TAMPA, Fla. — Howl-O-Scream at Busch Gardens opens Friday for its 20th anniversary. Virginia Johnson went backstage for this week's On the Town:

• Busch Gardens Howl-O-Scream: September 20-November 2 
• We met some of the people who joyfully put the creep in creepy

Six haunted houses.

Nine scare zones.

One show.

One zombie dance party.

20 years of Iconic Haunters waiting for you.

It’s all for Busch Garden’s 20th anniversary of Howl-O-Scream.

And it goes from September 20 through November 2.

In a whirlwind backstage tour, we met some of the people who joyfully put the creep in creepy.

First – make-up and special effects.

Morgan Malice is a master monster maker.

Along with his crew members like mask maker Adam Zerillo, they do everything from airbrush melted faces to splatter blood across tattered costumes (more on costumes later.) Malice estimates he and his crew of about half a dozens artists make up just under 100 people every night.

Of course there are many more scare actors in the park, and the majority of the them learn how to make themselves up, but the marquis characters, the ones that get a 360-degree look from park goers, they are in the shop.

And they get everything.

Grit under their nails—check!

Hairs on hanging facial skin flaps- check!

An extra tooth on their melted face- check!

There is fake pus and fake teeth grime and the aforementioned fake blood.

And the shop is filled with dismembered human body parts, artfully tattered wigs and werewolf heads.

In short, it’s amazing.

Next there are the costumes.

The King of Wardrobe – dressing hundreds upon hundreds of scare actors – is Loren Bracewell.

He himself is immaculately dressed, in all black, and he keeps the calm in the chaos of the holiday entertainers. He is fully prepared to go from “Scary to Merry” at the end of the Halloween Season.

Finally, there’s the crew who work backstage inside the haunted houses.

Krista Austin is the house manager of Insomnia.

She let us frolic in her domain before the doors opened to the public.

In a massive expanse of a fake treatment center, she knows it – down to the wonky windshield wiper on the somehow real car that has “crashed” into the “center.”

As guests weave through the labyrinth of treatment rooms and long hallways, what they don’t see is as important as what they do.

“Hidden in plain sight” are secret doors draped in black material that lead behind the walls and rooms. It’s how the actors move around from scare to scare secretly.

I must tell you the creepy factor in these nooks and crannies is at about 90%, but there is also a kind of giddiness in seeing behind-the-scenes. And even knowing what I know now, I’ll still be a terrified guest.

There are several different methods to scare.

You can bang on objects, scream and wail, or work on your timing to jump out at the perfect moment.

Scare actors are scheduled for 30 minutes on and 30 minutes off at the houses. Just a few minutes of rehearsals is all it takes to break out into a flop sweat. How do we know?

Because we went through the entire process – as human turned to haunter.

And I would do it again.

Like tonight.