Why haunted houses are Hollywood’s next big thing

It’s late at night, and I’m standing with seven other people on a loading dock in downtown Los Angeles. We’re masked, our faces hidden by bandanas that bear a single word: CREEP. A nearby door opens, and we walk single file into a darkened room. There, an empty chair waits, and a timer tick-tick-ticks the moments away. Crumpled balls of paper are piled against the wall, and when I reach down to unfold one, I discover a portentous warning: Your wife may not be who she seems.

That was the first few minutes of Lore — but not Aaron Mahnke’s hit podcast, or Amazon’s new anthology TV series adapting it, either. This is Lore: A Haunting Experience, an interactive haunted house put together as a companion piece to promote the show’s launch. It’s...

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