The last time I went to Thorpe Park, I did so explicitly for one thing… to ride on Derren Brown’s re-imagining of the classic ghost train in, Rise of The Demon.
I have been a fan of Derren’s work for some years, and though I think he has had some hits and misses, I have largely been very impressed with what he can do, and I am pleased to see he is branching out, using his techniques in other ways.
Rise of The Demon is Thorpe Park’s ghost train, but with the obvious connections with Brown, it’s fair to say it is nothing like you expect. A word of warning from the outset, I think you will either love this ride or hate it. There is no in between with this one.
I’m not going to give anything away, as you really have to experience it first hand. This is the second version as feedback from the first run was ‘make it scarier.’ I never experienced the first version, so can’t say if it worked, but I did find it very scary to a point.
All of the action takes place either walking around a subterranean platform, outside the train or on the train itself. The main thing here (which I don’t think gives anything away as most people know this) is that on the train you use virtual reality headsets to experience most of the ride.
This is where Brown’s ghost train triumphs. He has really pulled out the stops to give as an immersive experience as possible. The live actors are believable in their parts and convince you as to your location at the time. The VR is slightly different for everyone, so in theory you would not get exactly the same ride. How many variations there are though, I don’t know. You really have to appreciate the sheer ambition of what has tried to be created here. Unfortunately it doesn’t work – and the biggest mistake is unacceptable.
The story is quite confused. It has a basic premise, but it doesn’t seem to follow. Also i’m not sure why the time period jumps other than to shoe horn in a period that doesn’t fit the rest of the story, because Derren has an obvious fascination with it. The biggest gripe though is the technology. The VR headsets failed time and time again. It’s just not good enough and doesn’t do justice to the ride. I went on twice and there were at least a quarter of the headsets out of action. You use the VR sets twice each ride, so I used them 4 times, and every time (including myself) people complained of no video, no audio or the screen freezing. That simply is not good enough and I can’t imagine what Thorpe Park’s excuse for this is.
But… when it did work, it was amazing. I loved the VR experience, it was really convincing, and the way they worked it into the story to justify the equipment was excellent. They ramped up the scares nicely between the VR and live action with a huge one at the end. I absolute loved this ride and would highly recommend if you get a working headset. However, the inferior equipment really lets it down…and for a ride that has been open for quite some time, there is really no justification for using inferior equipment.
Unfortunately, purely for the equipment issues I can only give it 5/10 stars… but who knows, if you are lucky and get a fault free experience, then this ride is something very special.
Chris
@CW_Stagg
