Zombies invade Japan on moving bullet train in ‘really cool’ haunted house experience

Zombies appear in high-speed train carriage for performance inspired by the movie Train to Busan. Passenger calls the event ‘very immersive’

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A performer dressed as a zombie for an encounter in a carriage of a Japanese high-speed train. The experience, for which guests paid up to US$335, took place on a Tokyo to Osaka service and was inspired by the hit Korean movie Train to Busan. Photo: Reuters

Published: 11:15am, 21 Oct 2024Updated: 11:25am, 21 Oct 2024

It is usually a serene two-and-a-half-hour ride on Japan’s famously efficient bullet train. But one recent journey quickly descended into a zombie apocalypse, with passengers screaming in terror.

Organisers of the adrenaline-filled trip on October 19, less than two weeks before Halloween, touted it as the “world’s first haunted house experience on a running shinkansen”.

On board one chartered car of the shinkansen – as Japanese call bullet trains – were around 40 thrill-seekers, ready to brave an encounter with the living dead between Tokyo and the western metropolis of Osaka.

The eerie experience was inspired by the hit 2016 South Korean action-horror movie Train to Busan, in which a father and daughter trapped on a moving train battle zombies hungry for human flesh.

A performer acts as if he is being bitten by another performer dressed as a zombie inside a bullet train bound for Osaka from Tokyo. Photo: Reuters

Organisers of the trip touted it as the “world’s first haunted house experience on a running shinkansen”. Photo: Reuters

All seemed normal at first as the bullet train made a peaceful departure on Saturday evening, but it was not long until the first gory attack.