'Dee Road Cemetery' Returns To Lacey Home For Halloween

LACEY, NJ — Enter if you dare. The "Dee Road Cemetery" has returned to Lacey for the haunted Halloween season.

Don Bucci has been setting up major Halloween displays at this home for six years. Now the cemetery at 1560 Dee Rd. is back with additions: a few new animatronics, more clowns and a full-sized mausoleum — complete with smoke, lights and Sam from the movie "Trick 'r Treat."

The cemetery reopened Saturday and will stay open from about 6:30-10:30 p.m. each night through Halloween, weather permitting.

For the second straight year, organizers will collect items for the Lacey Food Bank in a can labeled with the organization's name.

Curious about the origins of the Dee Road Cemetery? Read more.

Bucci will host a special "Food Fright" event Oct. 24. Live actors will take over the graveyard dressed as zombies, monsters and other frightful creatures. The time is set for 7-10 p.m. but may change, he said.

"We have the food donation bin all the time, but we’ll pay special attention to it that night," Bucci said. "We’re asking people to donate canned goods or food that night."

Governor Phil Murphy announced Sept. 9 that trick-or-treating can go on as planned, with certain coronavirus precautions. Read more: Gov. Murphy: Halloween In NJ Can Proceed Amid Coronavirus Crisis

Despite uncertainty leading up to Halloween this year, Bucci and organizers were determined to keep their tradition alive.

"We never really had a fear that we weren’t going to do it. It never really came up," he said. "From the start, we said unless somebody is adamant that we can’t do it or legally we can’t do it for some reason, we were gung-ho."

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