It is hours before the first visitors are due to arrive. We find ourselves in the middle of an empty Julianatoren (Apeldoorn, Netherlands) and have an appointment with Michel, head of the technical department. This small park in the centre of the country houses a surprisingly well-themed dark ride: Spookslot (Haunted Castle). On this early morning, we are able to take a look behind the scenes of this underappreciated ghost train. Let’s hope those are the ghosts of morning persons!
The oldest attraction at the park, to which it owes its name, is the Julianatoren (Juliana Tower). It is a 24-metre-high watchtower built in 1910. The tower has a rich history. It was originally 20 metres and was in turn named after Juliana, Princess and later Queen of the Netherlands, born the year before. During World War II, it got claimed by Nazi Germany to be used as an observation post. The Germans extended its height by 4 metres and renamed it the Julia Toren. This last change was quickly reversed after the war came to an end.
Starting from the 30s, the Kreekel family operated an amusement park nearby, Prins Bernhard Dal. When during the early 60s the local authority had plans to redevelop the area, the two parties reached an agreement. The Kreekel family was allowed to buy the Julianatoren and surrounding land so that the rides could be moved to there. Kinderpretpark Julianatoren (Children’s Amusement Park Julianatoren) as we know it today was born. Jul, a mouse that lives in the tower, was introduced as a mascot.
The 90s was a period of rapid growth, with the introduction of Jul’s Rollerskates (Vekoma Junior Coaster) and the haunted castle we are going to look at in a bit, among others. In recent years, the park has become packed to the brim with attractions due to the limited available space. That is also the strongest point of Julianatoren: it offers non-stop fun on an impressively small surface. Just a few weeks ago, news broke that the park was taken over by the Goudkuil family, securing the future of the over 110-year-old park.
We meet Michel in the technical workshop. His staff is already hard at work repairing a vehicle of the Dino’s Tour car ride and creating scenery for an upcoming show. ‘’I have been working here for 27 years,’’ says Michel. ‘’Originally as head of the technical department but nowadays I am more focused on the entertainment. Building decors, programming the lighting and so on. We also do filming for the YouTube channel ourselves.’’ The park’s theatre is located adjacent to the technical workshop so that decor can be easily swapped out.
Michel takes us to a small office and through a likewise small door. All of the sudden, we are standing in one of the scenes of Spookslot. Equipped with a flashlight, we make our way to the station where the unusual ride system is waiting in the dark. It consists of multiple vehicles, all linked together. The work lights are turned on for us.
Michel remembers: ‘’The station used to be half-open, so you could look inside. Later, we enclosed it completely. The paint work around the windows, I did that myself. What you may not know is that for some years I used to live on park property, so I would do odd jobs like that throughout the night.’’
‘’When Spookslot opened, the vehicles departed one by one. They were linked together later, but I do not know when exactly. The last coach is reserved for the operator who has to keep an eye on the riders. If someone were to step out or if something were to happen, they have a remote control with which they can make the train come to a stop.’’ It is not every day that you encounter a ghost train that actually acts like a train.
The bodies of the vehicles were made by the park’s own decoration team but what company supplied the chassis has been lost to time. Before the train departs, an instruction video featuring Jul plays on a screen, warning visitors to stay inside the vehicle at all times. Originally, there was a voice-over that conveyed the same information. The screen was added in 2016 and the video on it has been updated regularly.
We promptly ignore the instructions of the mouse and turn the first 180° corner by foot. The first scene is a long hallway resembling a forest with a laser tunnel luring us closer to the other end. Here, a mysterious figure points us towards the entrance of the castle, the doors of which swing open. ‘’There used to be an animatronic guard here, but he was in bad shape.’’ Michel explains. ‘’All the original figures come from the Heimo company of Germany, but in terms of effects, we added things ourselves in 2005, 2006.’’
Inside the castle, the first scare awaits us. A piano stands to the right and as its lid falls down, it makes a loud bang. ‘’The piano was in here from the start, but we made it move using parts we had lying around. It was on a Sunday morning that we put it together. Somewhere behind it, there’s an old flashlight that we couldn’t reach anymore.’’ The rest of the room is made up of wicked paintings and haunted door knockers.
In the next room, the train takes a 180° turn to the left. In the right-hand corner stands a ‘pendulum of death’, with a victim laying under the swinging blade that slowly moves down. It is a fictional torture device, popularised in the 1842 short story The Pit and the Pendulum by Edgar Allan Poe. It has since become a classic horror trope. To the left we find a painting of a lady that comes alive, which was added in 2016. Next to it, a figure with an insectile face comes out of a wooden cabinet.
The left-hand side of the room is an elaborately themed dining room, with monstrous characters enjoying a feast at a table. Among the delicacies are a chopped off foot, eyeballs and ears. ‘’All of this is original, we just fixed it up a bit,’’ Michel explains. One of the ghouls has been stabbed in the back by his neighbour, who clearly wanted to reserve more for himself. Next to the table is a small kitchen, with a cook in the middle of preparing a freshly chopped off head.
The dining room and its characters were copied from Kingdom of Magic, which was the first ghost train designed by Heimo. It was a travelling ride, operated by the Renoldi family of Germany from 1978 until 1983. A similar scene could be found in the original Geisterschloss at Europa-Park.
We continue our way to a large, octagonal room. It is referred to internally as the ‘throne room’, although nobody seems to know why that is. In the centre of the room stands a coffin of which the lid occasionally pops up, revealing a confused-looking dead man. The ceiling is transparent and through it, various creeps are staring down at us.
Michel: ‘’This ride opened in 1992, but apparently this room is older and was reused from somewhere else.’’ Julianatoren had a haunted house before Spookslot, believed to have been a walkthrough, so it is possible it came from there. The building we are standing in dates back to at least the early 80s as well.
One of the sides of the room is not a wall but a broken window frame. Behind it stands a large, demonic bat with a human skull. ‘’This is Peter,’’ Michel introduces the creature casually. ‘’We had a colleague named Peter, who was very strong and looked a bit like him.’’ The technician climbs through the window frame to reach the back of the animatronic. We follow him somewhat hesitantly. ‘’When the train comes by, he blasts smoke out of his mouth,’’ he says, as he activates the smoke machine manually.
While we are back here, we get a good look at the show control equipment of the throne room, hidden just out of sight. ‘’Every scene is activated by a sensor and then plays out for a set amount of time.’’ Michel explains. ‘’The movements of the characters, the lighting, everything is timed by this cabinet filled with time relays.’’ A time relay is basically a switch for turning power on and off, that can be programmed to do so automatically at certain intervals. ‘’Over the years, all of this has been renewed and the timings were redone.’’
We climb back out of the window frame and continue our journey through Spookslot. The first thing we see is a wicked face painted on the wall. But then, the face disappears and reveals a little room behind it. The face is painted onto a sharktooth scrim, which is a canvas with many tiny holes. With the right lighting, it can be made to look almost transparent. It is a classic trick from the world of theatre that has been used on various ghost trains.
A turn to the left takes us under an archway with drop gate into a claustrophobic dungeon. Before we take a sharp turn to the right, we meet a skeleton behind bars in a corner. In the next corner, a man is caught in a guillotine. Every once in a while, the blade comes down and the head falls into the basket. Is this where the cook gets his ingredients from? When the lights go out, the scene resets itself. A couple of jail cells with skeletons inside round off our visit to the dungeon.
Around the corner lies a treasure room. Another skeleton, who presumably managed to escape the dungeon, is sitting among the riches. Quite content with the circumstance, he donned a crown but has yet to realise there is a big spider dangling above his head. A little further down the hall, another skeleton is cooking in a cauldron.
We exit the castle and head ‘outside’ again, towards the largest scene. Michel: ‘’This section of the building was added on in 1992. We actually used real sand to create a convincing graveyard, but there is of course a foundation underneath.’’ The cemetery is populated with all sorts of undead characters and a gravedigger. Some animals like owls in a tree can be found in the background. A vulture has taken a liking to a large skull and decided to take a rest on top of it.
The scene is a bit messy at the moment. ‘’A lot of what you see here is actually Halloween decorations, which get put outside during October. Due to our limited space, we have to store them in here for the rest of the year.’’ One might say that Spookslot is the world’s only haunted house gets less scary during Halloween.
Continuing down the graveyard, before the train makes a turn to the right, we encounter a large hearse. ‘’And yes, it is a real one,’’ Michel explains. ‘’In fact, even the coffin is still inside. It is a miracle we managed to drag the thing inside, as it is so extremely heavy. It immediately sank into the ground, but it does look nice that way. We put it in as part of the refurbishment in 2006.’’
Across from the hearse we find a laboratory with a mad professor. Originally, this was another section of the graveyard but in 2020 it was decided to build a new scene here. ‘’It was designed by my colleague Sander,’’ says Michel. ‘’The professor was an existing animatronic that we gave a new mask. The rest we built ourselves. We still want to upgrade it a bit, so that the tubes are going to bubble, and so on.’’
Michel shares another fun fact: ‘’See that large tank behind the professor? That is actually the compressor that supplies the air to make the animatronics move. It used to be located in our office and we had to break out a wall to move it in here. But it looks great and it gave us more space in the office to boot!’’
The final stretch of the ride is a straight path back to the station. On the left side, a variety of creepy figures are lined up. Notable is the chopped off head on the tray, still talking. At the very end we find the face of a monster, which is another re-used asset from Kingdom of Magic. ‘’This part has become a bit of a mess,’’ says Michel, ‘’so we are looking into redoing it.’’
The right-hand side however features an interesting effect. A white canvas has been stretched here and on it appears some sort of devilish figure attacking another character. It is not a video projection but rather an old-fashioned shadow play, another classic theatre trick. Through a small door we can take a look behind the screen and see that the characters are made from flat, wooden boards. A simple electric motor drives a series of mechanisms which make the individual parts move.
It is in this small backstage room that also the current transformer for the ride system and equipment for the safety video are hidden. Because each scene has its own show control, there is no need for a large technical room.
Before we head back to the station, Michel has one more surprise for us. We have seen Spookslot from behind the scenes, but as it turns out, we can even go above the scenes! Running over the entire ride is an attic just high enough to traverse crouched. It gives some nice views of the scenes for an unusual perspective.
Mechanics come up here from time to time to check the lighting and audio equipment. Michel: ‘’Back in 2006, we converted all the lighting to LED. We were among the very first to do so and even today, some other parks have not made the switch yet. It was quite the investment at the time, but it was the right decision.’’
And that wraps up the backstage tour of Spookslot at Julianatoren. As we make our way back to the technical workshop, the work lighting is turned off and we can hear the first visitors of the day queueing outside, oblivious to the fact that it was us who woke the ghosts up for them. We would like to sincerely thank the team of Julianatoren for their hospitality and Michel in particular for taking the time to show us around.
© 2024 Dark Ride Database
Article by Jim
Photos by Dark Ride Database unless noted otherwise
