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Gala For The Cure event in October

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Annie’s Mailbox: Opposites no longer attract

<p>NEWBURGH, New York &#8212; Ken Darrigo has been haunted by the corpse in his front yard every day for the past two years.</p><p>He would walk by it, but couldn&#8217;t manage to block out the screams of innocent people pleading for mercy, begging for the terror to stop. He just hoped that, one day, the screams would simply fade away.</p><p>But they didn&#8217;t. They got stronger &#8212; and Darrigo had no choice but to give in to his dark side.</p><p>Since May, Darrigo and close to a dozen friends have been working non-stop to bring that corpse in his yard back to life. And, by this month, they will have succeeded.</p><p>Goblins Hollow celebrates its inaugural season at 7 p.m. Friday and features five haunted attractions. It literally rose from the ashes where Terror Dome, Darrigo&#8217;s former haunt, once stood. He reluctantly shut its doors in 2013, after operating it for 18 years.</p><p>&#8220;After a while, it was just becoming routine. Toward the end of Terror Dome, my heart wasn&#8217;t really in it,&#8221; Darrigo said. &#8220;I was just burnt out, so I decided to take a break.&#8221;</p><p>The 35-yr-old decided very late in the game this year to throw his hat back in the ring because he couldn&#8217;t let another Halloween season pass by without doing what&#8217;s in his blood.</p><p>&#8220;I got the itch again. After taking the time off, I pretty much looked around at the latest technology being utilized and thought, &#8216;How can I make this better?&#8217;&#8221; Darrigo said. &#8220;So I brought in an investor and we pumped a lot of money and experience into it. We took the knowledge of Terror Dome and upped scaring to the next level.&#8221;</p><p>With Goblins Hollow, Darrigo has given the property a major face lift. Everything was leveled, except for the attraction&#8217;s centerpiece, the Barn of Terror.</p><p>&#8220;We literally had a box for Terror Dome. It was essentially four walls,&#8221; Darrigo said. &#8220;Now, as you can see from I-84, we&#8217;re expanding across the entire property. We&#8217;re taking the frontage of 84 and going all the way back up into the woods. Next year, we&#8217;re gonna back it up even more and take over more of the property.&#8221;</p><p>Darrigo didn&#8217;t go into too much detail about the attractions, but said they&#8217;re called Backwoods, Manor, Hospital, Hunger and, of course, Barn of Terror.</p><p>&#8220;The evening starts out in the woods. It&#8217;s a long walk up to the wood and there&#8217;s a good chance you&#8217;ll run into some hillbillies,&#8221; Darrigo laughs. &#8220;And, you end up in the most powerful attraction, which is the barn. It&#8217;s best thing we have going for us. It&#8217;s well over 80 years old and there&#8217;s a mix of everything inside that barn.&#8221;</p><p>Darrigo acknowledges that there&#8217;s other competitors in the area, but he believes his $29.99 ticket price is the most reasonable. Haunts in the Hudson Valley, in which Newburgh is smack in the middle, tend to be higher-priced than haunts in Northeastern Pennsylvania, with which Goblins Hollow also will compete for customers.</p><p>&#8220;It&#8217;s a really competitive business. People only have so much money to spend, so they&#8217;re only gonna choose one of them. We follow a different business model here. We straddle quantity verse quality rather well,&#8221; Darrigo said. &#8220;We genuinely want people to enjoy themselves.&#8221;</p><style>
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<div class="neCaption">Goblins Hollow has replaced Terror Dome, a long-running haunted attraction in New York&#8217;s Hudson Valley. Goblins Hollow opens amidst fierce competition for customers as haunts up their ante across Northeastern Pennsylvania, the Poconos and New York&#8217;s northern suburbs. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo0>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/web1_image13.jpg</photo0><caption0>Goblins Hollow has replaced Terror Dome, a long-running haunted attraction in New York&#8217;s Hudson Valley. Goblins Hollow opens amidst fierce competition for customers as haunts up their ante across Northeastern Pennsylvania, the Poconos and New York&#8217;s northern suburbs. </caption0><photoCredit0>Goblins Hollow </photoCredit0></div><div class="neFile"><img class="neImage" src="https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/web1_IMG_47873.jpg">
<div class="neCaption">Goblins Hollow has replaced Terror Dome, a long-running haunted attraction in New York&#8217;s Hudson Valley. Goblins Hollow opens amidst fierce competition for customers as haunts up their ante across Northeastern Pennsylvania, the Poconos and New York&#8217;s northern suburbs. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo1>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/web1_IMG_47873.jpg</photo1><caption1>Goblins Hollow has replaced Terror Dome, a long-running haunted attraction in New York&#8217;s Hudson Valley. Goblins Hollow opens amidst fierce competition for customers as haunts up their ante across Northeastern Pennsylvania, the Poconos and New York&#8217;s northern suburbs. </caption1><photoCredit1>Goblins Hollow </photoCredit1></div><div class="neFile"><img class="neImage" src="https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/web1_IMG_48033.jpg">
<div class="neCaption">Goblins Hollow has replaced Terror Dome, a long-running haunted attraction in New York&#8217;s Hudson Valley. Goblins Hollow opens amidst fierce competition for customers as haunts up their ante across Northeastern Pennsylvania, the Poconos and New York&#8217;s northern suburbs. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo2>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/web1_IMG_48033.jpg</photo2><caption2>Goblins Hollow has replaced Terror Dome, a long-running haunted attraction in New York&#8217;s Hudson Valley. Goblins Hollow opens amidst fierce competition for customers as haunts up their ante across Northeastern Pennsylvania, the Poconos and New York&#8217;s northern suburbs. </caption2><photoCredit2>Goblins Hollow </photoCredit2></div></div>
<div class="metaInfo"><bylineMeta><p>By Sandy Tomcho</p><p>For Times Leader</p></bylineMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><factboxMeta><p><strong>INSIDE TODAY</strong></p><p>Our review team tackled haunted attractions across Northeastern Pennsylvania and into the suburbs of New York City and Philadelphia. Check out their reviews, as well as a directory of every haunted attraction within a two-hour drive of our area, inside today&#8217;s &#8220;NEPA Haunts.&#8221;</p></factboxMeta></div>

Hudson Valley’s Terror Dome rises from the ashes as Goblins Hollow