A main stay in the UK Halloween scene, Alton Towers Resort’s ‘Scarefest’ has been thrilling and delighting theme park goers since 2007. Running on selected dates from 27th September – 2nd November 2025, we’re taking a look at what the park has to offer for their 18th year of SCAREFEST!
If you are thinking of visiting Scarefest 2025, read on to find out our thoughts about the range of exciting mazes, scare zones and walkthroughs featured at this year’s event.
New park-wide theming…
On entering the park on Towers Street, we are met with a vast array of spooky decorations and music; the perfect set-up for a day of rides, attractions and SCARES. There is a noticable increase in the amount and variety of theming across the park, making it even more atmospheric than ever! See a selection of the theming below:
Edge of the Forest – Maze
Perhaps one of the most anticipated new attractions for 2025 is the ‘Edge of the Forest’ scare maze, located near the Dark Forest area of the park. This is an up-charge, live-action scare attraction exclusive to Scarefest visitors, based on the theme of the popular Th13teen rollercoaster, which opened to the public in 2010.
Theme Park Utopia Review: This was my favourite maze of all of the 2025 lineup. The interior theming is absolutely brilliant – possibly being one of the most immersive mazes I have been through! The trees inside reminded me of E.T. Adventure at Universal Studios Florida, in the best way possible. I do not want to spoil anything here, but the way Alton Towers have managed to create the feeling of deja vu, whilst showing the progressive overtaking of the Dark Forest, then leading up to the pretty intense encounter with the Leshwall, was pretty outstanding. Perhaps the forest scenes would benefit from a few more actors, but I really did enjoy this one.
COMPOUND – Maze
A returning maze for the 2025 season, COMPOUND is billed to be one of the more intense scare attractions at the Alton Towers Resort. With loud noises, isolation and terrifying costumes, this Nemesis/Forbidden Valley-inspired maze is not for the faint heart.
Theme Park Utopia Review: This maze is highly regarded by many as a particularly intense experience, and it absolutely COULD be, but I believe this is dependent on each person’s individual run through. You do get split up from your group (and no, I wouldn’t even try to cling on to your partners!), but this can equally be a bit of its own undoing – if you were truly alone, it could be horrifying… but if you are visiting on a busy night, then the impact of being separated gets a bit lost as they try to churn as many people as possible through the maze. I ended up mostly walking through with two random people I didn’t know, and was funnelled through the maze within about two to three minutes, where I then waited an additional two or three minutes for the rest of my group to appear from the exit. TL;DR – it’s a brilliant maze, but a bit hit-or-miss with consistency. The aliens are also really scary.
Altonville Mine Tours: Tiny’s Revenge – Maze
With the original iteration of this live action scare maze opening back in 2016, it’s understandable for people to feel that this maze has overstayed its welcome. That being said, it continues to be a crowd-pleaser and one of the stronger offerings in terms of the detailed theming. Being the only remaining scare attraction located within the real Towers building, nothing can really beat the genuine haunting feeling this maze provides!
Theme Park Utopia Review: Bottom line – it’s the same maze as before, but this is probably the most underwhelming version of it I have experienced. The maze is very well themed, and the use of the Towers really is spooky, but there is no denying that the experience is feeling a bit ‘unloved’ and dated now. I wouldn’t let this put you off if you have never done it before – it’s a decent maze! – but if you’ve been through the Altonville Mine Tour before… I don’t think you need to do it again.
Amigos in the Afterlife – Family Friendly Interactive Walkthrough
Themed to the iconic ‘Day of the Dead’ celebrations from Mexico, Amigos in the Afterlife is a family-focused, interactive walkthrough for everyone to enjoy. This attraction does require an additional paid ticket to enter, and is located in the old Alton Towers Dungeons building towards the back of the park, near The World of David Walliams.
Theme Park Utopia Review: Our rating for this attraction is based on it being a family-focused experience – serious thrills are not to be expected here!
This attraction follows the ‘Dungeons’ format (and literally uses old rooms from the Alton Towers Dungeon attraction). The attraction started off quite fun and great for the kids – almost playing out like a kind of ‘escape room’ for children, with lots of interesting characters and bright colours… but then the anxiety kicks in. In typical ‘Dungeons’ style, the actors seem to try and go out of their way to make the adults in the room feel as uncomfortable as possible, trying to pressure them to do ridiculous dance moves and other activities in front of a whole group of strangers (and even ‘booing’ the adults who didn’t want to participate). From this point, all I wanted to do was leave the attraction. The anxiety and fear of judgement was real… until Barry came along and saved the day. Barry, the tequila worm, is the sole saviour of this attraction and I am gutted that I was not allowed to take a photo of the absolute hero. Long live Barry the Tequila Worm!
Trick O’ Treat Town – Family Friendly Interactive Walkthrough
A familiar offering for families at Alton Towers Scarefest, Trick O’ Treat Town has been entertaining guests since 2021, and it is great to see a continued effort to provide a traditional ‘trick or treat’ experience for all ages – something that is truly lacking across other UK parks, and is reminiscent of a more show-focused version of the trick or treating at Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party at Magic Kingdom, Orlando (though don’t expect to have your treat bags bursting at the seams here!). Trick O Treat Town requires an additional paid ticket to enter, and features a range of sweets from Haribo and Maoam.
Theme Park Utopia Review: Our rating for this attraction is based on it being a family-focused experience – serious thrills are not to be expected here!
Realistically, this walkthrough should have received a higher rating from me than Amigos in the Afterlife… On paper, it’s a better attraction with more benefits (and SWEETS!), but, almost like COMPOUND, this ride suffers from the effects of trying to push as many people through the experience as possible and the amount of sweets that you receive in your comparatively large ‘trick or treat’ bag is downright disappointing. There were some relatively fun moments, but it was overshadowed completely by the stinginess and, strangely, the apparent rudeness of some of the actors too (for reference, we were not just a group of adults walking through!). I think Alton Towers’ leadership would benefit from taking a visit to Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party at Walt Disney World to see how the trick or treat experience should be done!
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Dark Hollow – Scare Zone
New for 2025, Dark Hollow is the resort’s second scare attraction based on the lore of the popular rollercoaster, Th13teen. Located in the Dark Forest area of the park, this scare zone is free-to-enter and does not require booking a time slot. Scare zones like these are integral to creating a park-wide fear festival!
Unfortunately for us, we were unable to experience either Dark Hollow or Burial Grounds (below) on our visit, but the reviews from others are generally positive on the whole, and they did look like brilliant from the outside!
Burial Grounds – Scare Zone
Burial Grounds is located, and based on, the park’s Wicker Man rollercoaster. This scare zone does not require a pre-booked ticket and is free for all park-goers to enter. Much like Dark Hollow, this scare zone is also the second horror attraction to be based on a classic Alton Towers rollercoaster. The first horror attraction for Wicker Man was The Welcoming, which was open during the 2017 and 2018 Scarefest seasons (RIP to the incredible music from The Welcoming!).
Are you going to visit Alton Towers Scarefest 2025?
See our full gallery below for more images and details of what you can expect to see at Alton Towers Resort’s Scarefest 2025. Let us know your thoughts and experiences in the comments at the bottom of the page!
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