Time for another Nightscare
Actors perform in the Nightscare Haunted House.
MOSES LAKE — The sound of screams comes through the walls as Char Massey prepares people to perform Friday night.
Massey, called Momma Char by the actors at the Nightscare Haunted House, has been the head makeup artist for the past 15 years. She was one of the original people to bring the house to Moses Lake.
The house opened last week and runs until Halloween at the Grant County Fairgrounds.
It’s open from 7 p.m. to 8 p.m. for the family hour, and from 8 p.m. for the adult version.
Admission prices are $5 for adults, $4 for children ages 6 through 12, and children 5 years old and younger are admitted for free. Price is reduced by $1 for donating a can of food.
“We’ve got a lot of new actors and actresses this year, which I love to see,” Massey said. “A lot of times when we have our food booth kids come up and people ask about the haunted house. That is one of the ways we recruit.”
The house started after Massey’s daughter and a friend went to a haunted house in Des Moines, in Western Washington, and returned excited.
“They were jumping up and down and it was awesome how excited they were about it,” Massey said. “So 15 years ago, I was still young and we belonged to the Columbia Basin Sand Commandos and that’s where it started from.”
At a meeting, Massey suggested doing a haunted house as a fund-raiser, and it just grew from there, she said, adding she doesn’t remember how she ended up as the head makeup person. She learned from performers at the Des Moines haunted house as well as trial and error. She holds up a book about monster makeup.
“I got a whole bunch of books about makeup and stuff like that,” she said. “You just work off of it ... (Participating in the house) keeps me young. I absolutely love it.”
Massey’s husband, Ed, was another of the founding members of the house. The 63-year-old man has played Freddy Krueger since the group started holding the event.
“The youngest (performer) is 7, the oldest is 63,” Nightscare President Randy Hayes said. “That makes him (Ed) the oldest.”
Hayes and Ed said the house has drawn generations of people to perform. Ed and Char’s grandson started when he was 2 years old.
“We had to corral him too. He was in the loony bin,” Ed said, describing a section of the house designed as a cage. “He’d come out between the bars and grab people’s legs when he was just a little guy, dressed up as a ghoul, so we were having to corral him.”
Proceeds from the events go to various charities including the food bank, the humane society and Relay for Life. The group also helps a couple of families during Thanksgiving, Hayes said.
“We’re trying really hard to have enough money to have our own house,” Ed said. “It takes a month and a half to put it all up and two weeks to take it all down, so it really gets to be hectic. We’re trying to find some place we can afford because we’re not rich.”
Hayes said they start planning the rooms in June, and construction starts in September.
“We have an awful lot of rooms that we have done that we can always pull from what we’ve done before and what works,” Ed said. “Every year, you can find three, four or five rooms that are completely different.”
Char and Ed are planning to retire from their leadership positions in the house, and are looking for people to fill the roles. But she doesn’t plan on leaving the organization she helped to build.
“I’m getting older, he’s getting older, so we’re going to try to let some of the younger kids —well, middle-age kids — take over some of these board member (positions) while he’ll be here to help them out,” Hayes said, explaining board members need to be 18 years old.
For more information about the positions contact Hayes at 509-760-5804.