Boo Crew

When building a haunted house you have to look at a significant detail: Where will the actors stand in the room? The team works hard spending anywhere from a week to a month on just one room in the haunted house. The paint they use must contain an anti-fire additive, and all cloth has to be fireproofed or dipped in the additive. They also need their effects hooked up to the fire system so they turn off in case of emergencies. When building the rooms, they try their best to reuse or repurpose items they already have at the haunted house from previous years.  

The makeup artists gain inspiration for different putrid and unsettling looks from nature and items they find at trade shows that add to the characters’ horrifying feelings. They use an assortment of makeup; they use mainly alcohol-based airbrush paint or grease-based paint for volunteers with sensitive skin. Boo Crew even molds prosthetics from latex, watermelon, gelatin, or silicone for their movie-ready looks. When getting in-costume, It can take a few hours or just a few minutes. Costumes can be made by staff, bought at trade shows, or purchased from professional-level costume designers.

What makes this experience so special is that all the proceeds go to a worthy cause. When donating, Boo Crew’s founders always start with Foster Kids Christmas Wish, honor flights for vets, and scholarships for high school seniors after that it is up to the Lions Club to pick the other charities.

When picking the next group of creepy volunteers, Boo Crew looks for a few requirements in order to meet the scare factor. They look at if you love haunted houses, your love of haunted or scary movies, and acting and scaring people. Finally, their age requirement is 16, so if you don't meet that requirement a parent or guardian must work alongside you.

Don’t believe me on how excellent this horror factor is. Read about it from the volunteers themselves: I talked to Tammy Pritchet, an actress at Boo Crew. She has been volunteering at Boo Crew since 2014 after closing her own haunt a year prior. She returned to the haunt industry because of her love of scaring people and being a part of a haunt crew. Tammy’s favorite thing about volunteering at Boo Crew is when she spends 11 months working on something and it all comes together and people love it. Some of her favorite memories are working behind the scenes late nights, having fun with the haunt family. She also enjoys it when the actors get together after the haunt and share stories about the nights they have worked.

I talked to Grant Or, another actor from Boo Crew. He first started volunteering after a good friend of his recommended it to him. He keeps volunteering year after year because he loves the reactions of the guests and their friends and giving back to the community he lives in. He holds his friends he makes at the haunt dearly and enjoys hanging out with them outside the haunt. Grant also loves seeing the house being built and by the time he gets to work the amount that has changed and all of the volunteers' amazing attitudes and personalities. One of Grant's favorite memories is when he breaks stuff due to his immense strength and not getting in trouble for it. Grant left us off with “I wonder what I'll break this year.”

I also spoke to Paige Lynn, an actress that has been working as a haunter for 18 years. She first started at Boo Crew by following actors she knew that wanted to join the haunt, so she followed suit with no regret. She missed working with her old friends and scaring the socks off of people keeps her coming back every year. Her favorite part of volunteering there is seeing all the people she helps when the proceeds get donated. One of her favorite memories as a haunt actor was when she was working at Boo Crew and a couple of teenagers came in and kept repeating “it's not scary” over and over. Then she jumped out to scare them as the boyfriend dropped to the floor and started crying. As she was trying to pull him up, she left him as she ran