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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."

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