Mission Possible: Haunted Castle

Year of production

2000

Location

Chillingham Castle, Northumberland

Client

Virgin Active

A Castle of Lost Souls...

In June 2000 the Scream Team behind AtmosFEAR! were commissioned by Virgin Active to produce a haunted entertainment event at Chillingham Castle in Northumberland.

As part of Virgin Active’s Mission Possible project, to raise £50,000 for The Starlight Foundation, our themed show was to be a scary ghost hunt in which 35 staff members would compete to overcome fear and win prizes. They would be sponsored to take part in the show with the premise that they must spend the entire night inside the haunted castle without getting too scared and asking to leave.

After securing several high profile prize sponsors we put together a bundle of ghost hunting gadgetry and set about creating a storyline that would introduce the audience to the legends and ghost stories that abound at the castle.

Armed with beeping gizmo’s and laser thermometers we split the audience into small teams and sent them off to hunt out the spooks. Accompanied by a ‘real Ghost Hunters’, played by our scareactors, we made sure that they experienced some strange activity in the hours of darkness!

At daybreak, and with a hearty breakfast inside them, we unlocked the castle door and sent our intrepid audience back to real life, unsure whether they had really experienced something supernatural, or whether it had all been down to their imaginations...