Creature

That creatures is actually the monster from the old Hammer film The Reptile.

It was painted on the ride by one of two park employees of the time. Either Robert Cubellis or Robert Kemychek. The former a native of Warwick the latter from England who actually came over on an exchange program along with the college or gap year students (year off between HS and College in England) in the late 80s early 90s - although he was a few years older. Interesting guy. Was a member of a Heavy Metal band named Metallic Rose and was proficient in Kung Fu.

It's cool they painted it with a far lesser known monster of the horror genre.Cool movie aswell.

I don't think that either of the two men mentioned selected the subject. The cars had been painted with Dracula, Wolfman, Frankenstein's monster, Creature from the Black Lagoon, and the Reptile for years and years before either of them worked there. It would have been more accurate to say that they re-painted them. I don't mean to say that they traced an existing pattern or anything - they did actually paint them. They painted cars completely over and then drew new renditions of the creatures that had been on them before.

I never knew that it was from a Hammer film titled the Reptile though. Its kinda cool to know that. I used to wonder about that specific car because I recognized all the other creatures.

Looks like my mother in law!

wasn't there a darth vader and planet of the apes car as well?

Planet of the Apes definitely. Darth Vader maybe - but I don't think he appeared until ~1992. In which case I wonder which monster/creature he replaced as they didn't buy any new cars for the ride.

Mr. Black -youv'e got all the info I'm looking for-I'm working on a house of horrors related project ...is there a way for us to talk more?

What sort of project? I'm not really up for a phone conversation or meeting. If you have a specific question feel free to post it here and if I know the answer I'll reply and then everyone can see. As Haunted House rides go this was not an impressive one. I'm surprised someone would be making a project out of it...

Heres the deal:
I am working with several RI artists on a Rocky Point comic/graphic novel. I have chose to do a story on the house of horrors . I want to develop a story based somewhat on fact and perhaps create an urban legend around it.
So basiclly I'm trying to remember specific visual aspects of the house, but I also have tons of questions....
1.When was it first built?
2. How long was the viking outside of the house? (Seen pics from 70's and 80's it's there and then not there-inconsistent?)
3. The house was sold at auction for $1000-to whom?
4.Were the pieces in the house sold seperately?
5.The owner opened Halloweenland the next year-it got shut down-why?
6.The cars were painted over?
I have a million more....
Hope you can help me out...

Now isn't that the sexiest woman you've ever seen?

1. I don't know when it got built. It was the 2nd Haunted House at the park though. Somewhere near where the Musik Express (yes Musik not Music) there was an earlier one.

2. I can remember the Viking - I think he got removed in the late eighties. As I dont think it got taken down during the open season my guess is that he got damaged in winter or perhaps Hurricane Gloria??

3. I was actually there the day of the auction (a rather dreary rainy day) but can't tell you who bought it. I can suggest that they may have bought it and then discovered that its not movable. It was a cinderblock building underneath its facade and as the ride went it was largely a conveyor system and electrical track consisting of a single guide track throughout the ride.

4. The rides were all sold integral (except the carousel which had had its original horses/animals sold separately a number of years before. Thats not to say that the purchasers may have paid their 1000 took what they wanted and left the rest.

5. If the ride was shut down for Halloween land then perhaps the purchaers took away the track and it was no longer able to run. Perhaps Motts would comment on whether there was steel track throughout the building. From the perspective of this picture the Reptile was completely off/away from any tracking and the car in the background is stopped where the electrical track would have begun (the conveyor was mechanical only).

6. When I said the cars were painted over I meant that the old pictures had become faded and needed to be redone. Fresh coats of paint of a single color were applied and the characters redrawn. However, the characters may not have ended up on their original cars! The artists probably painted a car over and then used the car behind it as the model for one they were working on. This might explain how Darth Vader got on the cars. When they got to the last car all the other cars would have been painted over already and they would not have had a model to look at - whereas locating a Darth Vader model would have been easy.

Other trivia that might be of interest to you - the cemetary scene used to have tombstones that had printed on them the names of various park employees. Mostly management and ride maintenance people

If he is still living a great source of historical information about the park could be obtained from a man named Jerry Combs. He was a park employee who started there as a ride op in I think the 1950s. He had gone away and come back to the park many times. When he was away from the park he was with traveling carnivals. He knows an awful lot about amusement park rides and his employment at the park probably predated the existence of the House Of Horrors. He tends towards having a suspicous (of other people) nature so he would probably be on his guard when you first talked to him. However, I don't know if he is still around. By now he would be at least 70.

Also, the small room on the left hand side at the far end of the picture is where the main power for the ride was kept. Behind where Motts was standing when this picture was taken is where the sound system was located for the 'scary' sounds that were piped to speakers inside the house.

Clarification - behind where Motts is standing there is another small room where the sound system was kept.

Thank you very much!
An earlier haunted house?
That's great to know!
I'm still curious on the inside of the house....
I remember the fat lady, the saw through the lady trick, the jaws door near the end and a few others....anything else come to mind?
So park employees painted all the stuff inside?
I've read that the house was designed by dark ride genuis Bill Tracy? Any truth to this?
I was there for Halloweenland and the cars were still running through the house...but most of the stuff was taken out of the house, so I am still curious about that one.
Which monsters were on the cars?
I'm curious how you know all this-did you work there?
Was there any park merchandise with the house of horrors on it?
(I found a Rocky Point coloring book, thats all I've found.)
Again, thanks again for the info, like I said I've got a million questions.....

Visual aspects - other props included a saw that cut 'through' a mannequin strapped to a table. Some sound effects created by a compressor and a scene with a 'doctor' working in a laboratory.

There was also a dragon like, or lizard like, monster located in an alcove with glowing red eyes.

You can't see it in this picture but there are two conveyors in this room. The one you can see takes the cars down. Further to the right out of sight is an identical one that took the cars up.

I'll give some thought to other visual aspect that may come back to me.

Park employees painted some of the stuff inside. Primarily the cars and the tombstones in the cemetary scene. The castle on the back wall of this room was there for as long as I could remember. When you passed through this room there was a little bit of strobe lighting effect (in another picture you can see one of the lights still remaining).

There was also blacklighting in variuos room in the house of horrors so that any white clothing you might be wearing would glow.

Someone else once said to me that some of the props were done by RISDE students - but that info is suspect. I had the impression they were speculating rather than approaching it with true knowledge.

I've done some searcing on the web-these are the only (other) images from within the house.
http://ctacke.tripod.com/index2.html

I also believe the ride evolved over time. The ride as it was in the 90s and the ride as it was in say the 50s/60s are two different things - as props broke/got replaced. I don't know anything about Bill Tracey - however because of your post I took a look at a few websites dealing with his work - conceptually I could see a visual relationship (i.e style) that is compatible with the Viking and the Dragon that were on the outside of the ride.

The owners of this park cared very little for its history. They owned this and a slew of night clubs (Narcissus/Lipstick in Boston for example) and saw it as a business only.

The shift from an exclusively family oreinted park to one featuring bands and cover bands such as Steppanwolf, Max Creek, Gloria Estefan, Level42, The Machine, Dread Zeppelin, Snap, Kenny Loggins, and others reflects the influence of owners with nightclub backgrounds.

In short, history preservation was not of paramount importance to them - they would not have broken up the carousel if it had been.

This article may be of interest to you. Knowing that you are graphic artist gives me an idea of where you may be coming from.

The gentleman discussed used to build and repair some of the props in the house.

http://www.slowart.com/articles/janello.htm

And this should certainly give you plenty of food for thought regarding graphic novel content...

http://www.sacreddarkness.com/interview.html

Having now read the articles end to end myself I can now understand where the RISDE (Rhode Island School of Design for those non-familiar) connection may have come in. Vincent Crudelle's father repaired amusement park haunted house props. Vincent himself was a talented artist who did not work on Rocky Points house of horrors but did attend RI School of Design. The articles read like a gothic novel.

I have a few more:
1. Not looking for a specific date-but decade the house was put in....
2. Does the name Emery Picotte mean anything to you? Rumor was he was the one who purchased the house....
I truly appreciate your help. I know the house itself was more cheesy than scary, and I want to try to keep my drawings the same way.
My style is sort of Mad magazine/R. Crumb with horror elements and I'm planning on using a tales from the crypt style for my story.
I would actually like to get a critique from someone who knows / remembers so much ...
Again, I want this to be a tribute to the park itself, and simply want it as factual as possible...

Emery Picotte is a member of the American Coaster Enthusiasts. A group primarily focused on Roller Coaster rides, preservation and history. He is reachable through aceonline.com. He resides in CT. He was the organizer of the Halloween fests at RP subsequent to the parks closing. It is unlikely that he was the purchaser of the park.

The Halloween fests did not go well and he may very well be unwilling to talk to anyone about park related projects. He most likely suffered quite a bit of financial stress if not ruin in relation to these fests. I do not believe he had any connection to the park's heydey operations. Please do not that this particular paragraph falls into the category of speculation and opinion on my part.

Correction: I said it was unlikely that Emery P was the purchaser of the park. I meant to say that Emery P was unlikely to have been the purchaser of the House of Horrors ride.

He certainly was NOT the purchaser of the park.

i'm put some rough sketches on
photobucket.com
search under mayoh67
I'd love to know what you think....

Sigh...I was too much asleep this morning when I wrote up my various posts. I should have said aceonline.org.

BTW, the posts regarding the graphic novel now really do exceed the scope of the purpose of this website as we are no longer talking about the history nor, more specifically, the photos of the park. As a courtesy to Motts we should probably move this discussion offline. If you wish to post an email address I'll contact you directly. Best wishes with your graphic novel pursuit.

Thanks
mayohj@yahoo.com
Sorry Motts....

I certainly don't speak for this site. I'm simply cautious.

...I just spotted that he has a forum and off topic/related topics are allowed. I'll start a topic in there to continue this discussion.

All of the cars had paintings of famous horror movies.

I always remembered that the wolfman car was the one my friend threw up in.

Cool

The creature looks like Greta Van Susteren before she had the surgery. Well, it actually looks like her after the surgery as well!

brings back memories as chubbz said

The Castle of Terror opened in 1963. It was designed by Bill Tracy of Cape May, NJ -- a prolific dark ride designer who also designed Crescent Park's Riverboat.. The viking was actually inside the first two years. He was at the end of a narrow passgeway near the conclusion of the ride. The car made contact with him as it passed. (actually the base he was mounted on). The ride was renamed House of Horrors in the 1970s. and the sign came from another dark ride down the midway that ran from 1948 to 1963. Trimper's Haunted House, also designed by Tracy, has some of the same figures including the woman being sliced on a table saw. They were all made from the same molds. See this article and see if you can ID some of the fiigures. The Trimpers' ride opened in 1962: http://www.laffintheda...es/trimpers/thh1.htm

Mom!!

OMG...that story about the Crudelles was creepy. And those carvings <shudder>!!!

LOL the creature form the black lagoon! It sounds funny but when my dad was growing up in Ireland in the 1950s he got really scared by that film when it came to the local cinema. He wouldn't go fishing for a month!
Oh well I guess the scary movies of yesterday seem funny by today's standards.
This looked like a really cool place to explore, it didn't look like that scary of a haunted house though.
Has anyone heard about that haunted house in Japan that is a walk through in the theme of a hospital? They say it's so scary people have had heart attacks walking through it. I wonder if they got any ideas from some of the hospital shots on this site. ;-)

Speaking of band that played the stage at the park. It was a great venue for us local bands to perform too. Ocassionaly the crowds were large an we had alot of fun working there. I recall that it was an easy set up and tear down as the hieght of the stage was about the same hieght as out equipment truck. I also recall that one had to be a mountain climber to rig the band lighting. The lighting trus was way up there. We were the first to enter the park and the last to leave starting early in the day to set up and tearing down the lighting and equipment untill the wee hours of the morning. We had the park to our selvs and allways had a ball. Like all of the areas gone but never forgotten parks, linkin park, and before that paragon park, its was very sad to see it go.

Does anyone remember a quote written on th wall inside the haunted house "When there is no room left in hell, the dead walk the earth"
I'm trying to figure out if this was in the Rocky Point house or perhaps Canopy Lake Park or another New England park.
It would of been by the graveyard scene, I think.

I realize now it was "Canobie" not canopy lake.

The quote you refer to was indeed inscribed inside the RP House of Horrors. It was located at the very beginning of the ride either on or near to the first set of swinging doors that the car sort of crashed through when you went on the ride.

I believe you had a slight typo. The quote read "When there is no more room in hell, the dead will walk the earth". Almost the same - but just in case you were going for accuracy.

Thanks John.

Mr. Black,
Thank you for the link to the Crudelle article. It appears sacreddarkness.com is no longer, and I have had trouble finding more than tiny tidbits regarding his work. Do you have any more sites or links that will lead me to information on his work, hopefully with pics. Thank you in advance.

i took a photograph at rocky point last year thats almost exactly the same as this.

does anyone know the current status of the park??

If you guys are saying the House of Horrors opened in 1963, why is this month's Rhode Island Monthly saying it opened in 1938? And was there REALLY" teenage gang violence" in the park as Rhode Island Monthly claims?

I have not read this article in RI monthly. However, many people do not know that there was an earlier dark ride at the park somewhere over near where either the Musik Express was located or where the concert stage was located. I'm not sure when the original dark ride opened but it was older than the House of Horrors. Based on other web articles that I have read on the topic I am inclined to believe the 1963 date.

A little late but I just saw the request for more information about Vincent Crudelle. Here are some links:
vincent_crudelle on Myspace. Note that this is not Crudelle himself. Nor do I know who is behind this myspace page. Interestingly enough on the friends list for this page is the "Philadelphia State Hospital" Myspace web page. Almost certainly someone who is an Opacity member (or has at least passed through here one time or another).

The slowart website mentioned above has the full text from Sacred Darkness minus a few pictures.

hellisempty dot com - owned by Janello. His contact email is ont the site. There's not too much else there. The site is dedicated to Crudelle though.

Further, there is/was a business named Janello-Crudelle studio in Pawtucket RI. The phone number listed for the business has a cell prefix - but the company name is unadvertised (not even white pages). I found it only on a listing for the Pawtucket Art Festival 2006 when I googled Janellos name.

Further comment on Crudelle/Janello.

Something is amiss with the article. Something that had not struck me when I read the slowart article the first time in Jan 06.

Dates do not line up properly in the articles timeline. A portion of the story tells how Vincent Crudelle was emotionally scarred at age 7 or 8 while visiting the then 'abandoned for several years' Rocky Point House of Horrors.

Well...the park closed in 1994 (and wasn't truly abandoned until after the auction in 1996 but we'll use 1994 as a starting date for the following). So lets for arguments sake say that 'abandoned for several years" equals at least 3 years. So...in 1997 Crudelle was supposedly 8. According to that article he stopped writing to his sister and/or disappeared in 2001. So if we follow the articles timeline Crudelle disappeared at age 12. Meanwhile he was suppose to have had his own workshop and attend RISDE (an art college - entering students are usually 18).

It just doesn't add up. Therefore, the article is most likely fabricated.

Damn, you're good. =8-o

Why thank you Lynne.

RII Monthly is wrong. The world's first dark ride debuted in 1928 in New Jersey. The Castle of Terror was installed in 1963 in a circa 1948 walk through fun house building. Castle of Terror was renamed House of Horrors in 1970. The other dark ride John may be referring to was an imported three-decker Pinfari portable "Witch Mill" which operated 1971-1974. From 1948 to 1970, there was another dark ride which was rethemed three times, starting as Laff In The Dark and ending as Jungle Terrors. After 1970, the bulding was removed to expand the midway and to install the Sky Diver.

I also say cool.

Alright who took my pic off My space......

amazing! love the lighting.........I am a newcomer here

How scary is that thing supposed to be in a turtleneck?

i realize this is a bit dated now but i just came across this site. i grew up in warwick and went to rp every summer. i also worked on the first year of Halloweenland. i can confirm that the house of horrors was definitely up and running as i was there to help get it going. being in the room where the car dropped down that hill, standing on the floor between tracks with the cars running was a surreal experience. there were limitations as to what we were allowed to do after the inspection (that crippled the park). we were not supposed to have live actors in the house, but some of you may remember, we did it anyway. the inspection i'm referring to shut down about half the houses that were already built and not allowed to open. i worked on several of them. i remember emery p as well as a few other people i had worked with a few years earlier in march of dimes haunts. did anyone get to go in the funhouse? that was one of the better houses that got shut down. it was functional but not allowed to run because there were no sprinklers (which was the same reason for most). someone would go into the crowd and select a few people to bring in. shady? all in all my experience at halloweenland turned me off from haunting all together and i left the scene. i have recently returned and it's nice running into old friends. for example, james of nightmare gallery (his house was to the left when entering the park) has moved his event to salem ma, where i now live. as for what i'm up to or who i am, i value my anonymity... but look for The Black Spot in the providence area this october!

makes me think of that movie "dark ride"

Tht freak of nature is HILARIOUS!

I knew that Creature car was from the film, The Reptile. The Dracula car's painting was that of Christopher Lee's Dracula......great artwork on every car.....was my favorite ride!!

Just happened to think about Rocky Point and found this site. I worked there in the mid to late 80's, mainly painting signs and later in management. I'm a high school math teacher in Missouri now, and those were some of the best days of my life! I did touch up the cars in the House of Horrors. It's so great to see the interest in the park never died - unfortunately, greed and corruption was its demise. I had the pleasure of seeing "You Must Be This Tall" by David Bettencourt. It's a great documentary, Take care everyone!

as a former employee of rocky point , i can honestly say that the viking was originally on the 2nd level ( MIDDLE ) And holding a decapitated head. this goes back to the earliy 60's. I operated that ride ( along with others in the park) . Rocky point became part of my family at that time. i can still see my boss ( John Ferla ) walking through the park and always with a half smile and saying to me " faster boy . . . faster.
He and his wife (pina) will always be somewhere in my heart. i can still see that big RED cadillac with that plate R P P - 1. Jeanny's ice creame next to diamond jims across from the ferris wheel. The fortune teller was to the left of them. The flying coaster ( another ride i operated. Sargent Glendenny of the warwick police department making patrols through the park on those little scooters. many more memories and will always cherish all of them.

bizarre