Cursed Essex is the number 1 Halloween event within Essex and is open again for business & screams in 2021. The event has been expanding and changing throughout the years, with more recently it settling as a scream park styled event with some variations. The 13th year of hell for Cursed Essex brings 5 scare mazes, a clown themed introduction, a fire show and roaming characters. Located at the Wat Tyler Centre in Essex, Cursed Essex have made home to a small scream park styled event which we thought we’d experience for our first ever time towards the end of the Halloween run.
Our journey of the event began sadly after a 40 minute wait into the event. With timed ticket arrivals, this shouldn’t really be a reason to hold up customers so long outside. We later found out that whilst numbers are always hard to manage, they would rather hold the queues outside before your experience begins. So you can enjoy a better experience with less queueing once within the scare grounds. With this said, the time did pass with some of the roaming characters making their way along the queue and causing some screams & fun discussions.
Once within the Cursed Essex entrance, we grabbed a ticket and went through a clown mEAT and greet called Festevil. This was a very short introduction into the event and allowed you to see a few clowns. If you have a phobia of them, they will get your heart racing prior to the event and they did have a short impact in 1-2 themed rooms and corridors they hid within. This was a nice homage to the clown theme and a prior clown themed experience they use to have back in the day but, just a lot shorter. It has been advertised perfectly as it isn’t a maze and was enjoyed for a very short moment of our time at Cursed Essex.
Safe Zone
Safe Zone is the first maze that you’ll encounter at Cursed Essex. Whilst they operate as a scream park style, which means you pick which mazes you do and in what order, Safe Zone is the exception as it leads you into the event.
Safe Zone is a zombie styled attraction which is mainly outdoors. With a short introduction, we walked through a handful of indoor rooms which had some great actors and scares. The outside section was then quite a long walk in the dark with some hay bales and fencing. This did allow for some of the actors to hide well and give some great jump scare moments, with high energy from the actors overall. It did lack in the themeing and storyline side of things and felt like it missed a solid ending to throw you into the event arena, however it still warmed us up and was a decent way to start our evening at the event!
Scares: 5/10 | Themeing & Storyline: 4/10 | Actors: 6/10
The Institute
The institute was our next attraction and it was a short sharp shock to our system. With a funny introduction, things quickly got more demented and twisted from there. The scares were solid with the actors coming from some hidden spaces and others you could hear down the creepy corridors. Our main criticism is that it was over before it began, which was a shame as we felt it had so much potential. As one of the better attractions from our evening, it certainty has great potential in the future and hopefully they can find a way to get bigger and better in future years of the event…
Scares: 5/10 | Themeing & Storyline: 7/10 | Actors: 7/10
Sewers
Sewers was certainly the loudest maze, as you could even hear it from the outside in the event arena, which set the scene well for what was to come. Starting off with a quick, simple and humorous story of why you’re in the sewers, you entered in with the screams of “Fresh Meat”.
The scares were actually pretty strong throughout Sewers, with this seeming to have one of the biggest casts during our run through. They had some perfectly timed scares, superb effects and different techniques to push the limit in here. The themeing was also very good, with the walls having custom made artwork of some freaky characters. It also included the use of smell, which towards the end of the attraction was more potent than at the start.
With this all coming together quite nicely, this was one of our favourite mazes of the night and it was what we hope to see the others jump towards in the future, with the use of some disorientating scenes, strong smells and a scary cast!
Scares: 8/10 | Themeing & Storyline: 8/10 | Actors: 9/10
The Haunting
The Haunting was Cursed Essex’s blindfold attraction and before we went in, we were given a black mask, which was our blindfold (very clever). However, this was the only interesting point about the attraction. Sadly, our introduction actor was far too quiet to hear the story of the maze. From there, our group were extremely slow and the loudest part were the groups in front and behind us. Sometimes groups do ruin the attraction and this did heavily impact our experience, which is always the risk when you get one go through the haunt. Sadly the lack of scares, atmosphere and story all ended our hopes with The Haunting…
Scares: 2/10 | Themeing & Storyline: 2/10 | Actors: 3/10
A.L.F’s Emporium
Our last maze of the evening was A.L.F’s Emporium and thankfully was a great ending attraction. This maze had an incredible introduction scene and follow up room before taking on the rest of a typical maze. Without spoilers, they have a very clever technique to get a top scare out of you and we did fall suckers to it too! The maze had some strange props and themeing from dolls to wooden statues to all sorts of other junk you would find in an emporium. The highlight of this attraction is the storyline at the start and end, as it takes inspiration from a well known UK ride theme. Some of the actors within the maze used their space well and were very creepy, with one or two actors feeling a bit off the mark compared to the rest of the team. With that small comment, this was a fantastic attraction which we loved the design, creativity and execution of and would happily visit again for!
Scares: 7/10 | Themeing & Storyline: 8/10 | Actors: 8/10
Cursed Essex was a busy event but, the queues moved quickly and it had some great mazes. It was one of the busiest events for a scream park of this size however, the queue lines moved very quickly and didn’t compromise on big group numbers either. Whilst the mazes are short and this helped, some of them had acceptable length and were of great quality. It was short, sharp shocks, leaving us wanting more from the event.
Whilst Cursed Essex have now finished their run for 2021, you can be sure to see them come back bigger and better in 2022. Make sure you check out our socials and follow Cursed Essex to find out more next year. Thank you to the team for inviting us to experience the event for the first time alongside talking about the events past & some exclusive inside maze photos!
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