of Helcatraz, it unsurprisingly fostered the longest queues of the evening. Though the general length of queues did not seem too long on the Thursday evening in question, the fact that Burton allows unlimited entry to its mazes at base really lends credence to considering its fast track and other ancillary ticket options. Though prices do vary dependent on the date of visit, for weekends and Friday evenings in particular, the ability to bypass queues should be a consideration. If contemplating the fast track options, the extra bang you get for your buck by opting for Screamfest’s ‘RIP’ ultimate ticket is notable. Whilst not exactly cheap at £89 per person, it actually works out to be very reasonably priced when broken down, offering up unlimited fast track entry to all of the mazes, entry to Area 52 (usually £10 by itself), a £10 food voucher to use at the food vendors, 3 complementary drinks at the event’s bar (including alcoholic beverages) as well as a bespoke RIP lanyard. It is the experience we enjoyed on our visit, and means you are able to take in almost all of what Burton offers hassle-free and at your own leisure, with food, drinks and the fun of Area 52 all thrown in.

“If contemplating the fast track options, the extra bang you get for your buck by opting for Screamfest’s ‘RIP’ ultimate ticket is notable.”

Irrespective of whether you are able to indulge to full toothsome extent though, a 2024 visit to Screamfest Burton is another easy recommendation. Firmly ensconced as a staple of any of our Halloween Horror Visits, it has been a devilish joy to see this stalwart of the scare industry go from strength to strength. Once again boasting an enviable ensemble of game, invested scare actors injecting new life and frights into even older mazes, Burton finds itself comfortably nipping at the heels of its competitors as one of the best scare attractions in the UK. With the fantastic new Helcatraz boldly and unabashedly breaking through into new territory for the park, the future looks bleak, bloody and brilliant for our favourite Halloween must-visits.

Returning to review annual scare attractions – even ones as reputable and renowned as Burton-Upon-Trent’s Screamfest – always runs the risk of coming up against that true Halloween horror; the law of diminishing returns. It isn’t the first time (and likely shan’t be the last), that we’ve posited this at the outset of one of our Halloween Horror Visit ‘regulars’, but that’s often because it bears repeating.

It’s a fair assumption that we aren’t alone in returning to the thrills and chills of yesteryear, and events such as Screamfest have to routinely innovate and expand, to ensure they aren’t catering their scares to newcomers alone.

“Screamfest feels bigger and more expansive than ever.”

It’s a particular curio for Burton’s 2023 offering, because on the one hand, they have done exactly that – introducing two fun and very welcome new side offerings, whilst continuing their excellent work in essentially stretching out the floorpan of their event into multiple, complementary hub areas. Screamfest feels bigger and more expansive than ever.

On the other hand, not only does this year’s offering present no new mazes, the team at the National Forest Adventure Farm have actually undone some finality and marketing of last year’s event, where one of the attraction’s most tightly-themed and reliable mazes, Love Hurts, was pitched as having its final year. Curiously, and with little by way of fanfare or explanation, Hurts returns for 2023 with nary a scratch, and no mention or acknowledgement that it was supposed to have called its ‘last orders’ some twelve months ago.

Which leaves the question – do the two new flourishes, and the overall quality of Screamfest’s five returning mazes, warrant a return visit? And, for newcomers, where does the overall experience fall within the ever-growing scare maze industry here in the UK (and indeed, beyond)?

Having reviewed Screamfest annually since 2015 (bar that one year where a certain pandemic had the unmitigated gall to infringe on the spooky season…), it’s a genuine delight to say that 2023 offers up probably its strongest year to date. Although much of this praise comes with the caveat that we attended on its opening/preview/media night, so energies were high and could potentially wane further into the month, we review as we experience, and this year’s Screamfest offers up five strong mazes that were densely populated with spirited, game scare performers giving it their all across-the-board. Plenty of ‘street’ performers and a variety of entertainment and side attractions (including some returning fairground rides and even a ‘Death Slide’) along with the aforementioned sideshow ventures make for the fullest, funnest ‘fest to date.

It’s a trifle old hat going into detail on some of Burton’s mazes for what will now be the sixth or seventh time, but as a general recap for those unacquainted with either Screamfest or our takes on it, Hillbilly Joe’s Zombee Zoo and the award-winning Insomnia remain the best of the bunch, though in truth, all five mazes are solid. Zoo guides visitors around a hillbilly shanty town that seems to be perpetually stuck somewhere between Christmas and purgatory, as deranged locals (see: yokels) hurl insult and abuse aplenty. It’s a well-themed adventure into tubthumpin’, rootin’ tootin’ chaos, bursting with character and some great environmental storytelling. The same is true of Insomnia, perhaps Burton’s most outwardly and explicitly horror-laden offering; a venture into one child’s terror – haunted by the demonic ‘Crackerjack’ figure who regularly pops up amidst a twisting, time-travelling (and in some cases, literally back-bending) nightmare.

The death-defying Love Hurts presents a singles night gone horribly wrong, descending as it does into a suitably grotesque trip into the sewers and waterworks belonging to a deranged, chainsaw-wielding professor. Hurts is another maze that is fairly immaculately themed and plenty immersive, even if, like the circus-themed Freakout, parts of it are beginning to feel a little long in the tooth. Lots of praise again to the maze actors who, on the night reviewed, were giving it their all and really injected a lot of energy and fun into these two older attractions.

“Lots of praise again to the maze actors who, on the night reviewed, were giving it their all and really injected a lot of energy and fun into these two older attractions.”

Elsewhere, Creed Farm quite literally takes you out into the corn fields of the site, with some welcome new inclusions to the maze puncturing its walkways and outdoor corridors with unsettling moments of genuine paranoia and uncertainty. Are those scarecrows blocking your path real? At one stage, Burton’s ‘outdoor maze’ was in many ways its USP, as there was a time when you would board a tractor-pulled livestock carrier and be driven out into the dark beyonds of the farm in order to reach Creed’s predecessors, which always leant an incredible atmospheric, remote and foreboding air to proceedings. The only ongoing (and admittedly minor) critique of Burton is that they have still not reinstated this excellent, absorbing prelude.

With this being said, 2023 does offer visitors a chance to head out into the recesses of the farm’s boundaries, with the (unsurprisingly) Alien-themed Area 52. With a decided emphasis on campy fun over horror, 52 sees those willing to pay an extra £10 for admission driven out into the fields to open fire with paintball guns on what is pitched as an alien invasion. It’s good, hokey fun shooting at the actors padded up to the nines and sporting suitably B-movie worthy alien masks, even if the understandably restricted number of paintballs meant that pretty much the entirety of our troupe had run out of ammunition before the final set piece. It’s completely understandable why 52 is not included in entry, given its requirement of paintball ammunition (and indeed, additional paintballs beyond the 60 you start off with require additional purchasing, too), and it does prove a lot of fun. If you go in prioritising goofy, schlocky silliness over anything resembling scares, it’ll likely be worth your time and extra investment, but it’s by no means an absolute must-do.

What is definitely worth a visit is the free, short but enjoyable slice of macabre-lite variety that the new Psycho Circus offers. Featuring a handful of horror-themed performers serving acrobatics and other freewheeling hijinks, it’s a relatively short but entertaining wrinkle of spectacle. Themed around the concept of a globe-trotting (and seemingly centuries-spanning) collector whose steampunk gubbins trap all manner of beasties, there’s a neat storytelling bent to the show, even if some of the spoken delivery is gloriously hammy. It ratchets up nicely, too – with some genuinely wince-inducing moments later on that received palpable, audible reactions from the audience.

It rounds out what is a full, hearty offering for Burton this year. As mentioned, the conscientious planning of the event’s site map and layout has continued and is greatly appreciated (long gone are the years when everything sprung off from one, over-congested central hub). Psycho Circus complements a strong, existing lineup of mazes, and whilst Area 52 is a quirky but fairly inconsequential side distraction, it is entirely optional.

There was a modicum of grumbling on social media when Burton’s prices seemed to have hit a bit of a noticeable hike this year… but, quite frankly, welcome to 2023. Your need and mileage for other costs, including the extra ‘Fast Track’ passes, continues to vary considerably from maze-to-maze. As advised in previous years, this will likely only be amplified by what day and date you decide to visit on. For some, entry was immediate, fast track or no, whereas others (most notably, Love Hurts) they will likely save you up upwards of half an hour (or more) in queuing time. When trying to fit five mazes plus the extra side distractions in within a single evening’s visit, there’s certainly a case to be made that they’re worthy ‘peace of mind’ purchases.

“It’s an admirable move, and one which we’d love to see all large-scale scare attractions adopt.”

One very welcome change to proceedings is that, irrespective of whether you go for fast tracks or not, Burton have made entry to all five of its mazes – and Psycho Circus – unlimited, whereas previous years saw you capped at five tracked entries. For 2023, you can essentially go in as many of the mazes as often as time allows. It’s an admirable move, and one which we’d love to see all large-scale scare attractions adopt (provided that they logistically can).

Though it may not summon up a new maze for 2023, and one previously destined for the chop makes a slightly unexpected (and relatively unexplained) resurrection of its own, Screamfest reminds us, with an energised, well-populated ensemble of performers, some fun and diverting new side adventures, and an admirable decision to take the shackles off of its entry limitations, why it remains one of the UK’s go-to scare attractions this – and indeed, every – Halloween.