James WitherspoonStanding underneath a bridge on Tooley Street, surrounded by blood-soaked-pyjama-wearing guides, the audience members for this evening’s Phobophobia show were naturally unsure of what to expect. During the day, and for the rest of the year, The London Bridge Experience is a historical attraction à la The Dungeons, combined with a surreal, high-tech horror maze known as the London Tombs. But on selected October evenings, guests are promised an adults-only, terrifying spectacular that’s designed to ‘terrify and unnerve’ them.
First things first, this thing is seriously long. Our run-through took around 25 minutes, which is long enough when the action never lets up (save for a bizarre moment halfway through where our photo is taken), but, depending on group speed and the actors, it can last up to 45 minutes. The attraction is roughly split into two halves: the first being the rethemed rooms of what is usually the historical tour, and the second being an amped-up version of the usual Tombs. This year, the overarching story is ‘Night Terrors’ – which does apparently involve some sort of Nightmare on Elm Street-esque concept – but which was not explained to us on the door. Batching was intimate, with groups of 2-5 at a time entering the attraction, and not encountering any other audience members until the gift shop at the end.
Upon entry, we’re instantly thrust into a darkened bedroom which begins violently strobing as a character bursts out of the bed and lunges towards us, forcing us to retreat into a darkened, cramped tunnel filled with soft toys and pillows. From here on, it’s a pretty aggressive stumble through bedsheets, candy-colours, and gargantuan quantities of fake mist as we’re pursued by creepy children, knife wielding maniacs, and crazy dudes wearing chainsaws. A lot of this first part, due to its temporary nature, has a haphazard organic edge to it – with us tripping over uneven floors and fighting through incredibly low visibility to try and evade antagonists who felt genuinely dangerous. This edge is something that I feel is missing in most modern scare attractions: the genuine feeling that you are under attack as opposed to simply expecting a jump-scare. A particular highlight consisted of us being locked into a room covered completely in mattresses, and then being physically attacked by a manic zombie-like character amidst vicious strobes.
Downstairs things began to hot-up even more as we’re sent into the main body of The Tombs to confront the creatures that lie within. The theming down here is next-level: it’s a permanent walkthrough, and no expense has been spared on disorientating strobes (flashing at long intervals to increase the feeling of hallucination), innovative walkways (including a palette maze and a revolving tunnel), and corners where actors can hide waiting to pounce. It’s a pretty interesting piece of work: there’s no real concurrent theme to pick out, with the maze instead flitting between different facets of horror imagery, offering endless opportunities for unique scares. The characters down here in the basement weren’t afraid to get touchy, with several pursuing us for up to five minutes and prodding our sides. Because of this, there was a genuine wish to stay away from the actors, with the constant sight of them trailing behind the group becoming a cause of terror. Where actors were nowhere to be seen, pre-programmed animatronics did their work for them, lunging at us from darkened recesses.
The key difference between Phobophobia and, say Tulleys or Thorpe, is its insistence on pushing the limits of taste. Not quite to the level of, say, more psychosexual ‘extreme’ attractions, but more so than a usual maze. In Phobophobia, for instance, the actors are permitted to physically interact with the audience, and do so quite forcefully: pushing them around, hitting them with soft toys, and grabbing them whenever they get close enough. There’s an overt insistence on saying ‘fuck’ as many times as is humanly possible, just because they can. Because of the up-close-and-personal private style of the attraction, characters also pursue visitors through the maze – cornering them and following them into the tight weaves of the pathways, constantly giving the feeling that they’re being followed.
Nevertheless, we did feel that there could have been more actors in the maze. A few scenes in the first half, and a lot of scenes in the second half were left bare of scares. The anticipation of a jump, for sure, kept us on edge, but there wasn’t the level of energy that we had expected given the reputation of the event, and the experiences that we have had with it in previous years. We also came across scenes, such as the clown scene in the tombs section, which featured no less than 6 or 7 actors. Spacing these people out across a larger area would have been a much more effective way to pace scares and keep the aggressive momentum of the attraction up for longer.
Actor positioning aside, Phobophobia is an incredible Halloween attraction that you won’t need to travel outside of central London to experience. It’s a lot harsher, more vicious, and raw than the other events we’ve tried so far this year, sustaining the fear and suspense of a great maze for the intense length of 25 minutes, and leaving the audience emerging drenched in sweat. It also happens to be the most personal experience you can have in a maze save from going through alone. An exhilarating, terrifying head rush!
Sanjana Varghese
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