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Event Review: The WOLFMEN Experience

Written by Melissa Grey Wednesday, 03 October 2012

Reviews - Events

A scant two and a half hours northwest of London lies the sleepy hamlet of Droitwich, an unsuspecting small town that finds itself at the center of a nightmare. The Wolfmen experience, brought to you by the people who run the popular Zombie Boot Camp, have made the most of the relatively isolated locale as humans and werewolves are pitted against one another in the dead of night.

Upon arrival, we were introduced to Roy Fitter, the retired Major who runs the event, whose firm handshake and humble demeanor don’t seem to neatly align with the type of person who spends his days concocting ever more creative ways to terrify his customers. In genuine-article, head-to-toe fatigues, Roy looks every inch the part of a seasoned veteran who is, quite frankly, too old for this s***. Once Fitter slips into character, not once does he break, adding a nice air of authenticity to an event that calls for adults to do the unthinkable: suspend their disbelief.

Surrounded by his heavily armed team, Roy begins the briefing. The story unfolds thus: the town of Droitwich and the surrounding woodlands have come under attack by an enemy straight out of legend. Contact has been lost with the Special Forces team sent out prior to your arrival and your squad has been put together to launch a search and rescue mission and eliminate the threat. Armed with a variety of high quality replica weapons – including AK-47s, Heckler and Koch MP 5 assault rifles, Glock machine pistols and a Dragunov sniper rifle – your team is dispatched to combat the oncoming horde.

The Wolfmen experience is essentially an elaborate game of make-believe. As children, playing dress-up and battling mythical creatures comes easily, but years and experience tend to leave us too jaded to fully immerse ourselves in imaginary worlds. However, Fitter’s infectious enthusiasm is capable of winning over even the most hardened cynic with his ever-quotable words of wisdom. During his briefing, the major won over a good number of his audience when he said, “Ladies, you’ll find that you become more ferocious in close quarters combat than the blokes.”

Without giving too much away – the event is not without plot twists – we can say that the slow build at the beginning of the night culminates in an action-packed masterstroke that will surely leave you hung-over on adrenaline the next morning. The grand finale involves shooting out of the open door of a speeding vehicle as the werewolves launch their final ambush on your team.

As fun as it is, the survival experience wasn’t without its snags. As Fitter pointed out, “It’s like trying to shoot a film in one take.” While most of the actors involved did their best to never break character, the werewolves are, in fact, only human and one can imagine how taxing it must be to be shot with airsoft pellets and beaten with riot batons for four hours straight. Despite the growing pains that accompany the debut of an enterprise on the scale of the Wolfmen experience, the cast and crew’s commitment to the event was enough to eclipse the handful of minor breaks throughout the night. If you’ve ever got an evening to spare and an axe to grind with the supernatural, you could do worse than the Wolfmen survival experience. To find out if you’ve got the right stuff, suit up and grab your gun, for as Fitter ominously intoned during his briefing: “Today, some of you will find out if you’ve got balls or not.”