Stranger Things' Nancy shoots out of a car window

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

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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?

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  • 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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Vivian Kane
Vivian Kane (she/her) is the Senior News Editor at The Mary Sue, where she's been writing about politics and entertainment (and all the ways in which the two overlap) since the dark days of late 2016. Born in San Francisco and radicalized in Los Angeles, she now lives in Kansas City, Missouri, where she gets to put her MFA to use covering the local theatre scene. She is the co-owner of The Pitch, Kansas City’s alt news and culture magazine, alongside her husband, Brock Wilbur, with whom she also shares many cats.
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