Eli Roth wanted Vanessa Hudgens to be her 'Coachella-best self' for haunted house VR experience
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Vanessa Hudgens is the queen of two things: Coachella and spooky season. So it's only appropriate that Eli Roth wanted to merge both sides of her personality for his new Halloween VR experience, Eli Roth's Haunted House: Trick-VR-Treat.
"Me and Eli have been friends for I think over 10 years now," Hudgens tells EW. "We've been friends for a long time and we had never worked together, and he had brought up that he was doing something with VR and he wanted me to be involved — and when my guy Eli calls I'm like, I'm there wherever you need me!"
Courtesy of Crypt TV Vanessa Hudgens in 'Eli Roth’s Haunted House: Trick-VR-Treat'
Eli Roth's Haunted House: Trick-VR-Treat uses virtual reality to take viewers inside the Dollhouse, a decrepit home at the end of the street that should never be entered. Years ago, it was home to a dollmaker who made toys for all the neighborhood children, but the glue she used was toxic and everyone who played with them died—including her two daughters. The haunted house experience is from the POV of a teenage trick-or-treater in the most exciting Halloween neighborhood in town as they find themselves invited inside the Dollhouse by a young beauty dressed as a fairy (Hudgens) ... and then viewers are quickly transported inside of a living nightmare.
Hudgens plays both the alluring fairy and the terrifying dollmaker, which allowed her to experiment and use prosthetics for the first time in her career. "It was something brand new for me and it was so fun," she says. "I love creatures. I love horror. So to be able to become one myself was such a dream. For the fairy, Eli wanted me to be my very Coachella-best self so I got to have fun with that and put stones on, the makeup, and the wardrobe was also just so incredible and authentic, because with this new format, you see 180 degrees so there's no room for error."
Roth sent her sketches of how he wanted the dollmaker to look, and Hudgens was impressed with how he was able to execute his vision. "I came in a day before I shot, we did a test on the makeup, and it all worked," she says. "The next day I showed up and did it all over again. It really only took like two and a half hours for the prosthetics, which I was actually surprised by because my glam takes around the same time normally."
Courtesy of Crypt TV Eli Roth with Vanessa Hudgens
Hudgens laughs as she remembers how much fun she had playing pranks on set while in her terrifying costume and prosthetics. "I was having the best time — I scared this one kid because he set me up perfectly," she says. "He walked onto set and he was looking around and was like, 'This is so scary,' and I put my hand on his shoulder and I said [in the dollmaker's voice], 'Is it scary?!' And he turned around and screamed in my face. I immediately felt bad but it was just so much fun to be able to live in the body and in the face of this terrifying old witch."
Halloween is her favorite time of year but this is the first time she's getting to do something in the horror genre. "I live for the scare. It's my favorite — going through mazes during spooky season is the thing that I look forward to most every year," Hudgens says. "When Eli was telling me about this, it was so exciting to me to be able to have a haunted house experience at home. And being on the set, the dollmaker's house, it was actually this abandoned, rundown building that apparently had three ghosts that occupied it. I loved that."
Courtesy of Crypt TV
Working in virtual reality was also a first for Hudgens. "Eli told me about how it's going to be a first-person viewing experience and he wanted me to be this fairy who lures in kids while they're trick-or-treating and then the real me which is a dollmaker who is old and decrepit and is turning children into dolls," she says "I was just game to do whatever — he's such a genius at horror so I always trust Eli. And in order to get each scene, you had to shoot it all practically. We would just have the camera in one place, the first-person experience, and treat the scene like a play, which I absolutely adore. I just really got to have so much fun with it, really use the space in a way that you don't normally get to. It's so unique and it's really exciting being on the forefront of something that's innovative."
Hudgens is excited for horror fans to be able to experience a haunted house from the comfort of their own homes. "And I'm so excited to have my friends over and watch them have this experience," she adds with a laugh. "Happy Halloween and happy spooky season!"
Crypt TV's horror VR experience is now available in Meta Horizon Worlds and Meta Quest TV, and for fans without a Meta Quest 2 VR headset, the experience is available to watch on Crypt TV's Facebook and Instagram pages. It can also be watched with friends via Messenger and Instagram video calls.
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