By Oliver Radcliffe

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Trick or treating, fancy dress, and maybe even a horror film are all classic things to tick off a list when Halloween comes around . But for anyone wanting a much scarier experience that really takes the adrenaline up a notch, Europe’s largest scream park is actually on British soil. Just when you thought Fright Night at Thorpe Park and Alton Towers was scary, one farm in Kent thought they’d ramp the fear up to a new level to create a terrifying experience that could leave you with nightmares for weeks. If you’ve not yet heard of it, Tulleys Shocktober Fest at Tulleys Farm in Crawley, West Sussex, has been terrifying and entertaining thrill-seekers for nearly three decades. The concept began in the mid-1990s when the Beare family, already running Tulleys’ pick-your-own pumpkin business, realised there was an appetite for a full-blown Halloween event in the UK. Over the next few decades, it has grown and grown from a modest haunted house into a full-blown festival resembling a sort of Glastonbury from hell. With several scare mazes, shows, roaming monsters, fire displays, and live music, it’s all wrapped up in a grimy, immersive horror atmosphere. Once darkness falls, you can plunge into multiple haunts and past favourites include Wastelands Penitentiary, The Chop Shop, Creepy Cottage, Electrick Circus, and the sinister new Doom Town. To bring the action to life, actors dressed up in some pretty grim costumes wander around the grounds, getting ready to give you a scare at any moment, and leaving you on edge. One man brave enough to head to Tulleys was social media reviewer Alex Dodman. Known for giving very frank reviews on some of the biggest attractions around the UK, he headed to the farm to see what was going on. He began: “When I first walked on, I was getting slight funfair vibes in the middle of a field, but I think I was here a little bit early, and it wasn’t even dark yet. “From the get-go, though, this place definitely felt a lot more serious about Halloween than Thorpe Park, and with that, it attracts the more serious Halloween goer. It almost felt like I’d now stepped into professional Halloween.” As he began going through some of the 11 different haunts, Alex warned people to make sure they are really into horror, as some of the scares will really mess with you. He added: “Some of them [scares] are actually award-winningly terrifying, apparently, like Doom town, where you’re driven out to an abandoned village and they just completely terrify you for 20 minutes.” He summarised: “The attention to detail this place goes to, not only in the haunts but also the whole setup here, is actually incredible, and if you’re one of those Halloween people that are wired a bit like a psycho, you’ll have a proper good time here. “So when you compare this to places like Thorpe Park Fright Night, I’d say that’s more like watching a CBeebies Mr Tumble episode.” For 2025, Shocktober Fest runs from 3 October through to 1 November with a firework-lit finale. Most evenings, the park opens between 5:30pm, with the haunts kicking off around 5:30pm or 6:30pm, and running until about 11:30pm, with tickets costing around £54.95 for a basic Xscream Pass.