These people lived in coffins for 30 hours for $300

ST. LOUIS — Would you like to spend 30 hours in a coffin? Turns out a lot of people would, and six recently got to do it for money.

When Six Flags in St. Louis announced its recent “Coffin Challenge,” where anyone brave enough to be cooped up in a coffin for 30 hours straight could earn $300, cash, the campaign went viral. After wading through over 45,000 applications, Six Flags finally narrowed the list down to six people who would spend 30 sleepless hours in a coffin being harassed by employees with (fake) chainsaws and gawked at by passersby, as part of the park's Halloween Fright Fest 2018.

Brian Johnson, for one, was in it to win it. "My whole life, I would always I say, 'Oh no, I'm fine. If I lose, I lose,'" said the child counselor and pro wrestler. "Well, I ain't losin'."

VICE News hung out with Johnson and his fellow contestants — an embalmer, a haunted house owner, a vampire enthusiast, a college student, and a Navy vet — as they lived out their coffin fantasies, right in the middle of a theme park.

This segment originally aired October 31, 2018 on VICE News Tonight on HBO.