Pairings
Before
Things to do before you ride.
Ten minutes of nothing
Get there early, find somewhere you can see the ride, and spend a bit of time building up to it before you join the queue.
The Before trilogy
Before Sunrise (1995), Before Sunset (2004) and Before Midnight (2013), from Richard Linklater, with Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy. It's two people doing a lot of walking and a lot of talking.
Right after
For straight after you get off.
An ice cream you have to eat fast
Soft serve with a flake in it, picked up within a couple of minutes of getting off, and eaten before it melts.
Wind down
Something gentle, for after a really intense ride.
A proper pot of tea, sitting down
A proper pot of tea, a comfy chair, and ten minutes where you don't have to be anywhere.
Do next
Somewhere to go while the adrenaline wears off.
The gardens, at walking pace
Alton Towers has some lovely formal gardens that are much older than the rides, and they're usually really quiet.
Listen
For the queue, the car park, or the long drive home.
Après-ski music
Schlager, oompah brass and choruses made for a room full of people in ski boots to sing along to. It's loud, daft and really hard to sit still to.
Iron Maiden – “The Wicker Man”
The lead single from Brave New World (2000), and a UK top-ten hit. It's got big riffs, an even bigger chorus, and a title taken from the 1973 film.
Saint-Saëns – Danse macabre
Camille Saint-Saëns's symphonic poem from 1874. Death strikes up a fiddle at midnight on Halloween, and the skeletons dance until the cockerel crows.
Read
For the hotel, the flight, or the long wait over the winter closed season.
Dracula by Bram Stoker
The 1897 novel that started it all, told through letters, diaries and newspaper cuttings, from a castle in Transylvania to the seaside at Whitby.
Hyperion by Dan Simmons
Dan Simmons's 1989 science fiction novel, which won the Hugo Award. Seven pilgrims travel to the Time Tombs on the planet Hyperion, where the Shrike is waiting.
Watch
A film or TV show that goes really well with the ride.
Alien (1979)
Ridley Scott's Alien. Most of it is slow, damp, creeping dread, right up until it suddenly isn't.
Dracula (1931)
Tod Browning's film for Universal, with Bela Lugosi as the Count. A vampire leaves Transylvania for England, and not many of the people he meets there make it out alive.
The Gold Rush (1925)
Charlie Chaplin's silent comedy, which he wrote, directed and starred in as the Lone Prospector, chasing his fortune in the Klondike Gold Rush.
The Third Man (1949)
Carol Reed's thriller, written by Graham Greene, with Joseph Cotten and Orson Welles. A writer arrives in post-war Vienna to find that his old friend Harry Lime has died in mysterious circumstances.
The Twilight Saga
Five films from 2008 to 2012, based on Stephenie Meyer's novels, with Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson and Taylor Lautner. A teenager in rainy Forks, Washington, falls for a boy who turns out to be a vampire.
The Walking Dead (TV series)
Eleven seasons on AMC, from 2010 to 2022, developed by Frank Darabont from Robert Kirkman's comics. Survivors try to stay alive in a world overrun by the dead.
The Wicker Man (1973)
Robin Hardy's folk horror, with Edward Woodward and Christopher Lee. A police sergeant goes to a remote Scottish island to look for a missing girl, and the islanders are far too cheerful about it.
Wicker (2026)
A romantic fantasy comedy with Olivia Colman and Alexander Skarsgård, from Alex Huston Fischer and Eleanor Wilson. A fisherwoman, fed up with her village, orders herself a husband made of wicker.