Hallowscream's Redneck's Revenge for 2024 Halloween

Hallowscream, a haunted house attraction at York Maze, opened its doors earlier this month.

As the first and biggest Halloween scare event to open in Yorkshire, Hallowscream opens its doors for 18 nights a year to a crowd of up to 2,000 visitors with five haunted houses.

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Speaking to The Press on Wednesday night, owner Tom Pearcy said: “We’re pretty much sold out every night so far. Halloween is still as popular as ever and Hallowscream is going from strength to strength.

“Most of our visitors come from within a two-hour drive time - a lot of people from York, Hull, Leeds, Newcastle. We’ve got quite a big draw and quite a lot of people stay over for the night, so it adds to the tourist economy of York.”

The first version of the event came about in the early 2000s, when Tom was checking over his fields on a dark autumn night to ensure that nobody was hiding amongst the corn – something he described as ‘terrifying’.

The full cast of Hallowscream 2024 (Image: Provided) Off the back of that, he then began hosting ‘spooky nights’ in September where people would walk among the crops – something which became difficult to manage when people who were not associated with the event would get involved in scaring the visitors.

Tom said: “We reopened the scare event here on a new site in 2009 and we started again with the outdoor field as part of it but it was too difficult to staff and manage.

“We started building haunted houses in shipping containers, lorries, things like that, so it was a bit more controlled, then we’ve gone on to use marquees to keep the event undercover and make it weatherproof.

Some of the Hallowscream actors (Image: Provided) "Now, you’re guaranteed to have a good quality night here and you’re not going to get freezing cold or wet.”

From that first event, the attraction has grown in popularity – currently employing 300 members of staff on any given night: 50 makeup artists, 160 actors who all need make up, 25 dancers, security, and a full food and beverage team.

Hallowscream five rotating houses – clown themed Corny's Cornevil, the sci-fi inspired The Singularity, cannibal themed The Flesh Pot, last year’s new ancient Egyptian themed house Necropolis, and new addition Redneck’s Revenge.

Lil Dribbly's stage show on the main stage (Image: Alice Kavanagh) There are also shows every 15 minutes on the main stage with main act, Lil Dribbly, performing a musical number at 9pm.

On the new house and replacing the previous attraction 2078, Tom said: “It was partly because it [2078] was a big sprawling attraction so although we had a lot of actors in it, sometimes it could feel a bit almost empty. Also, it had been running for quite a few years so we’d decided to refresh the houses when we can.

“I wanted to do something that felt a bit like Deliverance and a bit American for a change, so we built Rednecks Revenge. It’s a bit like the old one as it has some outdoor areas, it’s the only attraction we do that you go outdoors but it’s not as much outdoor and it’s a very different vibe."

Rednecks Revenge at Hallowscream (Image: Provided)York Maze Hallowscream, in Elvington Lane, York, will run until Saturday, November 2, 2024. The event is open on select nights from 6.30pm–11pm, with last entry at 9pm.  The event is age 16-plus only.

Tickets for Hallowscream can be found here with prebooking recommended.