Kassi grew up a horror fan through and through. Although she was raised in a religious household with strict rules against rated R movies, she always managed, however, to sneak in and soak up any horror movie her neighborhood friends were watching and became obsessed with classic 80s Horror films. As soon as she was old enough, her father took her to a haunted house in Ogden, Utah called Maniac Maze. She loved it so much he took her to Rocky Point Haunted House, also in Ogden. She was hooked. She felt the rush of adrenaline like a child on a roller coaster for the first time and somehow even then, knew these were “her people”.
She became known to have a “twisted sense of humor” by the neighborhood boys that allowed her to be the one exception in their all-boy posse. For years, she would rally her friends to go to any and all haunts available in her area and by the time she found herself living in Las Vegas in her early 20s,, she realized she wanted to create a career for herself in the business of haunting. She researched it and found a Halloween/Haunt trade show in Chicago, attended it and began planning her first haunt. That began a 12 year journey of owning, designing, and directing haunted attractions in Louisville, KY. Since that time, Kassie has a hand a hand in the development of such haunts as Nightmare Forest, Haunted Hotel, Trail of Terror, Nightmare House, Nightmare Harvest, Field of Screams and Booville. In an industry largely dominated by men, Kassi, is one of the rare female owner/operator in that haunted attraction business nationally. Despite her great success in the haunted attraction industry, often running crews of 100 people or more, she retired as an owner/operator to dedicate more time to her growing family.
Kassi found that becoming a haunted attraction consultant, with a focus on safety, theme design, authenticity, and event flow would allow her more time with her children, while still being able to remain connected to haunted events across the nation. During this time she also began concentrating on photography, studying at the University of Louisville. Being a natural entrepreneur, she used those skills to open her own business, Kandy Pop Photography, which she still currently manages.
Still...Halloween was never far from her mind. Kassi began flirting with the idea of creating a team, consisting of other, unique women who have also dominated the Halloween/Haunt industry, the business of the Macabre. As she had grown up with an adoration for Elvira and other “creepy chicks”, as she calls them (Vampira, Morticia, Wednesday, Lydia, etc), and had noticed that the horror industry seemed to be lacking a strong, female presence over the past few years, she decided that this a presence that needed to be filled. Thus, The Real Scream Queens were born! She wanted to create her own, modern day team of “Creepy Chicks” in order to inspire other young girls to be okay with, and even harness, their dark side, giving them modern day, sexy, scary divas to adore, and to fulfill her own need to be creative and creepy, while always having a fantabulous time.