Brigantine Castle Online: Emails 2010

If you would like your memory of the castle posted on our page, please email it to us at webmaster@darkinthepark.com

FROM/DATE	CONTENT
11/30/10	Brigantine Castle meant so much to me and my cousins growing up. It was a summer tradition to go to the castle. Being a Halloween freak, it was the closest thing I could ever think of to actually being able to go into dracula’s castle. It seemed like it took hours to go thru and each twist and turn was a new challenge. I remember peeking into doors that were supply closets and even they were scary to me! What a shame to lose this treasure. As a father I wish I could have the chance to take my children to the castle. No haunted house has ever come close to just how good this was.
7/2/10 Emily Anthony	Thanks for the wonderful, memory-filled Brigantine Castle website! And the great photos! I'm from Delaware County, PA, and I'm 46 years old. My mother had relatives in Absecon, and every year we would go down the shore to see them, spend a day on the beach in Brigantine (trying to avoid the greenheads) and do the Castle (this would be the late seventies). My dad would always go in with us kids. To this day I still love Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D Minor'... it was the first time I'd ever heard it. I also still have a scar on my knuckle, from when someone, I think it was a zombie, jumped out at a girl behind me in line; she freaked and pushed ME into a stucco wall trying to get away ( I remember it was in a dark hallway and we were making a turn). I'm so sad it isn't there anymore. I took my kids to Brigantine as well, in the nineties, and I have photos of them standing on the raised sidewalk near where the Castle once stood...because it's a cherished memory to me. Thanks again for the work you have done sharing so many things from those summer days way back when!
7/2/10	It has been 33 years ago when I first went to the Castle with my boyfriend then; husband now. I was so scared; but it was the best place to go when you were down the shore. The actors were great!!! They tried to separate the girls from the guys and would scare you to death. All the bloody tools they would carry around to think you were the next victim. The strobe lights were a great effect and people grabbing your legs with strings and jumping out on you. I thought I would never get out of there. The end when I thought I was safe this one Vampire got his cape and put it around my face and said "I vaunt to bite your neck". My boyfriend then said you bite her neck you won't have any teeth left. LOL that was the best scare of my life!!!
5/28/10 Michael & May (DiFranceso) Markoff	Hi, so amazing to see this website. My (now) wife and I worked at the castle for the summers of '78 & '79. We lived in a one room apartment next to a funeral home on Brighton in AC. We remember Bell-Tower George, Steve Jarret(sp?) (as Renfield in the portrait room), Rich McMann (the Rat professor), Bobby (Dracula), and an interesting entity known as 'Destiny'. My then girlfriend, May, was close friends with Sandy B., and she got us the jobs. We started off with the less prestigious characters; I was a werewolf in the swamp, and May would be in some equally non-verbal role. As we learned the ropes and became more a part of this acting troupe, we were given more character roles; I got to be Igor Stuffer in that side Taxidermy room on Plasma Plaza, and May was my aggravating (and soon to be headless) wife ("No mouth too big, No brain too small, cause Igor Stuffer stuffs them ALL!!!"); I got to play the Rat Professor ("Ratsy-Ratsy, dark and murky, PLEASE go bite some other turkey"), and finally the portrait ("...and just remember in our castle, if you get carried-away, you WILL BE CARRIED AWAY!"). It's really tough to not blink or move (especially when getting a penny bounced off your face) for 3-5 minutes! Such unique memories. Anyway, thanks so much for this site. PS; If you communicate with any of the '78-'79-ers, tell them May & Mike say "Hi", or maybe "Boo !"
5/3/10 Melissa Rybinski, DE	I remember going there as a little girl, it was hands down the best "haunted house" I have ever been to. Today's haunted houses that open in October do not hold a candle. Also, I went to Brigantine when it was still daylight and was still scared. Anyway, I guess my best memory is when my mother freaked because she swore something grabbed her foot, yet there was not anyone there :-) Thanks for this great site
5/1/10 Matt Marinelli	Hey, just wanted to say I really like this site, especially the emails/stories section. I was born in 1989, a few years after the Castle burned down. You have no idea how much I wish I could have seen it. It's sad that I've spent my entire life visiting Brigantine from Philly (my family has its roots over there) and of the many fond memories I have of the island, the Castle was never one of them. Having been a part of the youth there at some point in my life, I must say that they are missing out. There really isn't much for kids in that town now that the Castle is over twenty years in its grave. It's sad to hear stories about something wonderful that you know you'll never experience. Brigantine deserves another pier, another source of entertainment. There's no bringing the Castle back, I know that, but bringing the joy that the Castle brought people back is something I could get behind.
2/17/10 Annie Cerpa	I am so happy I found this site. Brigantine Castle brings back so many fun & scary memories. In the late 70's-early 80's my friend and I used to come from NY almost every summer weekend and visit the castle. All the actors got to know us pretty well and developed a code for us. It was "Code 12". When the person in the ticket booth saw us she/he would get on their walkie talkie and transmit "Code 12" to the actors. This meant Annie & Luise are here. I have photos I also took from those days. Even though we got to know the actors, they still scared the living daylights out of us. They would separate us and keep us in the castle for hours. Even though they knew us, they had no mercy, if anything they went the extra yard to go out of their way to scare us even more. It was a few of the best summers of our lives. When we would leave on Sunday to go back to NY, most of the time we had lost our voice from screaming so much. I still LOVE haunted houses, but unfortunately can only experience them at Halloween time. To this day I have not experienced the horror and fun that Brigantine Castle showed us. Brigantine Castle and the actors have made a lasting memory in our hearts. Although the castle is no longer, the memories will live on forever. I would love to reconnect with some of the actors. Annie Cerpa AKA Code 12