Warning: Photo gallery contains graphic horror-themed images
Making a real-life maze based on upcoming horror game The Evil Within is an insane idea, but somehow it works.
I'm happy to say that it scared me silly.
Around this time every year Gold Coast theme park Movie World runs an event called Fright Nights in the lead-up to Halloween. It features multiple mazes - some original creations like 'Hillbilly Slasher', but many based on existing properties including Evil Dead, Saw, Psycho, Freddy's Nightmares and The Walking Dead.
This year there are four Fright Nights mazes - The Evil Within, Cannibal Clowns, Wolf Creek 2 and The Ripper.
The Evil Within marks a revival of hardcore survival horror gaming from the genre's godfather, Shinji Mikami. He is responsible for creating the Resident Evil franchise and this latest release looks to be taking horror gaming to a whole new level.
You can check out my interview with Mikami from E3 this year.
It's a full-on, intense game packed with disgusting gore and sustained feelings of dread and unease which are, of course, punctuated by huge frights.
Some of these have been adapted into the Fright Nights maze surprisingly well. It was awesome having characters like The Keeper or 'Boxhead', Laura the multi-limbed beast, the chainsaw-wielding Butcher and evil doctor Valerio brought to life to terrify me in person as well as in the videogame.
Combining those characters with heaps of fake splatter and giving punters massive frights was enjoyable, but expected. What I wasn't expecting was the level of detail worked into the attraction.
Every inch of every wall is created with the videogame's design in mind and if you go slowly enough, you can appreciate these little things. Coupled with the appropriate music and sound effects, it feels very much like a real-life version of the game. As someone who has eagerly devoured every trailer released for it and loved a preview, this was really satisfying.
The scares are paced expertly. Quite a few are timed so just as I was reeling back from something horrifying, the next thing would leap out and give me an even bigger fright. Using just the right amount of darkness and lighting effects helps things out immensely.
It's not really a maze as there's a single designated path you have to go down, but even so, I often found myself disorientated. One of the make-up artists told me she couldn't be paid to go through the maze and it's easy to see why; this fun is not for everyone.
I must admit I was surprised at how full-on some of the Fright Nights content was. I got a behind-the-scenes look at The Ripper Maze and one of the props in that is a disembowelled woman - there's a photo in the gallery above showing just how graphic it is.
The Wolf Creek movies are a realistic, very disturbing type of horror that has been realised well in the Fright Nights version.
Such an adult level of gory props throughout the mazes gives them a hard edge and makes The Evil Within Maze a worthy counterpart to the game. As a long-time horror fan, this is something I really dug.
It's quite fun just walking around Movie World at night, let alone getting into the mazes. It's a massive complex filled with massive structures that take on a spooky look in the dark, and it’s made a lot spookier by the actors and performers who scare patrons on their way to the mazes.
Fright Nights is a great night of horror thrills and the perfect way to cap a day of riding Australasia's best roller coasters like Superman's Escape and Arkham Asylum.
The Evil Within is released October 16 for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PC, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. The Fright Nights run at Movie World Gold Coast October 3 - 31.
More information on Fright Nights is available on the Movie World website.
3 Newssource: newshub archive
