East Bay Campers Get Grisly Fright-Night Delight At 'Great Horror Campout'
PLEASANTON (KPIX) -- "All right, all right, all right -- welcome to the Great Horror Campout, camp creepers!"
With that, the Great Horror Campout got underway at the Alameda County fairgrounds in Pleasanton.
At the camp, some 500 campers paid $100 and more to play grisly games for 12 hours starting at 8 p.m. Friday.
"We take a slasher film and insert the camper into the film. It takes away the TV," campout organizer Melissa Carbone explained.
Participants can play at their own scare-quotient comfort level.
The brave can plow through a "Hell Hunt," a scavenger hunt that features a blood tag, a voodoo ritual and sacrificial ceremony.
There are no sweet dreams but a night of torture -- even inside your tent.
"If you're one of the high octane horror, you be bagged, have your wrists bound, thrown into claustrophobic spaces, caged; you have to barter your way out."
But if monsters and maniacs aren't your thing, there's a milder version: roasting marshmallows and singing campfire songs while watching a horror movie.
That wasn't frightful enough for some adventure-seekers from Carmel.
"We love to be afraid, love the adrenaline of having things attack us ... you get to live the movie you see -- like a horror movie."
And horror makes money.
The Los Angeles-based production company received 2 million dollars -- the biggest deal last year on TV's "Shark Tank."