The Trocadero was a tourist trap entertainment centre just off Picadilly Circus in London.
It hosted a multiplex movie theatre back when they were the preserve of only major cities, a huge amusement arcade, the London branch of the Guinness World of Records, and countless other attractions.
If you spent any time there in the mid-1990s, you would also have spotted something curious.
Every fifteen minutes or so, a small crowd of tourists would come sprinting out of some double doors, screaming their heads off. Then they would realise where they were, and sheepishly slink away while everyone laughed at them.
In London, Everyone Can Hear You Scream
The reason for this is that, just seconds before, they had been fighting for their lives against a horde of xenomorphs in Alien War.
Alien War was a “total reality” experience in the United Kingdom that was themed around the Alien movies. It originally opened at the Arches in Glasgow in April 1992 in a smaller, less high-tech form.
It was created by John Gorman and Gary Gillies and started as a mobile event at various exhibition centres in the UK. After the Glasgow debut, it moved South.
On 15 October 1993, Alien War opened in the basement of the Trocadero Centre in London as a permanent attraction. And it was absolutely awesome!
It was so absolutely immersive that even my friends and I, at the time a bunch of twenty-somethings and full of bravado, were completely humbled by it.
After entering the attraction in a group of around 12, you were met by a fully uniformed and armed Colonial Marine for a briefing. There, you are welcomed to the facility and given the backstory.
As you begin your tour through a maze of dimly lit corridors, you are interrupted by another Marine as sirens blare and strobes flash.
Aliens, well, Xenomorphs
There has been a stasis breach in the xenomorph containment section of the base, and now the Marines must lead you to evacuation and safety.
This includes a journey across a bridge, where underneath, smoke swirls around pulsing, hatching alien eggs.
There was also an aborted attempt to escape by shuttle, derailed when the craft is swarmed by aliens and a face-hugger makes an appearance in the cabin right in front of your screaming faces.
The Marines get picked off one by one, aliens swarm including, incredibly, across the ceiling, and craftily disguised plants in your tour group really sold it when they are carried off screaming into the darkness by the xenomorphs.
These aren’t plants that you can tell a mile off, like those at Disney World or Universal Studios. It is only a while afterwards, on reflection, that you realise they had to be planted actors.
In one memorable sequence, you race into an elevator to ride it to safety.
The metal doors of the elevator buckle under the assault of a xenomorph whose head makes it inside, drooling from extending mouth. A girl (another plant) is ripped from the elevator right next to you, screaming hysterically as her hands claw and grasp desperately to remain inside.
As the final Colonial Marine is killed right in front of you by several aliens appearing from the darkness, his last order, screamed while dying, is that you run.
And run you do, full tilt down a corridor, glancing back over your shoulder only to see more aliens pursuing you, lit only by the flashing warning signs as klaxons wail.
A scream of terror escapes your mouth as the immersion becomes total and you positively throw yourself through some doors at the end of the corridor…
…only to find that you and the other surviving members of the tour party have emerged, blinking, into the fully lit, very center of the entertainment area at full charge and shouting for salvation.
As you all made absolutely sure that a little bit of wee hadn’t come out, you are relieved when one of your party says “Well, I am definitely not doing THAT again!” and you head off for a stiff drink to steady your nerves.
Beneath London
It is hard to make clear just how immersive, and absolutely terrifying, this experience was. Imagine the Jaws ride at Universal Studios, but one where you actually had to swim across the lake, while several of your fellow swimmers disappeared beneath the water with a scream and a spreading pool of blood. That is what this was like.
The effects were superb. Adding to the realism were the movie-accurate pulse rifles that used a unique system called Soundfire. Using infrared signals, the sensors told the computers controlling the experience where to play digital samples of pulse rifle fire to the right area of the arena.
Strobe effects and recoil on the guns themselves perfected the illusion.
The other sounds, such as warnings and klaxon sounds, were also sampled directly from the movies, as were the sounds of the aliens themselves.
The aliens were terrifyingly movie accurate. They were played by tall, slim actors as they were in the movies. Different costumes were used in different scenarios.
In a few “scenes” the xenomorphs scaled walls and crawled, inverted, across ceilings.
Always shrouded in darkness, any deficiencies in the suits to allow this dexterity were well hidden.
There were also automated animatronic scenes, including an attacking facehugger and an alien breaking into the elevator.
The experience would be sadly forced to close after a flood in the basement area of the Trocadero seriously damaged the set and the technology in 1996.
Now, you can revisit this superb experience and find out the story behind the attraction in Beneath London: The Story Of Alien War.
This 20-minute documentary 20, produced, written and directed by Paul King, explores the London attraction. The documentary features new audio interviews with Gary Gillies and John Gorman, co-creators of Alien War. As well as Maria Bergman and Doug McCarthy, two of the Colonial Marines actors.
The memories have come flooding back, and I can remember the feeling of terror as if it were yesterday.
Boba Phil Chimes In
Weirdly, I remember this fondly. I visited this back in the day, as a young, fresh 20-something. I was in London with a friend and we had a day out in London.
We saw this and decided to give it a try, and it was such a good laugh.
I remember the entire thing was so we set up, and the production value was amazing. Sure, the marines weren’t real and the aliens were people dressed up, but man alive, it felt real.
I don’t remember the entire thing, but I clearly remember two things.
You end up in a drop ship, there is steam jetting out everywhere, and there are exploding noises, and the marines are shouting at you. We are all told to get up and get out!
My mate was next to me, and as I went to get up he pushed me back down and ran for the exit himself. I watched him run off, and then turned around, and there was an alien right in front of me.
I do remember screaming and running to the exit, which was bottlenecked. As I was frantically trying to get out, trying to push others out of the way, like an idiot I turned around, and there were about 5 aliens closing in fast.
So I ran, screaming, out of the exit, which leads directly back into the main area of the entertainment complex.
You had other Trocadero visitors standing around laughing at you. I found my mate and we were laughing our heads off. It was such a good experience.