Thorpe Park’s Fright Nights maze, DeadBeat, is a spine-chilling, immersive experience that draws visitors into the dark world of the “Viscerals”—ancient entities that feed on human souls. Inspired by underground rave culture, DeadBeat is set during the “Last Night on Earth” festivities, with an underground party atmosphere luring guests into a terrifying trap set by the Viscerals’ masked DJ leader, Canistro. Using hypnotic music, Canistro ensnares guests in a trance, allowing the Viscerals to feed off their energy. This all-new maze, which opened in 2024 and replaced the Black Mirror Labyrinth, has already earned high marks for its intense scares and unsettling atmosphere.
Storyline and General Experience
The DeadBeat story begins in a pre-show set in a gazebo outside. Here, guests encounter a Club Rep who introduces them to the night club, but they’re quickly thrust into a world that’s far from any typical club scene. Inside the maze, guests are met with four distinct types of characters: the Vacants—soulless victims of the Viscerals, Viscerals themselves, DJ Canistro, and the pre-show Club Rep. Without a “spine” (a hidden actor access corridor), DeadBeat creates an unbroken flow of terror where guests and actors occupy the same spaces, keeping surprises constant.
Room-by-Room Highlights
Cloakroom: A seemingly innocuous space with clothing racks, where actors lurk and weave between clothes. There’s even a VIP guest list with names like “Death” and past Fright Nights characters, adding an eerie foreshadowing to the experience.
Warehouse 1: DJ Canistro’s dog, a nod to Cerberus from Greek mythology, greets guests with three eyes instead of heads. The warehouse's colour scheme—red, black, and yellow—reflects the German flag, referencing the German trance music that fills the attraction, giving it a raw, pulsing vibe.
Recreation Room 1: Here, graffiti hints at the story, with references like "SLIDE," taken from Fight Club, setting a tone of chaos. Some graffiti even includes VIP names from the “Make Your Mark” experience.
Arcade 1: Reprogrammed fruit machines flash and hum to amplify the rave theme, creating a sense of eerie nostalgia while further immersing guests in this twisted club world.
Corridor 2 (Sewer): Yellow “bile” drips from the walls, symbolizing the transformation of Vacants into Viscerals and heightening the maze’s unsettling, decaying atmosphere.
VIP 1: The maze splits here between Vacants and Viscerals, mirroring the maze’s layout to create an “Upside Down” effect akin to Stranger Things. Actors hide behind curtains, and eerie mannequins, including one from The Walking Dead: Do or Die, hint at the darker journey ahead.
Vanity Room: This room holds a chilling mirror jump scare and is littered with small, eerie details like abandoned makeup and clothing items, adding a sense of disturbing realism.
Corridor 3 (Sewer): Another decayed section with more bile signifies the full transformation into Visceral territory, with ambient effects intensifying the journey’s descent.
Recreation Room 2: The walls here display the graffiti tag “432Hz”—the frequency associated with hypnosis, deepening the suggestion that Canistro’s music is putting guests in a trance-like state. Hidden actors use access stairs here for surprise scares from elevated angles.
Warehouse 2: Mannequins draped in Visceral costumes suggest the presence of soul-sucking beings lurking in the shadows.
Corridor 4 (Flying Rig): Actors use a flying rig to appear from unexpected heights, a rare scare technique at Thorpe Park that adds a thrilling vertical element to the maze.
Finale and Exit: In the grand finale, actors climb bars, weaving through multi-level scares as smoke machines create the illusion of a portal to another realm. As guests exit, they are momentarily blinded by a bright flash, simulating the shock of daylight after an all-night rave, accompanied by Bittersweet Symphony by The Verve. This final touch leaves guests feeling dazed, disoriented, and fully immersed in the maze’s surreal, nightmarish world.
DeadBeat combines mythological horror with rave culture to deliver an adrenaline-pumping experience, setting a new standard for intense scares and eerie realism at Thorpe Park’s Fright Nights.
