LAKE ASBURY – It only costs $20 to be scared out of your mind at Lake Asbury’s newest haunted house. That cost, of course, doesn’t include the possible need for a new pair of pants.

Haunted houses in Clay County’s go back at least 15 years, and you’ve probably been through one created by Ryan Allen. He’s made haunted houses as small as a tour through someone’s transformed backyard, and his team is behind the massive haunted house experience that used to be at the agricultural fairgrounds. He’s back in Clay County with his first haunted house in years.

“This is kind of a culmination of about 15 years of doing houses like this,” Allen said. “I live in the Lake Asbury area and stumbled upon these two units here in the Winn Dixie plaza and decided to turn them into a haunted house. I’ve done huge haunted houses in the past but I got out of it for a while...but then I just caught the bug and wanted to get back in so here we are.”

For those who may be skeptical of what a haunted house in two commercial plaza units may look like, but you’re getting nothing short of an extremely professional and well-done horror experience with Allen’s Cabin Fever house. The sets are highly-detailed, music and other atmospheric sounds are pumped throughout the 4,000-square-foot house, and it’s brought to life with life-like animatronics and actors covered in professional make up and prosthetics. It’s the real deal and it shows.

“We’ve been doing this for 15 years and we’ve come a long way,” Allen said. “The entire industry has come a long way really. We’ve learned over the years tricks of the trade and what people do and don’t like...it’s all about the efficiency of scaring people.”

Allen’s larger haunted house experiments includes multiple houses stretching through massive exhibit halls. Those houses allow guests moments to breathe and get their heart rate down in what Allen said are called transition scenes. These are the long hallways that, while scary, don’t necessarily have anyone or anything specifically trying to scare you.

Transition scenes and moments to calm down are gone in Cabin Fever and that’s due in part to the limited space the commercial units provide, so if you’re heading through, don’t expect a moment wasted.

“This is the first time we’ve ever done a house in a space like this,” Allen said, commenting on the unique nature of creating a haunted house in a plaza next to a Winn Dixie, Subway, and other businesses. “I was scratching my head on how to market this….it was one of the bigger concerns we had when we first started but so far, the marketing for this has been a lot easier.

“If you think about some of the other locations we’ve been, we’ve had to market three times as hard because it was more or less further out of town. This is right in front of people shopping at any of the businesses and the plaza is just generally a busy place, which means more eyes on our units.”

Allen increased the hype for the house by placing some scary props in the windows. People were soon taking selfies in front of the props and posting them on social media. Before the house was even official, people were already posting about it on social media, Allen said, and that engagement continued to grow when official signage was put up on the units.

The Haunted House will be open this weekend at 6 p.m. and will run each weekend following until Halloween. It’s located at 2851 Henley Road, Suites 105 and 106, in Lake Asbury.

There’s an ATM on-site and a skip-the-line pass available for those who don’t want to wait. There will be refreshments, props, stilt walker, and more to keep you entertained outside the house and two photo opportunities for $3 and $5, respectively inside.

The $3 photo opportunity is with the “Pumpkin King” and the $5 photo opportunity with a “very special individual” Allen doesn’t want to spoil. The house is mature, Allen said, featuring fake blood and other scary elements, and the discretion on who should go through lies with each individual. From noon to 5:30 p.m. every Saturday, parents and younger children can go through a much-less-scary version of the haunted house for a scavenger hunt.

For more information about Cabin Fever, visit Lake Asbury Nightmare on Facebook.