The ghosts and goblins are coming out to play.

Halloween is just a couple of weeks away, which means not only are people starting to think about costumes, but some are also looking for a night of fright.

Some prefer to wait for Halloween to really get into the holiday, while others trek to local haunted houses weeks before the actual day of celebration.

Luckily, there are a few places in the area to satisfy your haunting cravings.

In Dahlonega, Rot N. Rusty's Asylum haunted house is open each Friday and Saturday night this month, giving visitors a taste of what an abandoned insane asylum would be like in an abandoned town.

"Whenever we move to a new location I try to see what the building lends itself to be," said owner Rusty Smith. "This year we're going with an insane asylum and a whole town that has been abandoned since the early 1950s, '60s. We've created a street with buildings and a cemetery. And then you go in off the street into the insane asylum ... and meet up with a lot of interesting characters along the way."

Smith, who is a professional set designer by day, said some of his theater friends also help with the haunted house - there is a professional lighting designer, he said, along with some actors. Others are into it because they share a common passion - to scare the bejesus out of you.

"I have loved being involved with this kind of stuff since I was a kid. I always wanted to do it myself," said Smith, who gives the proceeds from the Asylum to charity. "I got pulled into it many years ago at a charity event in Dahlonega (and I) just loved it. It is theatrical but it is also different. I would call it interactive theater."

For anyone looking to kick up their celebrations on Halloween, a family farm in Mount Airy has converted a pasture into a ... haunted pasture.

There are ghouls and ghosts waiting in various "scare zones," said Melanie Price, who said her kids inspired the family to put the event together two years ago.

This year, with the help of other family members and many of her daughter's friends, the family is planning another scare fest.

"It is a guided tour; you come through and we have different areas," Price said. "There will be a toxic dump, the headless horseman's back there, we have a medical tent with a chain saw."