funchase

CASTLE FRANKENSTEIN ON FUN PIER
 
The following article comes from a 1981 edition of the Wildwood Gazette Leader and was written by Susan Greenspon. Less than a year after this article was written - this attraction closed down - only to be used for storage for the next two years. The Castle would go up in flames in the early morning hours of August 13th, 1984.
 

Castle creator Denis Easey poses with a mad scientist from the Castle Frankenstein.

Captain Easey makes monsters come alive!

Having a summer job at the shore is not unusual. But when your summer job is creating monsters then it starts to border on the bizarre. Thirty-two year old Denis Easey (or Captain Easey as he prefers to be called) has been making grotesque creatures for about four years when he came from New York City to design a Horror Castle. "My brother-in-law was working on Fun Pier at the time and heard they needed someone to create a Frankenstein's Castle. The challenge was great and the money quite decent - so I flew down from New York to begin work." says Denis. - "Work" was a vast expanse of empty Boardwalk at the end of the pier. He had to take an existing indoor ride, roll it down the pier to its present site and totally redesign the interior for a walk-thru Fun House. " I hung burlap from every possible rafter, then sprayed it with ice-a-foam which expands to many times its original size. This gave it the cavern-like interior I was looking for."
 
 
The early stages of Frankenstein's Monster that graced the facade of the Castle. Check out the shoes.
After all of the winding walkways and many rooms had been completed - Captain Easey had to make the monsters who lurk within. Using chicken wire, paper towels, and masking tape, he set forth to create the two-story Frankenstein who stands guard in front of the Castle. " I built the entire structure from the second floor up, actually making him stand three stories high. The Guiness Book of World Records people are supposed to come down this summer to verify him as the tallest Frankenstein in the world." - After Denis makes the chicken wire mold, the paper towels are draped with fiberglass strips which are coated with resin. He then uses a primer paint which melts the plastic and seeps into the fiberglass surface. When the colors are applied they are there to stay. Using his chicken wire method, Denis has created a Castle full of one-eyed ghouls, demonic angels, a depraved butcher displaying mangled human parts, a mad scientist with his female patient, and an amazing array of other nightmarish monsters. - When not lurking through the caverns of his castle, Denis supervises his ride and does all of the make-up for his hired humans. - Yes, real live creatures walk through the darkness and take every opportunity to scare the pants off of you. - In the winter months Denis lives in New York City and teaches special effects make-up to men and women for TV, movies, and magazine photos. He worked with Dick Smith on all of the special effects for the movie "Scanners" which was released this year.
 
 
Props from the interior are shown above including a human torso being prepared by the evil butcher.
 
Denis is a talented painter, holding a degree from the Ontario College of Art in Toronto. He then moved on to "Three Schools" in New York where he studied and stayed. He finds New York to be "the" place to be if one is in the arts. - At the present, Captain Easey is content to return to the pier each summer season, using a winter-full of imagination to fill the castle's depths with even more bizarre creations. His many monsters will make even the most self-assured person quite uneasy. Perhaps he should begin to be known as "Captain Uneasey".
 
The Castle Frankenstein attraction was struck by fire and burned to the beach on August 13th 1984 causing an estimated $200,000 in damages. The blaze started around 3:30 AM on a Monday morning and is said to have started in an electrical line that ran beneath the pier from a main fuse box to the Beach Grill which was also lost. The Castle was closed at the time of the fire and had been since July of 82' being used only for storage during those last two years.
 

The picture above shows the castle totally engulfed in flames.

The Jet 400 steel coaster in the background.

All that remained the following day.

Top - Piers - Sculpture - Home

Copyright 2007 Ralph Grassi