I'm sure at least one of these will ring a bell.
Merlin is the second largest operator in the amusement industry worldwide, just after Disney. They own every LEGOLAND and subsequent Discovery Centers, three of the biggest parks in England, a large chain of aquariums, and the only reputable wax museum chain in the world.
Though it is a legitimate question whether or not anything with wax figures could be considered reputable in normal society.
There's a lot with them that we could talk about, but today we'll focus on a recurring theme between their two of their biggest parks: Alton Towers in Staffordshire, and Thorpe Park in Chertsey.
Being Scared in an Amusement Park? Unheard of!
"It's time to d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-duel!"
Horror is a complicated genre. Sometimes you get a chilling story with suspense and insightful commentary, other times you get a bunch of jump scares and annoying-ass ads on YouTube. It can be utilized quite well at theme parks- a look at Halloween Horror Nights proves that- and Merlin seems to have taken that to heart. Perhaps a little too closely, though.
Now, it made sense with some rides, like Duel pictured above, or the famous first dive coaster Oblivion when it opened, but they still seem to have some kind of obsession with it, to wildly varying degrees of success.
For various reasons, The Smiler will not be included in either section because of how divisive it is. On one hand, it has the most inversions of any coaster on Earth and a brilliant ARG advertising campaign. On the other hand, it's had a lot of accidents. How good or bad it is should be decided by people who have actually ridden it, unlike this author. Or been to Alton Towers, unlike this author.
The Right Stuff
These all get a pass.
Merlin has been able to do some great horror attractions, mind you. I mean, they do own all those Dungeons, but they can do it for rides too. Saw: the Ride isn't the only creepy Gerstlauer Eurofighter on Earth, even if that superlative sounds rather narrow, but it seems well liked enough. Even more than some films from the franchise it's based off of!
Wicker Man is one of the few heavily themed wooden coasters around, and you can tell from the photo that they put effort into it. It's wild, it's immersive, it's creepy; the only thing it lacks is a large number of bees!
And Nemesis is one of the oldest Inverted coasters on Earth, sure, but it has aged like a fine wine in terms of design and looks. Over a quarter of a decade after it opened, it's still seen as one of the best coasters in the United Kingdom. So, if they made these so creepy and good, then surely the other ones are just as good, right?
R-right?
The Problem Children
"Crap. Crap. Mega-crap."
While they've had some successes, they had also had some big failures. TH13TEEN had pretty good advertising, and was getting some people hyped... and then the technical details were released, and it was outright referred to a family coaster. The coaster that they said might break people psychologically. It's pretty much always gonna have that cloud hanging over it.
I'm gonna be honest, even though it opened in 2018, I've heard jack shit about Walking Dead: the Ride. It was just a retheme of a preexisting coaster, only now there are some zombies. This one was definitely done on the cheap, mostly just taking advantage of how the coaster was already inside of a building, leading to the inevitable suggestion "Darkness is theming!". It is not.
And then we have Derren Brown's Ghost Train. Oy. Watch this if you want the whole story, but essentially, the only dark ride at Thorpe Park is a rather disjointed attraction mostly using virtual reality. There's something about fracking releasing demons, I think? It really doesn't seem to have any reason to be related to illusionist Derren Brown, aside from the Victorian carriage ride vehicle turning into a London Underground train, the one part of this ride I hear no one complain about.
But what does it all mean?
Two parks, one problem.
"But Colin, you saucy minx," you're no doubt wondering, "How can this be a problem? They still seem to be having successes.". Whether they succeed or not does not fix the fact that their big new recent attractions still seem to lean heavily around being based on horror instead of other things. You need to diversify interests if you want people to keep going and not get bored. We'll just have to see if they'll learn that lesson yet.
Anyway, what are your thoughts? Should these parks get more or less horror-themed attractions? Give me your thoughts by commenting or asking me at @Colonel_Colin on Twitter. Until next time, keep burning those effigies!
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