Russ McKamey swears he’s the most straight-edged guy you’d ever meet.

"I've never been drunk in my life, never had a cigarette," said McKamey, 58. "I served in the military for 23 years and after that as a veteran's advocate. I'm a wedding singer. I'm such a square and conservative guy.

"But they think I'm a psychopath."

McKamey, a gravel-voiced Navy retiree with the affable patter of a showman, kicked off a controversy earlier this summer when he moved his extreme horror attraction from San Diego to Summertown, Tenn. and Huntsville, Ala.

McKamey operates McKamey Manor, which is less of a haunted house and more of a 36-hour live-your-own-horror-movie type of show. It's a full-contact "extreme haunt" where participants endure hours of physical and psychological terror in an experience that includes actors, sets, elaborate props and a video crew to capture the whole thing on camera.

It's been named one of the most extreme haunted houses in the world by outlets like the New York Daily News, Tech Times and The Travel Channel.

"I'm used to the controversy for sure," said McKamey, whose attraction has been the focus of shut-down efforts in other states, including California, before it drew the ire of Tennessee and Alabama residents. "Wherever we go, the same thing always happens.

"Clearly it's entertainment, a lot of smoke and mirrors, it's an illusion. But I've spun it in such a way that people really believe it."

Inside McKamey Manor, the horror attraction in Summertown, Tenn. (Photo courtesy of Russ McKamey)

'Mess with your head'

Videos on McKamey's website show terrified participants bound and gagged, covered in dirt and substances that look like blood. They're often shown begging to leave, while actors dressed like horror-movie villains scream in their faces. Some shriek and sob as snakes or insects crawl across their bodies; others cry for help while it appears they're about to drown or be buried alive.

"I'm an entertainer, pure and simple," said McKamey. At various points in his life he's been a singer, a wedding DJ, and an actor in plays and movies. He enjoys creating sets and props.

"It's fascinating to be able to build this world and see it come to life where people actually believe it," he said. "That's something powerful."

But horror, for him, offers a different way to manipulate his audience. He's been running McKamey Manor in one form or another since 1989.

"With horror," he explained, "you really can create a world that is unique and, if you do it with skill, can bring people in and make them lose their mind in ways you can't do for a standard performance."

His new deep-south iteration of McKamey Manor is a 36-hour "survival" haunt involving just one participant at a time.

It starts out on his property in Summertown, about 45 minutes north of the Alabama line, where the participant goes through a few hours of "physical activity" with a woman named Holly. If the participant makes it through without quitting, it's on to Nashville and a tour through a haunted attraction called Caedis Silvis - Latin, loosely, for "murder in the woods."

If the participant makes it through that - nobody has, yet - the subject is taken to what McKamey calls "the big daddy," McKamey Manor, in an undisclosed location in Huntsville.

"You have to spend three hours with me," he said, where the horror is "mainly psychological. This is where I'm going to really mess with your head. That's where it gets really tricky."

Inside McKamey Manor, the horror attraction in Summertown, Tenn. (Photo courtesy of Russ McKamey)

Outrage, death threats

McKamey's Summertown neighbors have reported screaming, chainsaw noises and other disturbances coming from McKamey's property since July. AL.com news partner WHNT News Channel 19 interviewed one neighbor who said she'd seen a woman being dragged behind a truck by a chain that was wrapped around her neck.

McKamey said that was a stunt for one of his films - and that the person was actually a male actor who hung onto the chain to simulate being dragged.

Another time, he said, law enforcement showed up at his property, guns drawn, after being called on suspicion of an abduction.

"It never ceases to amaze me how much people buy into it all," he said. "Psychologically, for me, it's very interesting to watch people respond."

He's received death threats, and other calls to run him out of town.

"It's Southern justice," he said. "And then the leadership of these small towns, they're the ones who instigate it."

Lawrence County Commissioner Scott Franks put out a community alert about McKamey Manor on his Facebook page in July that garnered nearly 600 comments, mostly in opposition to the new attraction operating in the community.

Franks declined to speak on the record with AL.com, but said on his public Facebook page, "It is evident that the vast majority are opposed to this facility and activity in our Community or Area...I pledge to keep you posted as things develop on this issue."

McKamey is no stranger to attention. He's been featured in newspaper articles and industry trade publications, as well as Travel Channel television shows. McKamey Manor is heavily featured in an upcoming documentary, "Haunters: The Art of the Scare."

There are Facebook pages dedicated to shutting down or revealing information about his haunt. One 2015 Change.org petition called McKamey Manor "a form of legal torture" where McKamey has guests sign a waiver "to allow him to kidnap them, beat them, submerge them in water and force feed them."

Inside McKamey Manor, the horror attraction in Summertown, Tenn. (Photo courtesy of Russ McKamey)

Not exactly a business

McKamey isn't constricted by zoning ordinances or business regulations in part because he doesn't operate McKamey Manor as a business. Participants don't have to pay anything at all to go through the 36-hour ordeal. He typically books one participant a week.

Back in California, he used to ask for donations of dog food, which he gave to local animal shelters. Now he asks for monetary donations to help cover gas costs for shuttling participants back and forth from Summertown to Nashville to Huntsville - but those aren't required.

"I'm a crappy businessman because I could be making a million dollars on this," he said.

He said he's invested hundreds of thousands of dollars into his enterprise, but refuses to charge participants. His actors are all volunteers who've been through McKamey Manor before.

"Could I be a millionaire? Absolutely. But it's more fun to be broke and live by my principles and continue to spin people up."

McKamey said he spends four hours with a potential participant, walking them through a 40-page waiver and "trying to convince them not to do this." He also said he requires a letter from a physician, a criminal background check, pre-event interviews and does a portable drug test the day of the event.

"We're not doing anything illegal; never have, never will," he said. A search of court records reveals no lawsuits; according to media reports from San Diego he has not been arrested for any kind of physical harm connected with his extreme haunt, though some participants have filed police reports.

"I'd say we're the safest attraction there is," he said. "We monitor (participants). We have a whole crew of folks making sure they're safe and sound. We're a foot from you the entire time. But these are things I wouldn't show in my films because why would I? It doesn't look scary."

McKamey came under fire in San Diego for not allowing participants to use a safe word that, if uttered, would stop the show and let them leave. McKamey said participants can now use a safe word.

Inside McKamey Manor, the horror attraction in Summertown, Tenn. (Photo courtesy of Russ McKamey)

Thrill seekers

He differentiates McKamey Manor from other extreme haunts in that it doesn't rely on sexualized horror and keeps everything "PG-13."

"They're all hypersexual, simulating sexual acts on you, simulating rape," he said. "And I am so against that type of thing. I find it offensive and insane. There's no religion in our haunt, nothing inappropriate, nothing sexual."

That said, nobody has yet finished the entire McKamey Manor experience. Most haven't even make it past the three-hour Holly's Playground portion in Summertown. He's had people travel from out of state and even out of the country - one girl has come from Kuwait four times.

He gets a lot of former military, he said.

Part of the thrill of his self-described hobby is making people "lose their minds." He says he uses hypnotism, and plays on people's fears and weaknesses.

"It's insane the amount of work we put into one person," he said. "Their phobias, their fears, all the dirt from their family and friends. It's a complete experience, physical and mental, like nothing else."

It's necessary to do that, he said, because it's just plain hard to scare people anymore.

“These are adrenaline junkies,” he said. “They seek me out because they want that fear that they can’t find anywhere else.”