2023 Hauntrepreneur of the Year: Geoffrey Bozos

Press Release from United Haunted Houses of America Guild: 2023 Hauntrepreneur of the Year

This year’s recipient of the esteemed Hauntrepreneur of the Year award is none other than the infamous Geoffrey Bozos, owner-operator of the wildly successful national chain of Overkill Maximum Extreme Screamatoriums haunted houses that seem to have popped up all over the country over the last decade. It seems like today no matter where in the country you search “haunted houses near me” your top result will be one of Bozos’s Overkill Maximum Extreme Screamatoriums. But what might seem like an overnight success, is actually the end result of over a decade of shrewd business decisions, sleepless nights and good old fashioned gumption.

Geoffrey Bozos opened his first haunted attraction out of his parent’s 15,000 sq foot garage with a small budget of $500,000 for his first year build out. Bozos’s Screamatorium featured Bozos himself playing the marquee Bozos the Clown during the early days of the event. Sporting a ShatteredFX clown mask with green hair and a red and white striped clown outfit he would spend the entire evening at his haunted house laughing manically while bonking customers on the head with his comically sized inflatable clown hammer. Bozos’s Screamatorium was an instant success, winning the United Haunted Houses of America Guild’s annual Scariest Haunted House award at the 26th annual Best Haunted Houses in America Awards. and in his 4th year Bozos’s was able to buy the local abandoned Wal-Mart and open the first of many Overkill Maximum Extreme Screamatoriums.

In no time at all Bozos opened a 2nd location, Maximum Extreme Screamatorium New York and then a 3rd, Maximum Extreme Screamatorium Los Angeles. By 2018 Bozos opened the scariest haunted house in Maryland, Baltimore Maximum Extreme Screamatorium; the scariest haunted house in DC; Washington DC Maximum Extreme Screamatorium and the scariest haunted house in Virginia; Virginia Beach Maximum Extreme Screamatorium. In 2019 Maximum Extreme Screamatorium Corp. became the largest haunted attraction chain in America operation 45 different Maximum Extreme Screamatoriums across America in 33 different states. In 2020 and 2021 as many smaller events closed due to the pandemic Bozos went on a buying spree, scooping up smaller events and remodeling them to follow his Maximum Extreme Screamatorium model.

The key to his success, according to Bozos himself, is scale. Each event is created identically, same costumes, same marketing materials, same animatronics. This scaling allows Bozos to lower costs and reduce variability; turning the art of haunted houses into a calculated science. An exclusive deal with Papa John’s allows Bozos to save on ‘payroll’ as well. “The Papa gives us a great deal allowing us to pay the entire staff 2-3 slices of pizza a night for half the cost, we’re even able to get some garlic dipping sauce. We usually reserve those for tech crew,” explained Bozos. Last year Bozos was able to bring an astonishing $1.2 billion in profits from his haunted attraction empire.

Now, in 2023, it’s almost impossible to find an attraction that isn’t one of Bozos’ Maximum Extreme Screamatoriums. Every haunted house near me is a Maximum Extreme Screamatorium. Looking forward to 2024 Geoffrey Bozos says he intends to trademark the terms spooky, Halloween, haunted house, haunted houses near me, scariest and immersive in his bid to finally corner the market completely.

For all these reasons we are proud to name Geoffrey Bozos Hauntrepreneur of the Year for 2023.