Halloween Attractions Back At C. Casola Farms, Minus The Controversy

MARLBORO TOWNSHIP, NJ — C. Casola Farms is back and ready to scare you this Halloween! But the Marlboro Twp. farm has apparently chosen not to resurrect a once-controversial attraction that made headlines last year: A paintball game where participants shoot at zombies that were once patients at the now-closed Marlboro Psychiatric Hospital.

The concept from C. Casola garnered lots of controversy in October 2016, with mental health advocates and New Jersey residents alike decrying it as deeply insensitive. C. Casola sought to capitalize off their close proximity to the real-life Marlboro Psychiatric Facility, which closed in 1998 and was demolished in 2015. "Marlboro Zombie Breakout" invited guests to shoot paintballs at zombies, created by a doctor that accidentally turned Marlboro's psych patients into monsters now terrorizing C. Casola Farms.

“The problem isn’t that they’re doing a zombie attraction. The thing is that the zombies are people with mental illness,” Sylvia Axelrod, who runs the National Alliance on Mental Health New Jersey, told Patch last year. “You don’t want to harm them or their bottom line, but it shouldn’t be at the expensive of people who have mental illness. If this was a hospital that served patients with cancer, would they feel that’s OK? To say people with cancer were given special medication by these doctors and were turned into zombies, and now we’re going to be shooting patients with cancer?”

Even a former employee at Marlboro Psychiatric Hospital, who did not want to be named, took issue with it: “The depiction of Marlboro Psychiatric Hospital in such a negative fashion is offensive and an insult to the many treatment professionals who dedicated their lives to caring for and supporting mentally ill patients," the employee told Patch in an email.

C. Casola is a family-owned and operated business, and the owners told Patch last Halloween they were surprised and felt bad about the backlash. Carmine Casola, who owns the farm, told Axelrod they received Facebook messages from people upset with the attraction, which apparently was in its third year running.

“That felt really bad, to offend people when everyone enjoys it, because everyone knows it’s just for fun, it’s not real,” Danielle Casola told Patch over the phone last year. Casola said they removed that teaser video above from their website, even though it's still up on YouTube.

C. Casola Farms is extremely well-known in New Jersey and many flock to the farm for pumpkins, fall hay rides and seasonal fall produce and baked goods. Their Halloween attractions just opened for the season this past Saturday and this feature the Haunted Hayride of Terror, a 3-D Haunted Barn, the Haunted Wooded Trail, the Living Maze and finally, Marlboro Zombie Breakout. Read more about all the offerings this year on their website.

Past Patch reporting: Marlboro Psychiatric Hospital Zombie Attraction Opens For The Season

Controversy Swirls Around Marlboro Zombie Attraction Featuring Local Mental Hospital