Every time she steps into a haunted house, Beverly Thomas expects to scream, even if she knows what might be lurking around the corner.
She’s the host of the television show Spooky Kisses Haunts, which aims to give viewers a behind-the-scenes look at different haunted attractions around the country. It combines interviews with scare actors – looking at their props, make-up and costumes – crew members and owners with daytime and nighttime walk-throughs of haunted attraction sets.
“My job is to be scared,” she said. “I go through and they freak me out and it’s no lie. They’re scary.”
The show is independently produced by Thomas and her husband, Richard Perry. The couple lives in Pittsfield.
The name Spooky Kisses follows the theme of the show, which is both comedic and haunting.
Thomas originally sought to start a travel YouTube channel and went with her husband to downtown Salem, Massachusetts, to try their hand at filming content.
Perry, who is an experienced producer and director, brought a camera along and filmed as she reacted to her surroundings.
“She was bugging me, saying, ‘Oh, I want to do some stuff on YouTube,’ and I’m like ‘no, I’m not interested.’ I’m like ‘everybody wants to be a host of a TV show,’” said Perry. “But we did some screen tests and I thought she’s actually really, really, good and funny, and I thought ‘okay we’ll get into it.’”
As they were filming, a worker from the nearby haunted house, Witch Mansion, invited them inside. Afterwards, they looked through the footage and realized that the reactions to the haunted house were the best part.
From there, Spooky Kisses Haunts was born.
Perry founded MadLab Entertainment Group in August of 2021 and began filming, producing and editing the show. As his wife walks the sets of haunted attractions, Perry is right up close – with a 6K camera, or sometimes two – capturing her reactions and facial expressions to the scare actors that pop up.
“I wasn’t thinking it would be so extravagant, but he’s the type of person who gets an idea and takes it all the way,” she said.
Most haunted attractions are only open around the Halloween season, from mid-September to the first week of November at the latest, so Spooky Kisses Haunts relentlessly hits the road each season, driving from state to state to film, without returning home. Sometimes they are invited to film content at haunted attractions, and, other times, they reach out to ask.
Each attraction takes about two to three days to film since the process includes capturing drone shots, camera shots, various interviews and daytime and nighttime walkthroughs. Sometimes, the walk-through has to be done multiple times to capture the look of pure terror on her face.
“It’s exhausting. We get there really early before anybody else does, and we leave at night and then we wake up and we do it again,” she said. “And then what is even more work is what Rich does, cause he’s the genius. I’m just the jerk with a microphone. He’s the one that’s got to edit it all.”
Perry has a day job in IT and edits episodes for Spooky Kisses Haunts at night.
“Half the problem is finding the right footage to use,” said Perry. “And it’s more of an artistic endeavor.”
Their pilot episode in 2021 was about Haunted Overload, a haunted house attraction in Lee, New Hampshire, which draws thousands of thrill-seekers a night during the Halloween season.
Emily and Jeffrey Couillard have worked at Haunted Overload since their first season in 2021 and form part of the year-round build crew. They remember when Spooky Kisses Haunts first came through to film content.
“She is so reactive to everything,” said Emily, who often binge-watches the show with her husband.
Haunted Overload will also be featured in season three, set to be released in Fall 2025.
“My favorite part is probably meeting everyone and the scare actors. The scare actors are a riot,” the show’s host said. “They are just so much fun because they just say a bunch of really, really weird things. And I love that, and it makes me laugh. They’re all rock stars, and they work really hard.”
Spooky Kisses Haunts has released two seasons, which are streaming on a variety of platforms such as Amazon Prime, Tubi and Screambox. Currently, they are ready to release Season three to a network with an exclusive license, in the hopes of reaching a broader audience.
“I just want people to see the show and hopefully enjoy it, not think about their problems and just have an escape from everyday life,” she said. “And it’s almost like a travel show for these things. So, if they really do like haunted attractions, they want to know what they’re in for.”
For more information, visit spookykisseshaunts.com.
Yaa Bame can be reached at ybame@cmonitor.com
