Brighton Asylum is a massive haunted house featuring haunted houses, escape games and much more. Brighton Asylum is located near New York City and Newark New Jersey in an area called Passaic New Jersey. If you live anywhere in the New York City area you can visit Brighton Asylum. Most haunted houses in the New York City media market are actually in New Jersey the mass majority actually. Brighton Asylum is the scariest and clearly the most terrorizing haunted attractions in all of the New York/New Jersey area! Read our full review below! Brighton Asylum features 3 different haunted attractions and 4 different escape rooms. Learn more about this attraction by visiting their website at www.brightonasylum.com
New Jersey's Haunted Houses are some of the scariest and best in America! Hauntworld.com rates and reviews the best and Scariest haunted houses, haunted attractions, and Halloween events in America! Brighton Asylum is located in Passaic, New Jersey. Please share this page and leave your reviews of one of America's best and scariest Haunted Houses. When you find yourself in New Jersey go to Brighton Asylum
To learn more about New Jersey's Brighton Asylum visit their Website below:
Driving down Brighton Avenue in Passaic New Jersey, as the residential areas start to become scarce, one almost instantly gets the “We Aren’t In Kansas Anymore” feeling. Brighton Asylum, like a dark and foreboding body, lines the winding road, but it’s not until the end that the full magnitude of its chilling presence can be appreciated.
It’s assumed The Brighton Asylum housed mentally unstable and psychologically damaged individuals back in the 1940’s. Legend has it, years of extremely harsh living conditions, grotesque medical experiments, staff disappearances, and screams spilling into the residential areas during the night, resulted in the state permanently closing the facility in 1952 pending a full investigation. However, no such results of an investigation can be found to date. In 2011, Brighton Asylum opened to the public as a haunted attraction.
After 59 years of sitting unexposed, decaying and cut off from the outside world, Brighton Asylum reopened as a haunted house venue unlike any other in or around New Jersey. It’s creaky doors were open once again, and ever since, thousands of people have been exploring its hallways and rooms where hundreds of patients lost their minds. The many unthinkable events that took place between the mid 1940’s and 1952, are still waiting to be fully uncovered mostly by angry souls seeking their ultimate vindication.
Brighton Asylum is New Jersey’s largest indoor haunted attraction, with two haunted houses and a third currently in development. Located just miles from New York City, and in the heart of northern New Jersey, Brighton Asylum quickly created a reputation for itself as one of the most detailed and must-see attractions in the country. Currently, there are two main attractions: Brighton Asylum and The Tunnel. Currently in development is a 3rd attraction, The Bleeding Grounds, hoping to open in time for this coming 2017 Halloween season.
Brighton Asylum is the main haunted house attraction. It’s updated yearly with all custom sets, over the top special effects, custom animations and unique scares. Brighton Asylum is designed to be a truly all-encompassing experience, designed to be scary but also to be fun. “Not everyone gets scared in haunted houses. That’s just a reality, but everyone wants to have fun,” said owner Rich Gonci. “At Brighton Asylum, we make sure that we are providing a complete visceral experience. If guests aren’t coming out screaming, they are coming out laughing or stunned, and that’s great too!”
At Brighton Asylum, there is something for everyone and upon repeat visits, there is always something else new and horrific to see or experience that might have been missed the first time. Plus, Richard and his horror design crew make changes annually to keep the production fresh. The Tunnel is the newest attraction, opened in 2015. It begins with boarding our “75 year old service elevators”. Often violent, and sometimes reliable, we take you under the brick and mortar of Brighton Asylum, through the long forgotten tunnel system that runs underneath (simulated). This attraction, like Brighton Asylum, is extremely detailed, and immerses guests in a hyper-realistic environment, complete with custom moving sets, animations, special effects, unique scares and top quality audio all of which adds to the eerie fright and feel each haunt customer receives.
The Bleeding Grounds will be the newest haunted house event. This up and coming haunt will be located on the 2nd floor of Brighton Asylum, and guests have been dying to get onto the 2nd floor since they opened in 2011. From the exterior of the building, bars can still be seen lining all the windows, an eerie reminder of stories circulating about what took place there years ago, and what lies ahead waiting to be uncovered. The Bleeding Grounds will take guests through a “manor” style attraction, exploring staff quarters located within the grounds of Brighton Asylum. However, many people wonder how the staff quarters came to be known as “The Bleeding Grounds”. The creative geniuses at Brighton Asylum tell us that the answer can be found within the explorations of the attraction itself. “Nobody can be told why the living quarters were dubbed The Bleeding Grounds.
Gonci's team members are working fervently on this attraction but unless it's perfect they will not open it's doors. "That's how we operate," says Gonci, "if we aren't satisfied, then we continue working on the attractions until we are 110% happy ourselves. Our customers love that about us. They always know they're getting nothing short of the best haunted attractions when they attend each season." The Bleeding Grounds will most likely open for 2018 season, unless they give it their infamous stamp of approval sooner to open for 2017.
In addition to their world class haunted attractions, Brighton Asylum recently unveiled another new attraction, Brighton Asylum Escape. The escape room industry is currently exploding across the country, and Brighton Asylum is at the forefront of the industry with four 2nd gen escape rooms. Players can choose between two 60 minute room experiences or two 5 minute experiences. The five minute experiences are only available during haunted house hours, but the 60 minute rooms are available Wed-Sun all year long.
“We added the 5 minute experiences for our haunted house guests because of the low capacity of 60 minute escape rooms”, said Rich Gonci.“Our guests love these rooms and we want to make sure that anyone who wants to try out an escape room gets to play”, he added. Rich Gonci has always been ahead of the curve. Brighton Asylum was also the first haunted house in the tri-state area to attempt off season haunted house events. They opened with their “Santa’s Slay” and “Dark Valentine” events in 2012 and expanded to a full line of haunted house events in 2013.
Today, Brighton Asylum has haunted house events during most months of the year. “When we opened for Santa’s Slay back in 2012, several guests were staff members of other haunted houses, coming from as far as Connecticut, Pennsylvania, and upstate New York. Many were just curious about the set up and how a Christmas themed haunted house might look”, said Rich.
One challenge that Brighton Asylum seems to be conquering handedly, is that of yearly updates. Brighton Asylum has seen several major renovations since its conception in 2011 that are nothing short of stunning. Their original set up in 2011 began to undergo its most major changes in 2014, and each season they seem to have accomplished the impossible, turning into one of the most detailed haunted houses in the country by 2015. “One of the greatest complements I’ve ever received was one I heard not once but twice last season,” said Rich, “that Brighton Asylum looks like a haunt in its 20th season, not just 6th year of fear.”
Brighton Asylum has a dedicated team of special effects make-up artists, costume designers, prop makers, set designers, and actors, who work all year to bring the larger than life atmosphere that people from all over the country come to experience year after year.
“Every costume is designed, distressed, and tailored not only for the actor, but for the scene, in order to bring as much realism and dimension as possible” said Danielle Foreman, chief costume designer.
Brighton Asylum is also extremely well known for their high quality make-up effects. “We employ a large number of special effect make-up techniques including prosthetics, silicone, airbrush and of course high quality custom-made silicone and latex masks,” said John Anthony, head of make-up. “Our goal is to really immerse guests in a hyper- realistic environment, and we believe that includes the looks of the actors interacting with guests”, he added.
Brighton Asylum has received accolades by many, but Rich Gonci shared with me a few of his most favorites. The Today Show called Brighton Asylum the “Scariest Place On Earth” after Tamron Hall was taken to the hospital with a torn muscle in her throat from screaming, and the Huffington Post called it the “Best Haunted House For Millennials”. Additionally, it’s routinely featured as part of top haunt lists all over the country including a 2016 featured listing by Buzzfeed. This past season, the attraction received a visit from actor James Franco, and have been featured on the show “Cake Boss”.
