[2] After an initial teaser, Duel closed on 6 September 2022[2] and its replacement was announced as The Curse at Alton Manor the following January.
[3] Later details revealed that the ride's new premise would revolve around a character named Emily Alton (played and voiced by Imogen Turner),[4] based on the little Victorian ghost girl that inhabited a dollhouse in the queue area of both the Haunted House and Duel.
[6] As part of the renovation, the laser guns and targets were removed and the ride vehicle capacity restored to six passengers.
Opening in 30 March 1992, the Haunted House gained considerable publicity and remained one of Alton Towers' major rides for many years.
In 2010, the overlay was renamed "Skelvin's Haunted Adventure", themed to the park's Halloween mascot 'Skelvin', and the ride soundtrack was replaced by the Beetlejuice title music.
This led to the Grand Hall, which looked seemingly empty before a large demon appeared overhead between two columns.
The car then swerves right into a dark corner, where the demon re-appeared offering a teacup (later changed to holding a knife and giant rat).
The car then turned through a series of tight bends in the dark, as screaming heads fly overhead using a UV-strobe effect.
Behind an archway, a stone column suddenly turns to reveal a tall, thin demon before the cars accelerated onwards.
With the exception of the doll's house, many of the effects in the preshow room were removed or altered in the Duel revamp, including the optical moving-eye portraits, to be replaced by TV screens playing a pre-show video.
The original swamp ending was entirely replaced by an industrial basement where zombies appeared from barrels, windows and overhead walkways.
Guests queue through the same graveyard in Gloomy Wood used for Duel, but with new theming elements such as new tombstones with epitaphs that reference to previous attractions at the park, old toys such as dolls, stuffed animals, building blocks, and plaques displaying short poems placed around the queue that introduce riders to the story of the ride.
Emily's voice is then heard whispering "Let me show you what happened", and the ghostly images of Henry and Elizabeth Alton during the fateful night appear inside of the parlour of the doll's house.
A now-possessed Emily begins to glow with violet-coloured supernatural energy which spreads to the rest of the doll's house causing her parents and the party guests to vanish.
The entire room of the ride now becomes bathed in ultraviolet light and reveals manic scribblings by Emily written all across the walls.
Guests board the ride vehicles and they turn a corner, passing a painting of Emily and her parents; the latter of whom disappear as Henry can be heard calling his daughter a "wretched little creature".
The vehicle then enters the dining hall, approaching a stained glass window of the Manor which then smashes with a purple energy.
The corpses of the party guests are seen sat at tables and Emily herself appears levitating at the other end of the room in a seemingly endless hallway before vanishing in a flash of light.
After guests encounter a demonic figure suddenly appearing above their heads, they then pass by Emily's nursery, as her footprints and handprints are seen all across the walls of the corridor.
The vehicle turns a corner and enters a dimly lit room with a small figure of Emily who tells the guests "Let's play hide and seek."
Emily frantically searches for the guests as her hand can be seen reaching inside the doll's house and her eye can be seen peering through a window, which turns to a sinister black as she yells "There you are!