Corpse haunch dangles at the approach to Hamburg's Gingerbread Castle. Pose with a witch. Snow White: Eaten alive by dwarfs? Aliens invade Fairy Tale village. E.T.s nestle in captured Earth beds. At the organ: the old witch. Happy guy at Gingerbread Castle.

Haunted Fairy Lands

Seasonal business makeovers are a tradition in bottom-line America, cozy as a swimming pool dealership stuffed with fake Christmas trees in November. A popular twist has appeared on this already twisty theme -- kiddie parks riding the Halloween broomstick to post-summer profits, happily joining the ranks of the Undead.

No world is better suited to Halloween horrors than the creepy land of fairy tales. Witches eat children, animals wear bolero jackets, bad guys get tossed into ovens. With this as a behavioral baseline, it's amazing what you can do with orange and black crepe and a couple of rubber masks....

A recent trip through New Jersey brought us to two horror-fied kiddie parks within minutes of each other. Hot Diggity's Fairy Tale Forest in Oak Ridge, NJ, has long been known for its dead animal dioramas -- so Halloween is warmly welcomed. Skeletons dangle from trees and ghosts are everywhere; the hot dog lady has painted her face postmortem green. In the center of one pixie house hamlet a giant grim reaper holds court, his flowing robes made of black garbage bags. It's a snapshot to treasure: your kids and Death.

A woodsy, meandering trail passes dozens of colorful cottages displaying mutants. In one, mischievous elves wear foam rubber alien faces while blissfully sleeping children have turned into desiccated extraterrestrials. The aliens slowly creak back and forth as the display's antiquated motors struggle with the extra load.

Down the forest path stands something called The Bat Cave: a sand pit inside a blackened tent where -- for a buck -- kids dig for treasure under seizure-inspiring strobe lights while under attack by monsters and bats.

Further north in Hamburg, Gingerbread Castle becomes more incongruous every time we visit. At the start it was a flour mill, then it became something called Plastoid Corporation, then the Gingerbread Castle was built hanging off one of the factory walls. Then the owners built life-size dinosaurs across the street, then they opened a disco whose drunk patrons now vandalize the dinosaurs, then they closed down the Castle and turned the whole place into a Dahmer-style Halloween attraction ("Haunted Castle"), complete with human corpse haunches, eviscerated bodies, and several dozen live actors.

For those who can't make it to the Castle by Halloween, we still recommend a visit. If previous years are any indicator, the spook house debris will be left standing for months afterward, making for striking photo-ops of post-apocalyptic carnage in fairy land.

( Gingerbread Castle: Rt. 23 & Gingerbread Castle Rd, Hamburg. )

August 2004: Fairy Tale Forest has closed, part of the property converted into a self-storage business. The entrance and some of the buildings remain visible.

June 2004: Gingerbread Castle has been sold, and the new owner, Frank Hinger, intends to restore it. What will happen remains to be seen, since he's trying to solicit donations from the public, "So generations to come can enjoy what you once enjoyed as a child."