A local haunted house has already made eight people wet their pants according to Rusty Smith, owner of Rot N. Rusty Productions.

"That's how we gauge if we're hot or not," Smith said.

Rot N. Rusty's Haunted Attraction in Dahlonega is celebrating their 10th anniversary this Halloween.

After losing his mini-golf business, a local theater told Smith they were interested in starting a haunted house.

"I needed something to avoid the depression of losing my business," Smith said, "so I jumped into it whole heartedly."

After two years of the haunted house, Smith founded Rot N. Rusty Productions and officially became the operator of the haunt.

To celebrate 10 years of operation, Rot N. Rusty Productions is featuring two special showings on Thursday, Oct. 28 and Sunday, Oct. 31. Tickets on these days will only cost $10 instead of the usual $12.

"With the economic problems and everything," Smith said, "I just wanted to motivate people to come out and give them a chance to be entertained."

Even with the lower ticket prices, all of the profits that the production company makes every Halloween are donated to charities.

"Last year we donated to the Lumpkin County Literacy Coalition," Smith said, "and the year prior to that, we donated to the Lumpkin County Fire Department."

Every year brings a different theme to Rot N. Rusty's. Last year's theme was around a haunted asylum, and the year before that focused on a zombie outbreak.

"This year we're going with a medieval and fantasy thing that's a little ‘Lord of the Rings' meets ‘Army of Darkness,'" Smith said.

"We have everything from a medieval castle to vampires and wizards. We even have an ancient temple with all sorts of creatures lurking in it."

The medieval theme is one of the more fun ones, Smith said, but it was also challenging for them to produce.

"We had to create all new costumes," Smith said. "We also do our own make up. We try not to use the mask as much as possible."

This brings the haunted house a certain authenticity, making it a unique experience for all involved.

All of the workers are volunteers from all over Northeast Georgia.

"We're all volunteers from the local community," Smith said, "but when I say local community, I have volunteers out of Gainesville and Hall County, Dalton County and other surrounding counties."

The volunteers come from many different walks of life, ethnicity and religious backgrounds.

"It's a strange mix, but somehow we make it work," Smith said. "We put all of that to the side, and we're there to scare people, to entertain them, and to raise money for our charities."