Hungry Horse Haunted house scaring up donations for food bank

A haunted house in Hungry Horse is scaring up food for a good cause. The spooky brain child of Rob and Patty Dunning, the haunted house is asking for food bank donations for admission rather than an entry fee.

“Me and the wife were never into it for the money, just for the smiles,” Rob Dunning said Thursday.

The Dunnings have been going all-out in decorating their yard and house for Halloween for 12 years now.

And why does Rob love Halloween so much?

“Because he can be his creepy self,” Patty joked.

“As a kid, I remember trick-or-treating, and the houses you remember are the ones where they scare you the most,” Rob said.

The haunted house is actually on old barn owned by Doug Crosswhite and his wife, Whisper Sellars.

Sellars said that she and her husband known the Dunnings for some time and were fans of their yard decorations. Sellars and Crosswhite are planning to tear the barn down eventually, but they offered the Dunnings the chance to put on a haunted house first.

It took two months to get the place ready to go and it’s populated by volunteers working as scare actors, Rob said.

“Fourteen is optimal,” He said about staffing the barn. “But the more the merrier. The more people there are, the more we can scare everyone.”

In its first night on Wednesday, Dunning said the food donations were significant.

“Thanksgiving is coming up, so its good to get the food bank stocked up,” Sellars said.

The Hungry Horse Haunted House is located at 526 Canyon Road in Hungry Horse. It’s open 7-10 p.m. every day until Halloween.