Review: Phantom Peak's Hallowed Peak (2024)

London's best open-world immersive experience serves up a healthy dose of cowboys vs aliens with their latest supernatural seasonal offering, Hallowed Peak.

Photo: Alistair Veryard

Spooky season is finally upon us, and with it comes the third edition of Hallowed Peak - Phantom Peak's annual Halloween offering. Billed as more spooky than scary, this family-friendly immersive open-world experience has become a mainstay of London's Halloween season in recent years, and as they so often do, the team behind Phantom Peak have outdone themselves once again.

There's a lot for guests to sink their fangs into this season. First and foremost, there are roughly nine hours worth of new stories spread across ten brand new trails, as well as three interactive carnival games, the ever-popular competitive sport of Platyhooks, and refreshed food and drinks offerings across the site. Additionally, two add-on experiences -The Lunar Remedy, a revamped cocktail trail, and the puzzle adventure The Haunted Hunt - add even more to the experience. It's way too much to do in just one visit to Phantom Peak, but the show has always worked best when treated as an ongoing experience that you return to again and again.

For this latest iteration of Hallowed Peak, the threats that have descended upon the town are fittingly supernatural. Across the trails, there's everything from shapeshifting beachballs to vengeful cowboy spirits, candy-based demons and sentient toys to frat-boy aliens all casting a long shadow over the townsfolk of Phantom Peak. While business may booming at resident paranormal investigators Spectre & Vox, the true danger looming over the town this season comes in the form of a big red button. After being pressed by Mayor Pocket during the opening ceremony, a self-destruct sequence that threatens to destroy the town is inadvertently triggered, with a mere 4 hours left until the town is set to explode.

Daniel Pirie as Dr. Winter in Phantom Peak

Photo: Alistair Veryard

As so often happens within Phantom Peak, what may start as just a simple request from one of the townsfolk will soon spiral off into a much more complex storyline full of twists, turns and humour. Those keen to get to the bottom of who's behind the plot to blow up the town will soon find themselves signing up for a pyramid schemes competition, subjecting themselves to a prolonged staring contest, hacking one of the town's many pieces of technology to talk to an imprisoned character and finally beating one of the townsfolk in a wand-waving battle to get the answers they need.

Quite how the show's writing team can so deftly weave all of these disparate elements together into engaging and fun storylines is already impressive before you also consider that they manage to do it ten times over every few months without a drop in quality.

Tatianna Nicolle Davis as Datchery in Phantom Peak

Photo: Alistair Veryard

Hallowed Peak also goes some way to pushing Phantom Peak's overarching storyline forward. In some cases, these developments are continuing storylines established back in the show's first season, which opened in Summer 2022. Don't worry if you're a newcomer though, this overarching story is still very accessible and easy to pick up within a few hours of exploration.

There's direct mention of the much-teased return of former Mayor, Dr. Joy S Furbish, who has been hiding away in the vast system of mines below the town for the best part of a year now (don't believe the lies of the Opening Ceremony introductory video), and characters that have had a long absence from the show return, with Thirsty Frontier Saloon owner Copper back in Phantom Peak following a prison sentence for being part of a rebellion against the town's omnipotent leader, Jonas.

While the continued success of Phantom Peak could be attributed to the ever-changing selection of storylines on offer, that's only a part of what makes this show so special. By design, Phantom Peak is driven by conversations with the townsfolk, and for those who want their immersive experiences to be full of one-on-one interaction, the show delivers in buckets. The cast, whose enthusiasm and openness to improvisation and above all else, fun, makes Phantom Peak a place people want to return to time and time again, and their attachment to the town's characters has only strengthened with each new season.

Archie Steele as Spectre in Phantom Peak

Photo: Alistair Veryard

While of course, the cast of Phantom Peak are all actors there to do their jobs, there is a real sense that they care about the people visiting the show, and do all they can to forge real, tangible connections with guests. Small gestures, like being welcomed back at the start of sessions by members of the cast who remember you, to the more overt displays of recognition like being referred to by name or calling back to previous conversations they've had with you, go a long way to making Phantom Peak feel like a living, breathing town with real residents. For first-time visitors, it's worth going out of your way to speak to any many of them as possible, even if they're not directly involved in the trail you're working through to begin forging your own relationships with the people that make Phantom Peak so special.

Photo: Alistair Veryard

October is usually a pretty busy month for immersive experiences in and around London. In stark comparison to most other Halloween-themed shows playing in the city this month, Phantom Peak is a family-friendly experience that's able to be enjoyed by visitors of all ages. As we close in on the 31st October, Phantom Peak is putting on extra sessions and extending its opening hours to get into the spirit of the season, with a late-night offering on Halloween evening.

While it's by no means the most intense show themed around Halloween, it’s undoubtedly one of the most enjoyable and should be an essential visit for Halloween fans.

★★★★★