The Weeknd’s lifelong dream is about to come true — and inspire a delicious nightmare for fans.
The Weeknd’s 2020 album “After Hours” will serve as the theme to his very own haunted house at Halloween Horror Nights theme parks in Florida and California, the Canadian singer-songwriter and Universal Studios told Entertainment Weekly.
Fans of high-production fright have flocked to the yearly Halloween Horror Nights displays since they began in 1991. This will be the first time a haunted house in the production will be based around an album.
For The Weeknd, whose legal name is Abel Makkonen Tesfaye, the nightmarish development fulfills a dream. After all, “After Hours” was accompanied by a spine-chilling short film largely inspired by horror movies.
“I always wanted my own Halloween Horror Nights haunted house, as Halloween has always been significant to my music, so this is a total dream come to life,” The Weeknd told Entertainment Weekly in a statement. “I feel like my music videos have served as a launching pad for a collaboration like this, and I cannot wait for people to experience this madness!”
Some of the album’s songs will be played in The Weeknd’s haunted houses and “reimagined as a horror movie soundtrack,” Universal said in a statement.
“Blinding Lights” from the album has been certified as platinum 10 times by the Recording Industry Association of America, according to Yahoo, and “Heartless” has gone platinum three times.
The haunted houses will welcome visitors with a hypnotic greeting into The Weeknd’s subconscious, said Halloween Horror Nights executive producer John Murray, who described the project as a “fever dream” inspired by The Weeknd’s passion for films like “Jacob’s Ladder.”
“It’s not a retelling of the ‘After Hours’ album; it’s entering the nightmares that were the muse for his songs,” Murray told EW.
Visitors will see The Weeknd’s subconscious pour from his head to create the nightmarish imagery around them. A lifelike replica of the singer will twitch as visitors pass — and live performers will leap from the shadows.
“It can get pretty tactile,” Orlando’s senior show director Charles Gray told EW.
The interactive experience, “The Weeknd: After Hours,” will open Sept. 2 at the Universal Orlando Resort and Sept. 8 at Universal Studios Hollywood.