Be afraid, but not of coronavirus, at drive-thru haunted house
ASSOCIATED PRESS / AUG. 18
A cast member of Kowagarasetai, or Scare Squad, applies zombie makeup for a drive-in spook fest in Tokyo. Visitors remain in cars as ghosts, zombies and other scary characters provide a socially distanced experience.
TOKYO >> It’s a living nightmare — but a socially distanced one.
“Zombies” attack vehicles, smearing them with fake blood. But visitors inside are safely separated from their stalkers by windows.
Production company Kowagarasetai, roughly translated as Scare Squad, has launched a drive-thru haunted house in Tokyo in response to the coronavirus pandemic.
“We have started this drive-in because we cannot get close to customers” as would happen at a traditional haunted house, said cast member Daichi Ono.
“But the distance (between customers and cast) has actually gotten (smaller because) there is only a window between them,” he said.
Unlike a haunted house, where guests can flee, passengers in cars cannot escape the horrors during a 13-minute performance.
But with no actual contact between the ghouls and guests, the risk of transmitting the virus is virtually eliminated — and inside their cars, visitors can scream as loudly as they like.
Once the horror is over, instead of eating brains, these zombies actually clean the blood off the cars they attacked just minutes earlier.
