Official Tagline

“Following the terror of 2012, the doors of the Altonville Motel will reopen once again as new owners Caleb Winkles and Mary Miller plan to hold their wedding within the grounds. Never before has the phrase ‘until DEATH do us part’ been more appropriate.

So, pack your bags and make your way down for a thrilling overnight stay at the Altonville Motel and a night you’ll NEVER forget!”

At 7pm, it was time for us to start making our way back to the hotel to check in for our Scare Room. Although the experience did not begin until 9:30pm, we thought this would give us some time to settle in and try to work out what was happening with the story. With scares continuing until 3am, it was going to be a very long night.

This entire review can also be summarised by watching our Scare Rooms video, which shows some of the best moments from the event.

Using a special entrance for the Scare Rooms, we were greeted by Mary Miller, the bride-to-be. She told us about the evening and asked everyone to sign a disclaimer confirming that the actors were allowed to touch us.

Along with explaining the rules of the evening, she told us to meet outside our room at a certain time, wear something warm and, most importantly, “No hooker heels!”

Miss Blair, her grandmother, then entered the check-in room and escorted us to our room. However, she demanded that people open doors for her and give her a helping hand up the stairs. Whatever you said to her, she would turn it into something negative as part of her character.

Steven, one of the members of our group, asked her, “How has your day been?”

“Been good,” she replied. That was all!

When she was asked, “Have you been on The Smiler?” she simply replied, “No!”

We all immediately started saying, “Ain’t nobody got time for that!”

Inside our room, we noticed several Scarefest-related items, including clothing and newspapers. The clothing consisted of a sheriff’s hat and a pair of trousers featuring an old Alton Towers logo, presumably taken from a previous costume.

The newspaper had been printed on an A4 sheet of paper and left next to the television. Its headline read: “Local Motel Shuts After Unexplained Deaths.” The article went on to explain that 30 bodies had been discovered at the site, which matched the total number of guests staying across all the rooms!

We met downstairs at 8:30pm sharp, just as Mary Miller and Miss Blair had instructed us, for a group meeting where we were shown a photograph. After some brief introductions, we were taken outside to a makeshift chapel area, where a buffet awaited us.

The photographs below show what the area looked like. There was a fire burning inside a barrel in the middle of the chapel, with a makeshift bar located at the back. The first drink was included by Alton Towers, but any additional drinks had to be charged to our room.

While everyone was settling down, the sheriff walked around chatting to guests and asking where they had travelled from. We noticed that he had a fake black eye, so when he came over to us, we questioned him about what had happened. He claimed that he must have slipped or something similar.

When we asked about his job, he explained that he did a little bit of everything for the community. However, there were certain subjects that he did not want to discuss, including the previous events at the Altonville Motel and why it had originally been closed. He told us that it was simply one of those things that the locals did not talk about.

Once everyone had settled in and become familiar with some of the characters, they introduced themselves to the entire group and welcomed us to the wedding venue.

The buffet was then opened, offering pork belly, cheese and several other items, along with a selection of desserts.

One moment that does not appear in the video involved Joss, one of the members of our group, challenging Caleb to a potato-eating competition. Caleb had to eat a boiled potato in the same unusual way that Joss had demonstrated. This explains why Joss was later called forward because of the potato-eating challenge.

Once everyone had finished eating, it was time for the show to begin!

The two main characters started arguing because we had not said grace before eating and insisted that we should do it immediately to make up for it. They asked all of us to bow our heads and pray with them.

Suddenly, an actor appeared behind us, screaming, “Ohhh, ohhh, this sauce is good!”

He picked out a blonde woman in the audience and asked her to “lick his sauce”. The man was then introduced before moving along, although this would not be the last time we saw him.

The wedding singer was then brought into the chapel and introduced as Mary’s former boyfriend. Caleb was not happy and refused to let him stay. However, he remained to do his job and later performed at the end of the ceremony.

When the wedding ceremony began, the bride and groom had to select guests to act as the best man and maid of honour. Because Joss had beaten Caleb in the potato-eating challenge, he was selected as the best man, while another member of the audience was chosen as the maid of honour.

The sheriff, who also appeared to be the village priest, then married the couple. Afterwards, the best man and maid of honour were given pre-written speeches. However, instead of simply reading them aloud, they had to act them out!

The wedding singer then gave it his all, delivering a heartfelt performance of songs including Kiss Me by Ed Sheeran and Creep by Radiohead.

Miss Blair and Jamie could be found around the dance floor, with Jamie dancing with random women and Miss Blair “twerking like Miley Cyrus” over one of the male guests.

Caleb eventually told the wedding singer to leave after he announced, “This song is for you,” while looking towards Mary Miller, who had only just married Caleb.

Towards the end of the outdoor section, there was a power cut. The music stopped, the lights began flickering on and off and then everything went completely dark.

Rustling could be heard outside as actors made noises around the area. The sheriff then came running inside, shouting that we had to get out because there were scarecrows everywhere.

As we walked back towards the hotel, we noticed a scarecrow standing at the entrance to the area that had not been there before. We immediately began wondering what else might have happened while we were away.

Back inside our hotel room, we discovered that the words “BLOOD AND STRAW” had been written across the bathroom mirror in red lipstick.

Somehow, we found ourselves inside the room with Jamie, Mary Miller’s brother, and attempted to blame him for what had happened. This did not work, although he suggested that we should pay someone to clean it up.

We explained that we did not have any money, so we asked whether he had any. Surprisingly, he handed us a real one-dollar bill!

We were then given half an hour of free time to charge our phones, visit the bar inside the Alton Towers Hotel, purchase some drinks and attempt to work out what was happening with the storyline.

We stocked up on beer and prepared ourselves for whatever was going to happen next.

After spending some time sitting in the room, discussing the story and having a few drinks, it was finally time for the scares to begin. These would continue until 3am.

The video explains the indoor section much better, but the scarecrows played an important part in the conclusion of the story.

Mary Miller had made a deal with Miss Blair, her mother, in which she agreed to bring people to the Altonville Motel for Miss Blair’s boys to feed upon.

Caleb was killed by the wedding singer, although it appeared to have happened “by accident”, as they had not intended to kill him in that particular way.

Miss Blair was revealed to be the same female character from the previous Scare Rooms experience, bringing her children from the earlier story back into the events of this year.

At the end of the night, we watched Mary and Miss Blair leave to collect the boys. They then returned and began feeding on us, dragging us out of our beds, getting extremely close to our faces and screaming.

Overall, some of the scares were a little short and were occasionally spaced quite far apart. However, the interaction between the actors and guests was excellent. They would get extremely close to your face and physically move you around the room.

The storyline was very clever, and the actors would always steer you back in the right direction whenever you attempted to get more information out of them. We deliberately asked questions that we thought they would not know how to answer, but they had a response for everything.

We shall return in 2014 to see what Alton Towers does next with the Scare Rooms!