Shoshy Ciment/Business Insider
Much of the abandoned Toys R Us was still intact.
- An abandoned Toys R Us store in Queens, New York, is the site of a haunted house for the Halloween season.
- Co-creators Luke Tinari and Peter Rivera have converted the 50,000-square-foot site of a closed Toys R Us store into a spooky maze filled with zombies and gore, as well as remnants of the toy retailer that used to inhabit the space.
- Toys R Us liquidated in 2018. A new company called Tru Kids Brands has announced plans to resurrect the brand.
- "I would say the story line would be: Toys R Us went out of business and this is what happened to all the
retail workers and the store," Tinari said of the haunted house. - Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.
Toys R Us is coming back to life - this time, as a haunted house full of the undead.
An abandoned Toys R Us store in Queens, New York, is the site of a 50,000-square-foot haunted house, where the retail apocalypse has come to life in the most visceral way.
The haunted house, dubbed "Zombies Are Back," has combined two kinds of apocalypse - zombie and retail - into one 15-minute journey, complete with blood, gore, a "Stranger Things"-themed section, and about 15 live actors that jump out at various points in the maze.
"I would say the story line would be: Toys R Us went out of business and this is what happened to all the retail workers and the store," said Luke Tinari, who is running the haunted house with his partner, Peter Rivera, for the second year in a row.
After filing for bankruptcy in 2017 and liquidating in 2018, Toys R Us was absorbed by Tru Kids Brands in February.
We visited the Toys R Us-themed haunted house and saw something spookier than zombies or evil clowns: It was the retail apocalypse in its rawest form.
Here was our experience: