Scaring is caring: 'Charity haunt' now in 10th year

MONTICELLO — Chad Smith has always loved Halloween and all of the chills and thrills that come with it.

So naturally, when a friend asked for help building a small haunted house in his attached garage in 2014, Smith was all in.

“I think we had like four or five little rooms,” he said. “There wasn’t a huge crowd, but we did get some people that came out and walked through, and I was just hooked. And each year it got bigger and bigger.”

The “charity haunt,” which has become known as Nightmare at Fox Hill, opened for its latest season earlier this month at the Monticello Theatre, 1406 N. Market St.

This year’s proceeds will go to the Monticello Theatre Association to help the nonprofit pay for royalties and building improvements, said Smith, owner and operator of Nightmare at Fox Hill.

This is their third year of giving to the MTA and teaming up with the group to hold the haunted house at the theater.

The theme is “Fox Hill Hospital.” Smith explained that, during last year’s event, a witch cast a spell on the town of Fox Hill that caused “mass chaos,” and the local hospital is still dealing with the fallout.

Of course, it doesn’t help that most of the “doctors” are actually asylum patients who never took the oath to do no harm.

The cost is $15 for a regular ticket and $25 for a fast pass. The haunt will be open from 7 to 10:30 p.m. today and Saturday.

Additionally, there will be “scare-free” trick-or-treating from 5 to 8 p.m. on Halloween, with families able to come to the haunted house and get sweets for free from the actors, who will be out of costume with all the lights on.

Then, once everyone’s back in full-scare-mode, the haunt will be open from 8:30 to 10:30 p.m.

Nov. 1 will mark the grand finale: a blackout event from 7 to 10:30 p.m. Organizers will give groups of four one glow stick to share and “wish you the best of luck,” Smith said.

When asked just how scary Nightmare at Fox Hill is, Smith replied that it varies from person to person, though they do their best to give everyone as much of a fright as possible.

“We don’t let up,” he said. “We go as hard as we can. I’ve got great volunteers and great actors. And unfortunately, nothing warms our dark heart more than to get somebody to scream.”

It’s recommended that no one under the age of 10 attend, though Smith added that parents are the best judge of what their children can handle.

Ever the Halloween fanatic, Smith puts a lot of effort into making Nightmare at Fox Hill a roaring success, doing everything from attending classes and conventions to even studying feng shui so he can turn its principles upside-down to create an environment that automatically sets guests on edge.

“I’m basically thinking about it 365 days a year,” he said.

In his day job — i.e., when he’s not scaring the living daylights out of people — Smith is an electrician. Before that, he was a police officer for 20 years.

He was recently on Mike in the Morning to talk about Unsub Masks, a side business where he makes and sells masks to help offset the cost of running Nightmare at Fox Hill.

The charity haunt is entirely run by volunteers, and the only money they keep is the amount spent on supplies, Smith said. The rest goes to the charity of choice.

“There’s no way I could do this without the team that I have,” he said.

The group has to put their heads together each year to figure out how they’re going to one-up their previous fright-fests, Smith said.

Still, he feels that they always manage to do it.

“Payment for me, every year, is that first group of kids that screams and gets scared out of their minds, and then they laugh,” Smith said.