Saw torturecoaster rolls into UK theme park

You won't believe how it bends

Surrey theme park Thorpe Park has revealed its new attraction will be 'Saw - The Ride', based on the super-gruesome gorebuster movie franchise of the same name.

The family-friendly frolic-enclave has run 'Fright Nights' with various scary goings-on since 2002, but the new ride seems a rather more ambitious and full-bodied attempt to incur the wrath of Responsible Parents, who are quite alright with traumatising their own children but will raise hell if anyone else tries it. The cinematic rollercoaster won't creak into action until spring 2009, but with Hallowe'en just around the corner and Saw V in cinemas on 24 October, the PR machine is rattling forth now.

Thorpe Park has worked with Lionsgate film studio on the ride, which it naturally claims will be the scariest in the world ever, like spare-pants scary. “Anybody who has sat through a Saw film scared and terrified beyond belief will have some idea of what’s in store for them at Thorpe Park," giggled creative director Candy Holland. “Saw – The Ride is going to be shocking and intense, both physically and psychologically, and is sure to give you nightmares.”

Saw, a kind of Kwik Save Se7en, was released in 2004 and spawned an immensely successful franchise (the sixth instalment is on its way). Along with Eli Roth's tits-flashing-and-hamstring-slashing upsetter Hostel, it's generally considered to be one of the dubious trailblazers of the 'torture porn' horror sub-genre. However, the self-consciously shocked-and-appalled term is often somewhat inaccurate, as at no point in such movies does a swarthy moustachioed man offer to fix an impossibly-breasted woman's washing machine before putting her in it on boil wash.

The Thorpe Park terror begins with this extravagant Flash site from which the unwary are likely to run shrieking "MY EYES". A good start. The ride will feature "a 100ft vertical lift, a 100° drop ["from a height of 100ft, making it the steepest freefall drop in the world"], three inversions, and a terrifying indoor section which accounts for 30 per cent of total ride time".

The latter promises to make for a "spine-chilling queueing experience", which is surely better than the usual eye-rolling queueing experience, unless it happens to incorporate actual rolling eyes. That would be sick.

In other news: not wanting to be outdone, Alton Towers trumpets its new shit-your-pants double-loop spectacular, 'Rocknrollacoasta'. The harrowing attraction's nightmarish climax will feature nothing-faced cinematic arsewart Guy Ritchie writing another page of fist-chewingly bad dialogue liberally sprinkled with mockney witticisms and geezers doing geezer stuff, yeah? Brrrrr. ®

Boo! note

The scariest thing to happen at Thorpe Park to date occurred in 2006, when 41 people were trapped on the Slammer ride at a 45 degree angle for an hour. Still, none of them were forced to grope about in the giblets of their fellow passengers to find the key to let them out. So that wasn't so bad.

Thanks to Jonathan Dudley for the tip-off.