| Ride Review - Latest Revision: September 2001 (WARNING! Will Spoil First Time Riders) |
 Oakwood doesn’t have many
dark rides, just one technically and a few indoor
attractions. That one dark ride is Voodoo mansion, a ride
based on the evil voodoo witch Marie Laveau of new
Orleans. The story line is great, Marie Laveau being a
real voodoo witch makes the story seem well rounded. The
story is about a family who have upset Marie and so she
has cursed them and their mansion in new Orleans. The ride takes place in a very traditional New Orleans mansion, made of white painted wood (on the outside). The station is bare with red wallpaper, dim lights, and a few paintings that have been copied from the Haunted House at Alton Towers. Through the middle come some flimsy ghost train cars that run along a track, like the early ghost trains, not on a chain like the more modern ones. So what do we see on the ride? Well scenes that aren’t thought out, scenes that don’t fit together, and nothing even remotely scary. The scenes are confusing, seemingly they are the curses that Marie has put on each member of the family, but then why is there a maze, why are there jester like characters and why is there a chef cutting up a chicken? The rides story is well thought out, the scenes are not. A good point is that you do get very close to the scenes, this can be quite intimidating and you find yourself leaning away from them. There is no music and so you can hear the annoying whirring sounds that the car makes. Plastic creatures come down from the ceiling and effect used by the Haunting, pointless because you can see how it works. In the final scene we see a chicken in the hand of a chef, who looks remarkably like Ainsley Harriet, perhaps it’s the big cheesy smile he has. Well anyway the lights go out and we are splashed with warm water, made to think it is blood from the chicken. What relevance this scene has i don’t know, is it the house chef gone evil, if so, it isn’t clear. At the end of the ride you have to get out of the car before you get crushed, due to it going under a very small tunnel. On your way out you will usually have a nice shock, but I shan’t spoil that for you. The ride isn’t bad, all the scenes are usually working, but then again it is a new ride. The storyline is good. The theming isn’t bad. But the scenes make little sense, it isn’t scary and the queue can become very long. The ride is worth going on once, but because there are few scenes and not much to shock you, once is enough. Oakwood needed a dark ride and that is what they got, but I can’t help feeling they could have done much better than Voodoo Mansion. VOODOO MANSION CLOSED IN 2003, AND BECAME "SPOOKY 3D". |