Growing up in Hillview, Kentucky, Cole, Cam, and Cayden Bullock all shared a love for the holidays. They trace it back to their grandmother, Karen Douglas, who decorated their family home — first purchased in the 1960s — every holiday season.
“There have been decorations at that house for 30 years,” Cam Bullock told The Pioneer News. “I took over by myself in the last 10 years. It got hard-wired into my brain and I started doing it.”
Every year, the crowds drawn to the Bullocks’ holiday displays grew bigger.
Seeing an opportunity to do some good, the Bullocks began asking their neighbors to bring canned goods for Dare to Care, a local food bank based in Louisville, Kentucky.
Then, an unexpected tragedy struck. On October 31, 2024, Cole Bullock was killed in a homicide.
“My brother, he had just turned 18. He wasn’t even 18 for a month,” Cayden Bullock, 21, told WLKY last December. “The previous year, we lost our dad, and then Cole the year after, so it made the wound in our hearts bigger.”
That December marked the Bullocks’ first Christmas without their youngest brother.
Even still, Cam and Cayden put up their Christmas decorations, complete with a 10-foot replica of Bumble the Abominable Snowmonster — a fixture that Cole had jokingly pressured Cam to buy months earlier.
“It’s not the biggest display as it normally is, but it’s something for Cole,” Cayden said.
This year, as Halloween approached, Cam was reluctant to do anything festive.
Then the city of Hillview reached out to him to collaborate on a community event which would benefit Operation Santa — a United States Postal Service program that delivers Christmas presents to children in need.
“Hillview actually offers quite a bit of community events, but nothing for Halloween,” Cam told WAVE 3 News. “I was always so good with the Halloween [decorations] that I thought, ‘Why not? Let’s do a haunted house.’”
That’s how Cam concocted Scareview Haunt: a volunteer-run haunted house that’s earned a reputation so terrifying that it’s drawn thousands of horror fans across the state.
“On average, we have 15 to 20 actors every night, so every scene has at least one actor,” Cam said. “There’s over 150 animatronics inside, so it’s very immersive.”
In a wink to the program they’re sponsoring, Scarview Haunt leads guests on a multi-themed 20-minute walkthrough to “Killer Kringle,” a blood-soaked Santa Claus wielding a chainsaw.
And for young children — and locals that are less enthusiastic about the gorier side of Halloween — Scarview Haunt has a one-hour window where guests can walk through the house while the lights are on and the scare actors are away.
This month will be Cam and Cayden’s first Halloween without their brother, but his presence is felt nevertheless. Every weekend this October, Hillview locals have been seen sporting a sea of Scareview Haunt T-shirts, all with “In Memory of Cole Bullock” emblazoned on the back.
According to Cam and Cayden, all T-shirt sales and concessions sold at the haunted house will go towards covering the cost of Cole’s headstone and a memorial bench.
“I was gonna quit Halloween,” Cam said. “But got the opportunity to do this, and my love and passion for it all came back.”
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Header image via Kenny Eliason
