There’s an ‘It’ Haunted House in Hollywood In Case You Want to Enter Clown Hell
The corner of Hollywood Boulevard and Vine Street is a Los Angeles icon, once the heart of the city’s booming film production and now the nexus of the world-renowned Hollywood Walk of Fame. Usually, the most frightening thing a person will experience at the intersection is an encounter with improv comics attempting to strong-arm you into attending their latest show, but a new horror will soon dawn in the area. Locals now have bigger things to worry about than spending the day sad after accidentally overhearing an actor speaking to their agent on the phone.
An item in The Hollywood Reporter warns of a pop-up haunted house set to rise at Hollywood and Vine on August 14, modeled after Pennywise’s hellacious lair from the upcoming adaptation of Stephen King’s It. Officially referred to as “The IT Experience,” the Niebolt House (so named after the derelict mansion in which the children first encounter Pennywise) will offer groups of seven the chance to form their own Loser’s Club and follow Georgie’s paper sailboat through a 5,000-square-foot facility. Each of the rooms recreates chilling scenes from the film using actual props from the production, trapping unfortunate souls in clown hell for 20 minutes at a time. The THR item specifies that the haunted house will be 18-and-up, and contain all the creepy standards: Holographic images, animatronic nightmare fuel, live actors, and what the article describes as ‘pneumatic surprises.’ So, get ready for some spring-loaded clown heads.
To those petrified of clowns, which should be all of us, this viral-marketing scheme actually sounds pretty genuinely horrifying. As real-world stunts to drum up buzz go (It comes to theaters September 8, by the way), this one appears to be more involved than usual. And who can’t be grateful for the opportunity to enjoy a haunted house so far in advance of October?