Avonturenpark Hellendoorm is an amusement park located in The Netherlands. Ran by The Looping Group, they also are known to run Pleasurewood Hills & more recently Drayton Manor in the UK. The theme park has over 30 attractions, shows and even an outdoor waterpark for the summer season. The season typically runs from April through to October, with seasonal events and other surprises along the way. 

Our visit was in late October, which sees us visit for their Halloween season which hosts two events, one in the daytime for the family scene called Heksendoorn, that translates to ‘Witch Thorn’. This event sees the park decorated in over 2000 pumpkins and other festive decorations, alongside a few additional activities for the younger audience, such as meeting the witch mascot for the event. They even open one of the haunted houses earlier with it being much more tamed than it would be in the evening. 

Horror Hotel

Horror Hotel was a classic maze which takes you into a hotel where the staff have worked for many years. It has many typical scenes that you would expect in a hotel such as the kitchen, dining room and even an elevator. We were greeted by the bellboy and check in staff in the introduction, which set the maze into motion and it was a fun maze for sure. Whilst not the scariest, we still had the odd jump scare and overall, it was still a decent attraction. One to start with more so at the start of the night before moving onto the more scarier houses. 

Zombie ATtack

Zombie Attack is one hell of a unique attraction for Avonturenpark Hellendoorn. This is located within the waterpark area of the park and has taken over this section as an interactive zombie experience. What we mean by that is, you get given a gun to shoot zombies that have light up targets on them. Whilst the story in the queueline was fantastic and reinforced by the army guards here, it kind of fell through alongside the light theming in this maze. With that said, this wasn’t the forefront of the maze as it was more to do with the actors coming from the heavy smoke filled areas and attacking you before you even could see them and shoot them! This created many scares and screams from us both and really kept us on edge. With it being set in the waterpark, they use the different terrains and felt us even walking along the sand at points, making it not so easy to get away! 

Scare Zones

Outside the 4 mazes, Screams offered 4 scare zones. 2 walkthroughs and even the Sewer Rat ride had a small Halloween overlay too. The scare zones consisted of Red Thirst, which had roaming brides dancing in the area with a small stage show with some magic in it, to add to the creepy vibes. Additionally, you had Pirates Bay, which had roaming pirates, Freak Circus that contained circus creatures and Dragon Fear, which had dark knights roaming the dragon land. All these scare zones had a brilliant atmosphere and created many screams throughout the evening for all guests. The Sewer Rat ride had an overlay with the name Underground, which consisted of an actor at the end of the attraction. We are unsure if the heavy smoke, water effects and dark atmosphere of the queue which also featured in the day is like this all the time, but it is great to see a detailed indoor walkthrough at a park like this.