The Weeknd announces two ‘After Hours’ themed haunted houses at Universal resorts

The Weeknd has announced there will be two ‘After Hours’ themed haunted houses at Universal Studios Hollywood and Universal Orlando Resort this Halloween season.

The Weeknd worked with Universal's Halloween Horror Nights to create the houses, dubbed ‘The Weeknd: After Hours Nightmare’ - Entertainment Weekly exclusively reports.

The haunted houses draw inspiration from numerous horror and sci-fi movies and are based on the aesthetics and visuals from the album.

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During the experience, visitors will enter the Canadian singer-songwriter's wild thoughts and see where they came from.

The dark realm that The Weeknd created with the artwork and music videos for 'After Hours' is continued on in physical form by the haunted-house experiences at both parks (think bandaged maniacs jumping out and excessive plastic surgery terrors).

The haunted houses at both parks will be an immersive audio-visual experience that is soundtracked by six of The Weeknd’s hit songs; ‘After Hours,’ ‘In Your Eyes,’ ‘Heartless,’ ‘Blinding Lights,’ ‘Save Your Tears’ (solo version), and ‘Too Late’.

Speaking to EW, The Weeknd said: "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.

“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!"

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Halloween Horror Nights executive producer John Murdy and Orlando senior show director Charles Gray say that the haunted house is a "fever dream" hellscape about "surviving L.A”.

"It isn't a retelling of the After Hours album; it's entering the nightmares that were the muse for his songs. There's a lot of surrealistic, horrific imagery as we [expanded upon scenarios] inspired by the videos."

The trailer for ‘The Weeknd: After Hours Nightmare’ opens with a woman taking a 'selfie' and zooming into the photo and seeing a mysterious masked figure in the background. The lighting them starts flickering in red and suddenly more masked figures start to appear and take over the bathroom.

You can watch ‘The Weeknd: After Hours Nightmare’ trailer below.

After Hours, which was released in March 2020, topped the album charts in 21 different countries. Its track "Blinding Lights" was the biggest single in Billboard Hot 100 history.

Aneesa Ahmed is Mixmag's Digital Intern, follow her on Twitter