A frightful fundraiser

Annual Dardani trail haunts Woodlot

By: Madeleine Johnson
   The Dardanis have been bringing heart-stopping haunted fun to the public for eight years, and on Halloween they offered South Brunswick a new tradition that’s guaranteed to stop traffic.
   Despite the drizzle and damaging winds, the annual haunted trail and hayride, held Friday and Saturday nights, plowed ahead.
   And Tom Dardani and some of his friends have been donning masks and driving around town on their motorcycles to add a little fright to Halloween night.
   Friday night’s rain was a first for the yearly pre-Halloween event.
   "We have never, ever had rain before," Carolyn Dardani said. "This was like the mother rain."
   Not to be deterred by the downpour, Halloween fans came in full force to Woodlot Park, on New Road, to see what kind of scares were planned for this year’s trail and hayride.
   The haunted trail was a series of spooky thrills that had the volunteer monsters and even some trailblazers screaming.
   Even though each section was different from the next — it featured headstones of famous outlaws, feasts of bloody severed appendages, chain saw-wielding maniacs, and a Frankenstein who knew how to bust a move — the eclectic nature of the trail offered an element of surprise that added to its horrifying appeal.
   The hayride offered just as many scary surprises, including giant spiders, a bulldozer that stopped just short of dumping a load of rocks on the hayride wagons, appearances by Freddy Kreuger, Michael Meyers and Michael Jackson, and skeletal volunteers who would jump out of the woods and down from the trees.
   At the ends of both the hayride and the haunted trail, choruses of "Oh, it’s over?" and "I want to do it again, even though I already know what to expect!" rang out, proving the Dardanis and the volunteers had provided another successfully terrifying night.
   In addition to the two main attractions, the event also featured food vendors, a live band with many of its members wearing Halloween costumes, the Ghostbusters’ vehicle and a bonfire.
   At the hayride and haunted trail ticket booths, photos of the three children for whom the event was raising funds were prominently displayed, and there was an additional donation booth at the beginning of the trail, reminding the public that the event might offer some seasonal fun, but it also serves as a way to raise money for those who need it.
   In the last two years, the spooky fundraiser hasn’t been the Dardanis’ only contribution to the haunted holiday. The Ride of the Dead is a new tradition that is already growing in popularity.
   "My husband, Tom Dardani, started The Ghost Riders Ride of the Dead last year with three Harley-Davidsons and the hearse," Ms. Dardani said. "This year there were quite a few more riders."
   On Halloween, Mr. Dardani and some of his friends have been donning skull masks and "Skull Crew" shirts, mounting their motorcycles and following a 1953 Pontiac hearse that Mr. Dardani restored "about seven years ago," Ms. Dardani said.
   The bikers participate in the Ride of the Dead for the sole purpose of amusing the trick-or-treaters. And, judging by the number of people who waved to the hearse and bikers, or whipped out their cameras to get a picture of the unconventional procession, their mission was accomplished.
   "How often do you get to see a bunch of grown men wearing Halloween masks and riding motorcycles?" Ms. Dardani said.
   For almost two hours, the Skull Crew drove through South Brunswick. The hearse — driven by Bob Smethers and equipped with a smoke machine, fluorescent lights and a real coffin — and over two dozen Harley-Davidson motorcycles honked and threw candy to the costumed children that they passed during the evening.
   And, after nearly a decade of scaring the public, the Dardanis and their friends were on the receiving end of a less than pleasant and all too real moment of terror.
   Around 7 p.m., having spent an hour zipping around South Brunswick’s neighborhoods, the 53-year-old hearse sputtered and stalled in the middle of Route 1, where it stopped traffic for about 30 seconds as Mr. Smethers and Mr. Dardani coaxed the funerary buggy back to life.
   In the end, the hearse’s brush with death added a twisted kind of excitement to the Dardanis’ newest Halloween tradition, ensuring that, much like the iconic horror movie villains that made cameo appearances at the annual haunted trail and hayride, nothing will stop the Ride of the Dead from coming back.