Photo: Kowagarasetai
The world is startlingly different than it was 4, 6 months ago. While this is a widely universal truth, the ongoing health crisis has brought changes that make the difference between “before” and “after” all the more striking.
This applies to every aspect of our life, but even more so to activities that implied a lot of social contact and closed spaces. The car comes to be of major assistance in these situations: much like regular movie theaters are being (slowly and probably only temporarily) replaced by drive-in theaters, haunted house experiences are being replaced by… something entirely new and, yes, it does involve cars.
A company named Kowagarasetai, which apparently means “a team wanting to scare,” based in Tokyo, Japan, boasts of having invented the world’s first drive-through haunted house experience. The premise is simple and cliché: there’s a garage where something awful once took place, where people experience the undead coming back to haunt them, but only if they honk three times. Pretty standard stuff.
Visitors drive inside the garage in their cars (or they can rent one from the company, if they don’t own one) and, while inside, with the windows closed, they experience the scare of their life. Various sounds play over the car’s radio as the undead launch at the car and reenact gruesome scenes within sight.
Every car is properly disinfected after each session, which lasts an estimated 20 minutes. For an extra charge, visitors can have a photo taken or, if they’re feeling very into it, they can have their car sprayed with fake blood. At the end of the session, staff will try to wipe some of it off – at least, they will wipe enough of it to make the drive home safe, the company says.
The experience takes place on July 4 and July 5, but given the heightened demand, the company is already thinking of turning it into something more regular. And if you think being inside your locked car could possibly diminish the feel of the experience (as in, you won’t be as scared as you would on a regular haunted house tour), you’re wrong.
“At the drive-in haunted house, guests are confined in a car so they can't escape the horror until the end,” Kenta Iwana tells Channel News Asia. “It makes it even more scary for them.”
A company named Kowagarasetai, which apparently means “a team wanting to scare,” based in Tokyo, Japan, boasts of having invented the world’s first drive-through haunted house experience. The premise is simple and cliché: there’s a garage where something awful once took place, where people experience the undead coming back to haunt them, but only if they honk three times. Pretty standard stuff.
Visitors drive inside the garage in their cars (or they can rent one from the company, if they don’t own one) and, while inside, with the windows closed, they experience the scare of their life. Various sounds play over the car’s radio as the undead launch at the car and reenact gruesome scenes within sight.
Every car is properly disinfected after each session, which lasts an estimated 20 minutes. For an extra charge, visitors can have a photo taken or, if they’re feeling very into it, they can have their car sprayed with fake blood. At the end of the session, staff will try to wipe some of it off – at least, they will wipe enough of it to make the drive home safe, the company says.
The experience takes place on July 4 and July 5, but given the heightened demand, the company is already thinking of turning it into something more regular. And if you think being inside your locked car could possibly diminish the feel of the experience (as in, you won’t be as scared as you would on a regular haunted house tour), you’re wrong.
“At the drive-in haunted house, guests are confined in a car so they can't escape the horror until the end,” Kenta Iwana tells Channel News Asia. “It makes it even more scary for them.”
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