Things We Saw Today: This Stranger Things Drive-Through Haunted House Is Kind of Socially-Distant Halloween Content We Need

As summer very slowly comes to a close and Halloween gets closer, Creepy Kids all over are wondering what their favorite holiday is going to look like in the era of COVID. Trick-or-treating is likely out, or will at least look complicated this year. Haunted houses are probably a no-go, and some of the big ones, including Knott’s Scary Farm and Universal Studios’s Halloween Horror Nights, have already been canceled.

Some groups, though, have found a workaround for keeping their haunted houses but making them socially distant: the drive-through haunt.

A Japanese production company has already introduced the idea, where guests are confined to their cars for the entirety of a 13-minute performance as performers dressed as zombies attack the vehicles. Now, Netflix is joining the party with a Stranger Things-themed drive-through pop-up immersive experience in Los Angeles.

io9 writes:

According to an email press release, the Stranger Things “Drive Into” Experience is based on the third season of the Netflix series, where the kids of Hawkins, Indiana ventured through Starcourt Mall, a subterranean Russian lab, and the Upside Down in search of sweet tunes and deadly monsters. Participants will drive through the one-hour multi-level experience, stopping at each set to watch each scene play out. There’s also a live theater component with actors playing various roles from the show, including the Hawkins kids themselves.

Personally, I love the idea of haunted houses but I don’t like people in my bubble so this actually sounds like my ideal Halloween experience. What about you all? Would you visit a socially-distanced drive-though haunt?

• The ACLU has offered Britney Spears its services in fighting to change her conservatorship. (via BuzzFeed)
• Zack Snyder released a teaser for his eponymous Justice League cut. (via IGN)
• Netflix has apologized for and removed its terrible poster for the French-language Sundance darling Cuties, which sexualized a group of 11 year-olds. But let’s be clear that the problem is with Netflix, not with the movie itself, which had received overwhelmingly positive reviews until people started review-bombing it and petitioning for its removal without having seen the movie. (via Vulture)
  

  okay, so what the fuck you’re not going to do is petition to get a coming of age film about a little black girl by a black woman director, maimouna doucoure, removed from netflix.

  this description does not accurately portray what the film is about but here’s the trailer https://t.co/KuGHaMsm2J pic.twitter.com/unpF807xyu

  — Daniellé beebab DASH (@DanielleDASH) August 20, 2020

• Jurassic World: Dominion was supposed to be one of the first blockbuster films back in production after COVID-19. Yeah, about that … It might be a while longer. Production in Malta has stalled after another virus spike. (via CBM)
• Singer James Blunt once adopted an all-meat diet to try to “assert his masculinity” over his female classmates and ended up getting scurvy. I love everything about this story. (via Jezebel)
• Lovecraft Country is free on YouTube! (via Pajiba)

What did you all see out there on this almost-Friday?

(image: Netflix)

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