A drive-thru haunted attraction called Horrorland is providing pandemic-safe entertainment in Florida

• Horrorland is a drive-thru haunted attraction in Florida that's attracted thousands of thrill seekers recently.
• Performers at Horrorland stay 6 feet away from cars, and visitors are required to wear masks if they want to roll down their windows.
• Horrorland has given workers in the entertainment industry a rare employment opportunity since the pandemic hit.

Welcome to Horrorland — where the screams come from performers, and not the coronavirus.

The drive-thru haunted attraction in Miramar, Florida, has been attracting thousands of thrill seekers over the past few weeks.

At Horrorland, put on by the agency Live305 Entertainment, performers at lead cars of visitors through what's supposed to feel like a real-life horror movie featuring art, acrobatics, and themed stations like "farm of terror" and "Christmas nightmare."

Because of pandemic health precautions, visitors are asked to keep their windows rolled up, or to wear a mask if they want to keep them open. All performers are temperature-checked each day, and there's never more than a handful of participants in one place at a time.

Live305 Entertainment produces circus shows all over the world. Or at least, he used to, before the pandemic put an end to nearly all live performances.

"We needed to do something for two main reasons," CEO Francisco Santos said. "One of them, we are very creative people, and we want to do always something that comes up. And second, for the people. There is thousands of people in our industry that don't have jobs."

The performers, some of whom have experience with troupes like Cirque du Soleil, are grateful to have an audience, even if that audience is socially distanced.

"Our happy places to be on a stage, our happy place to perform," acrobat Goulia Rozyeve said. "And for me, it means a lot to be here and to perform."

And though you might be watching a killer clown through a car window, the scares are still there.

"The safety measures haven't taken away from the scare factor," Santos said. "So what we do is start to play with psychology with the people. If you have a car driving by, we teach our actors that they have to make eye contact. Once you make eye contact with someone, you know if they're going to be scared or not.

Pricing starts at $48 per car for up to six people. Santos says so far they've seen an average of 200 cars per day.

"The response from the people has been amazing. It's been overwhelming," he said. "People actually bought tickets, turned around, and did it one more time."

Horrorland runs through October 31. While the staff is hopeful there won't be a need for a pandemic-safe Halloween next year, for now, they are happy to provide an escape.

I think during the Halloween time, uh, this thing is important for people," performer Evgeny Vasilenko said. "It's like some entertainment because everything's shut down. And this is little bit of all of them — it's a little bit of the circus, little bit of the theater."