Six Flags Great Adventure: Fright Fest 20th Anniversary

Six Flags Fright Fest

Amusement parks are generally associated with summer, but for me they are more of a fall tradition. The crisp, cool air in October makes it a perfect time for rides and roller coasters while strolling leisurely around the park with your special someone. What’s also good is that you won’t get swamp ass or heat stroke from walking around in mid summer in the blazing Jersey heat. But those aren’t the only reasons of course, the main attraction for many of us in New Jersey is FRIGHT FEST at Six Flags Great Adventure.

Fright Fest is celebrating it’s 20th year and as old as it makes me sound, I’ve been going there way longer than Fright Fest existed! So I’m not a kid anymore, but as I was saying, amusement parks, especially haunted ones, have always been a part of Halloween time for me. Nothing beats the ability to go on thrill rides on a cool, starry autumn night. Six Flags Great Adventure’s Fright Fest captures this feeling perfectly thanks to their team of actors adorned with amazing masks, makeup, and costumes who go lurking around the park creeping everyone out. While this sounds like a blast to me, it’s not for everyone. It’s simple, if you don’t like being scared then don’t go. For families worried about their kids being scared there are plenty of Ghoul-Free zones designated for the faint of heart.

We kicked off October with a trip to Fright Fest. Miss Sexy Armpit gets scared when I start clapping abruptly when the Giants score, so naturally she wouldn’t be able to handle actual scares in something called a TERROR TRAIL. “Which hayride do you want to go on?” I asked her. Of course she replied with “the least scary one.” She got her wish because we wound up on Haunted Wagon Tales, the children’s haunted hayride, listening to songs like “The Addams Family” and “The Flying Purple People Eater,” while waving like dorks to friendly versions of Frankenstein, Dracula, and a so not scary swamp monster. When we answered riddles correctly such as “Who did Frankenstein take to the prom? His GHOUL friend,” then our hayride guide tossed us free candy. Would I have preferred to walk through one of the scarier terror trails? Yes, but it was one of those October nights that I love so much that it didn’t even bother me.

Fright Fest 2011 Six Flags Great Adventure 

This year’s Fright Fest attractions include terror trails, haunted hayrides, and live shows. Here’s the list: The Haunted Heist, Project XI Mortuary Manor, The Demented Forest, Dead Man’s Party, Escape from the Asylum, Hypnosteria, Fright Fest Freakshow, and The Ghoulmaster’s Ghosts and more. One of the coolest and possibly most underrated part of Fright Fest is the Dead and Local Music Showcase where local rock bands take the stage throughout the night. A couple of years back we had the chance to see an awesome KISS tribute band, and last year Sludgey’s favorite band SCARLET CARSON played as well!

The iconic fountain that you see when you first walk into the park is spraying red water indicating that you’ll have a bloody good time. If you’re planning your Halloween related events, then make sure you round up your friends or significant other and feel the thrills and chills of Fright Fest at Six Flags Great Adventure!

Visit the Official Six Flags Great Adventure FRIGHT FEST website:

Halloween Events around New Jersey

Not in the Halloween spirit yet? Well, you don’t have much time left, but a good old fashioned Haunted Hayride through some spooky woods will definitely do the trick. The Field of Terror in East Windsor, NJ is New Jersey’s largest corn maze/haunted hayride event. We took a Sexy Armpit excursion there last weekend and had a great time. It was a perfect night, the air was crisp, the moon was bright, and we even ran into The New Jersey Ghostbusters!

Disco of the Damned

Every year Asbury Lanes and Paranormal Books present an over the top Halloween party and it’s always the place to be. If you still have not made your Halloween plans, then click over to ticketweb and order your tickets! Tragedy performs their signature metalized versions of The Bee Gees hits! The Sexy Armpit will be there, in costume of course. What costume will I be wearing? Not telling!

Loew's Jersey Theatre
The Landmark Loew’s Jersey Theatre in Jersey City is keeping it real. Really scary that is! Each year, New Jersey’s most legendary theatre presents horror movies during October. Starting tonight you can check out Brides of Dracula, Son of Frankenstein, and the original Nosferatu with a creepy live organ providing the soundtrack!

Rocky Horror Asbury Park
The Revision Theatre is presenting their production of The Rocky Horror Show on stage! This is the real play folks, you won’t just be watching the movie on a screen. There’s already great buzz on the actors and costumes so I’m looking forward to it! If you can’t make it, I’ll let you know how it is! Hope it makes me shiver with antici…pation! What are your plans for Halloween?

Haunted Hayride of Terror

With Halloween approaching I realized that I’ve never been on a haunted hayride before and that needed to change. On Friday night we headed down to Marlboro N.J to check out the “Haunted Hayride of Terror” and the Haunted barn. It was a cool autumn night and there were a lot of people showing up to get scared which reminded me of how Halloween should be!

If you think to yourself “How is a barn going to be scary?” There were no slaughtered hens or pigs scattered all over the place, but they did the place up nice. It was no Castle Dracula or the Haunted Houses you remember from your youth, but it had a spooky atmosphere. We wandered through the dark “barn” and finally came to a spinning tunnel through which we walked across a swaying catwalk. The spinning tunnel was a great effect and I enjoyed the feeling although if I stayed in there I felt the small glass of Jim Beam I had earlier in the night might’ve came up. We saw the usual setups, like the exorcist, and the crypt keeper. We also passed by skeleton pirates and at the end there was a real masked midget that jumped out at us who was doing a grand job of keeping still so we didn’t know he was real. There was no feeling of impending danger but the different animatronic setups were a throwback. It’s a little much when your walking through a local haunted attraction and all you encounter around corners are teenage kids donning various horror movie masks. To me that’s never scary. We did witness those exact kids when we went on the hayride.

After the barn a mess of people hopped on a big tractor that sat everyone on bails of hay which were actually comfortable. There were torches to light the way of the tractor driver as he slowly drove us through the woods. Scattered about the woods were various scary setups, some with live actors and some with fake bodies or skeletons. The live costumed actors would actually jump up onto the tractor and come try and scare each of us. One of the guys had a chainsaw, while another dressed like Michael Myers. At the end of the ride we stopped to take some “wacky” pictures of ourselves in the cardboard stand ups of Frankenstein and the Phantom of the Opera etc.