BOTTROP-KIRCHHELLEN — Spooky music, thick fog and plenty of zombies and monsters will soon lurk in the darkest corners of Movie Park Germany again! The Halloween Horror Festival will provide new scary surprises for 2020. When the full moon rises above the Horrorwood Studios in Germany’s largest movie and amusement park from October, over 280 monsters will once again be unleashed. This year, the new horror house “The Curse of Chupacabra” and the new interactive laser walkthrough “Secrets of St. Elmo” will provide fresh supplies on the devilish attraction menu. Due to the great success of the last years, Movie Park will again offer 23 event days. The Halloween Horror Festival will take place from October 1 to November 8.

“We are pleased to be able to offer our visitors an exciting Halloween time again this year,” says Managing Director Thorsten Backhaus. “To this end, we have been in intensive consultation with the authorities to find a way to let Halloween take place during the time of Covid-19 and at the same time provide our guests with a safe but scary experience. With our new horror maze and an interactive laser walkthrough we have two new highlights this year that will excite our guests.”

The new horror house “The Curse of Chupacabra”
Deep in the ruins lies the truth and danger is only a breath away. This is exactly the experience visitors make in the new horror maze “The Curse of Chupacabra”. The Mexican Día de los Muertos is in full swing when a few tourists get the chance to visit an old Mayan temple. However, the secret lies hidden at first: A dark curse weighs on this creepy place. Surrounded by darkness, the visitors must find their way out. Only a rope shows them the way, but nobody knows where it leads to. Rescue could be so close – if it were not for the mysterious monster that is right on the heels of the guests. But the last chance to escape is not possible without overcoming an obstacle. Will the visitors have enough courage to take the last resort or has their fate already been sealed in the depths of the Mayan temple?

“We placed particular emphasis on a good storyline and an immersive experience. The guests become a direct part of the story around the legendary South American myth of the Chupacabra,” says Halloween Project Manager Manuel Prossotowicz. “The theme of darkness plays a major role.” For Halloween 2020, the new maze moves into the premises of the attraction “The Lost Temple”. “Here we use the very detailed queue lines as a scenery, which perfectly match the overall subject of the attraction. As a special highlight, some scare actors – equipped with night vision devices – will hunt our visitors in areas of complete darkness. In this way, we combine psychological horror with the well-known jump-scares to create a great new overall experience for our visitors”.

Hunting ghosts with the interactive laser walkthrough “Secrets of St. Elmo”
Since the beginning of the season, Movie Park Germany has had its sights firmly set on the opening of its new interactive laser walkthrough “Secrets of St. Elmo”. Planned for the opening of the 22nd Halloween Horror Festival, the interactive experience will take place in the former premises of the licensed attraction “The Walking Dead Breakout”, which expired in 2019. After Halloween, “Secrets of St. Elmo” will remain a permanent attraction at Movie Park Germany.

This is where accuracy is most important! In a total of six scenes, the guests, equipped with laser weapons, slip into the role of a ghost hunter and accompany the young ghost Adeen to finally free the city and the saloon of St. Elmo from its evil forces. A mining accident laid the town in ashes 140 years ago. Thus, the guests not only discover the mysterious history of St. Elmo but also a well-kept secret that threatens to endanger the mission and raises the final question: Who is on whose side?

For the theming and technical implementation of the new attraction, Movie Park Germany commissioned the Dutch company Lagotronics Projects to create an intense overall experience. The company has already worked around the world to help theme parks develop ideas in the areas of interactive systems, games, audio, video, lighting, show control, virtual and augmented reality.

As the Halloween Horror Festival has been a tradition at Movie Park Germany for 22 years, guests can of course look forward to their favorite horror houses, too! A total of eight horror labyrinths and three scare zones will give the guests cold shivers again. In addition to the two novelties, “Project Ningyo”, “Insidious – Chapter 2”, “The Slaughterhouse”, “Hostel”, “Circus of Freaks” and “Campout” will also cause fear and horror among visitors.

For all families, Movie Park Germany offers again its popular Halloween for kids located at Nickland. Safe but creepy fun has priority here: The hygiene measures will specifically be reinforced, and more space will be created between the individual Halloween activities. As a replacement for the children’s bouncy house, this time a straw labyrinth will be moved to the bumper cars area of “Back at the Barnyard Bumpers”. Other possible Halloween activities will be generously distributed on the forecourt of the California Café.

Tickets and capacity regulation for a safe Halloween
As already since the opening of the park in May, Movie Park Germany is only allowed to let a limited number of visitors into the park which also applies to the horror mazes for the 23 Halloween days. “The safety and health of all employees and guests are still our top priority,” says Thorsten Backhaus. “That is why we have decided, together with the authorities, to significantly reduce the usual number of people in the horror labyrinths and to increase hygiene measures. Before entering any horror attraction, it is mandatory for guests to disinfect their hands. In addition, the taken precautions of the hygiene and infection protection protocol apply in the park, which have already been implemented in recent weeks and months and classified as fully functional by the city. We are pleased that not a single case of Corona infection has occurred at Movie Park so far.”

An online ticketing system will still be used to plan visitor capacities, handling general park admission as well as entrance to the respective horror houses. All Halloween fans can secure their tickets in advance via the web shop as long as there are still contingents. The Movie Park tickets contain a full twelve hours of park admission including four hours of Halloween Horror Festival with a scary atmosphere on the streets and scary encounters with the monsters that frighten visitors in three scare zones and at diverse photo points.

NEW in 2020: Time tickets for the horror houses must also be purchased online and in addition to the entrance tickets. Due to smaller groups of people and the smaller capacity in the horror labyrinths, it is absolutely necessary to secure a time slot for the mazes in advance and exclusively online before visiting the park. Besides a better capacity control and the avoidance of full queue lines, ticket holders of the horror mazes are guaranteed a more intense scary experience than before. Because of the increased hygiene measures and reduced group sizes, tickets will only be available at extra charge. Due to its orientation as a family park, the only free exception will be the popular outdoor maze “Campout”, which can be visited from the age of 12. Nevertheless, advance reservation will be mandatory here as well. The exact prices and operative procedures are being worked out intensely and will be communicated soon.

Further highlights of the 22nd Halloween Horror Festival
To make sure that not only fear and shudder get the guests in the right mood, DJ Max Bering will be there again and make shreds really fly. The DJ known from the Parookaville, who has already played alongside such greats as David Guetta, Felix Jaehn and Martin Solveig, will once again provide the soundtrack for all those who are able to escape zombies and monsters.

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