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The Center@862 has once again transformed Supply Field into the Zombie Asylum, with a series of new scares, effects, rooms, zombies and actors for those with the fortitude to enter.
Joe Delfino – and his company, Fright Room Productions – is the mastermind behind the asylum, which will feature more than 20 actors in various roles, as well as a new cast of zombies and a brand new, top secret room that Delfino himself put together.
“We kept the theme this year, but re-engineered everything, from the scares to the zombies themselves,” he said. “It’s a completely revamped experience. It’s really a big production and performance.”
The haunt opened last weekend, with more than 700 people attending, according to Ellen Tiven-Moore, the executive director of The Center@862. Residents from all over Westchester, Rockland, New Jersey and Connecticut flocked to one of the county’s biggest and most elaborate haunted house.
“We thought it would be a slow opening, but there was a line out the door. It was fantastic,” she said. “There were students from Germany, it was quite the first American Halloween for them.”
The Zombie Asylum will be open on Fridays through Nov. 1 from 8 to 11 p.m.; on Saturdays through Nov. 2 from 7 to 11 p.m.; Sunday Oct. 20 and 27 from 6 to 9 p.m. and on Halloween from 8 to 10 p.m.
This is the third year that The Center@862 has organized a haunted house, and Tiven-Moore hopes that it will be the first that weather doesn’t force them to close down. Two years ago, an October snowstorm forced them to close for two of the five days, and last year, Hurricane Sandy struck a few days before Halloween.
“The weather has been an issue. It closed us down last year,” she added. “The silver lining, is that it taught us to not focus on just one weekend. We spread it out over three this year.”
New to the asylum this year is the chicken list: the people who are so frightened by the sounds emanating from the haunt that they turn around and run out the front door. Delfino joked that several attendees have already broken into tears from his asylum, who have been photographed to improve the experience.
“You really get a feel for it as you’re waiting to get in. You can hear the wailing, the yelling, the banging, sawing, everything that’s going on in there,” he said. “We work all year on this. We pack it up in November and start planning for next year in December.”
Check out our photo gallery for a small tease of what you can expect at the Zombie Asylum.
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