Scott Simmons works all year round for five weeks of glory come Halloween.

As owner of the ScareHouse in Etna, his expenses run from big -- there are the 100 employees each night earning at least minimum wage -- to small -- a huge bowl of Halls lozenges ready for throats sore from screaming.

He keeps 18-hour days: hawking the house on his Twitter feed, scanning the live feed of his 16 security cameras, making sure his investment of hundreds of thousands of dollars doesn't disappoint the crowd snaking around his rented space near the intersection of Maplewood and Locust streets.

Haunted houses have come a long way since cold spaghetti last masqueraded as zombie brains.

The multimillion-dollar industry finds a welcome home in Pennsylvania, which experts cite as one of the top three most populous states for "haunts," to use the industry term. Even after a year that cast Freddie Mac as the new Freddy Krueger, the region is covered with vendors taking tickets in settings from cornfields to Kennywood.

What makes Pennsylvanians with an entrepreneurial spirit want to conjure up dead spirits?

It certainly helps that there's a combination of Rust Belt resources here, said John Kennedy, publisher of Haunted Attraction magazine (circulation: 4,000). The state has cheap rent, dilapidated buildings, autumnal weather and "a decent amount of people looking for something to do," he said.

Mr. Kennedy currently is on a tour of haunts across the country, his first fact-finding mission since he left a banking career and took over the publication based in Cincinnati last April. He'll cover 15,000 miles to see more than 100 attractions in 25 states.

Does he still get scared?

"Uh, no."

The same doesn't go for haunted-house honchos, he said, who are just as worried about business plans as their corporate counterparts. The full effects on discretionary spending in a recession are still unknown, not to mention concerns about something that seems straight out of "Dawn of the Dead": a swine flu pandemic.

But weather remains the scariest villain.

"Two rainy Saturdays can be the difference between a blockbuster year and a mediocre year," said Mr. Simmons.

Some owners break down the numbers -- and the investment in scares -- with as much care as a quarterly earnings report.

William McCue has run the Demon House for six years with his partner David Dennis, and there's a lot of analysis that goes into making sure his haunt continues to "invoke every sense of your living soul," he said.

After a "very lucrative" career in the entertainment and medical industries, Mr. McCue moved home and bought the mansion in Monongahela that now houses three floors of spectacle. The fourth floor is reserved for company headquarters.

Their first weekend this year saw an 18 percent increase in attendance from last year. Outside factors caused an attendance decrease the next weekend.

"We saw a 12 to 18 percent drop last Sunday because of the Steelers game," he said.

Each year, the duo tags 50 unsuspecting groups, times the groups' trips through the house and finds the mean average to dissect with Carnegie Mellon University economists to try to produce more efficient visitor flow.

Ticket prices are $15 regularly and $17 on Friday and Saturday. Mr. McCue upped the weekend prices to capitalize on the groups buying tickets in bulk. The Demon House plans for around 5,000 people per season.

Haunted house budgets aren't static, though most of the supplies can carry over from year to year. But no respectable haunt wants its scares to get cold, and most will revise or add to the display so it's not the same old, same old severed head each year.

Overall cost trimming led Kennywood to refrain from building a new haunt this year -- the first season without one since Fright Nights started eight years ago, said Marie Ruby, director of ride operations and the Fright Night coordinator. Instead, the park opted to add small changes to existing attractions, she said.

The amusement park in West Mifflin also raised the ticket price about $2, to $24.99 at the gate.

Planning for the next Fright Nights season begins "in November," just days after the Halloween decor is taken down, Ms. Ruby said.

It's a blockbuster production with numbers to prove it: 700 gallons of fog fluid and 2,500 gallons of ice are needed for the park's 60 fog machines alone.

Average ticket prices at haunts nationwide hover around $15, with big-box attractions topping $20 and small-scale productions keeping the price to single digits. Still, many owners are either lowering admission prices or increasing the value of their coupons in anticipation of recession effects, Mr. Kennedy said.

While he wouldn't call the industry "recession-proof," he did say there's evidence that haunted houses are somewhat inoculated from an economic crisis. The prime demographic -- boys, ages 17-25 -- are the "ones who blow money anytime," he said.

On the other end of the spectrum from Kennywood are venues like the one at the Sewickley United Methodist Church. Armed with 60 volunteers, the 4-year-old haunt trails through the church's 150-year-old catacombs for two weekends.

"Everything is self-taught," said advertising coordinator Sandra Lane. "We test our makeup skills on one another, with a little help from some YouTube instructional videos."

Costumes comprised of Salvation Army scraps are tainted with fake blood.

Tickets cost $6 at the door but dollar-off coupons can be found all over town. There are mentions in the Sewickley Herald, and Ms. Lane said every year a big sign in the middle of town gets the word out.

This "cheaper alternative" is getting more popular each year, she said, with sometimes as many as 100 people waiting in the church pews for the haunted tour.

"They are actually sitting where we worship, waiting to be scared!" she said.

Ms. Lane said some of the proceeds bought a video screen for the church to use in its contemporary worship service. The church saw a total crowd of 500 last year over three days but expects an increase this season since they've added a fourth day to the schedule.

It took Mr. Simmons seven years to build up a business able to support him full time.

"We spent 10 years becoming an overnight sensation," he said.

National publicity that included a Travel Channel accolade has boosted the ScareHouse's profile. The effect is in the numbers.

A good night three years ago: 1,300 people.

A good night last year: 3,800 people.

General admission price: $17.

The business is operated out of rented floors at the Etna Elks building. Mr. Simmons rents the space all year round and has a meticulously organized employee area taking over an upper floor. There's even a place for workers to clock in.

A lot of the costs carry over from one year to the next but Mr. Simmons said he still puts "a couple hundred thousand" into the business every year. Breaking down his own hourly wage is horrifying -- that happens when you work 18-hour days -- but he said his overall salary is now comparable to what he once earned in the creative services department at WPXI-TV.

The initial steps weren't easy: Banks are wary of granting a loan without a guarantee to a business "so unusual and so seasonal," he said. The collateral when he started was his savings combined with those of his wife and his father.

The haunt's success created a ripple effect in Etna. People waiting in line stave off anxiety with calls for pizza delivery, and one night ScareHouse patrons cleared out a convenience store's soda supply.

Even those operating haunted houses for a living may admit the really scary stuff this year is probably not found in their coffins and creepy corners. In all his cross-country travels, Mr. Kennedy didn't recall a single haunt scaring patrons with a Bernie Madoff mask.

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