Spook-A-Rama

For the past 70 years, adult and children brave enough to climb aboard have stepped off this classic ride breathless and terrified. Found in Deno’s Wonder Wheel Amusement Park, Spook-A-Rama is the last of its kind still operating in Coney Island.

Opened in 1955, its owner, Fred Garms, was inspired by the decade’s boom in monster movies, naming the ride after Cinerama, quite befitting such an immersive horror experience. At the time, the track stretched a quarter-mile and lasted 10 minutes, making it the longest ride in Coney Island.

Spook-A-Rama’s creatures, artwork, and special effects were first designed by Dan Casola, a self-taught artisan responsible for many of Coney Island’s attractions. Working from a secret studio behind the ride, he built everything from signage to the mechanical figures that once terrified riders. His most famous creation, a giant cyclops head nicknamed “Cy” now resides at the Coney Island History Project.

Today, Spook-A-Rama has changed quite a bit from its heyday. The ride now lasts roughly a third of its original length, much to the relief of more fearful riders. And unfortunately, it was nearly destroyed by floodwaters from Superstorm Sandy in 2012, with many of Casola’s original creations lost.

But fans of fright need not worry, the attraction remains delightfully terrifying. Following painstaking renovations, it was rebuilt with a mix of new props by the Scarefactory and older figures that were restored or had been in storage and survived.

Visitors are greeting by a gothic façade with a plaster gargoyle and a winged serpent. Once seated in their wooden barrel cars, they zig-zag through a dark tunnel where decomposing corpses and other classic Halloween creatures jolt to life with pneumatic hisses. Screams and groans follow you as you try to make sense of the red-lit rooms and blood-splattered walls. Gusts of cold air prickle the back of your neck, and a curtain of strings brush your face like cobwebs. Just as you think you’ve made it out alive, the ride has one final trick up its sleeve.

Those who survive Spook-A-Rama can commemorate their ordeal at the photo counter, where snapshots capture riders mid-scare and wide-eyed.