鬼屋：挑战胆量的极限

… well aware that Halloween is, of course, tomorrow. If your kids are older or you have a taste for such things yourself, perhaps you know that the grisly horror film "Saw Part 3" is the new champ of the box office. And if you need convincing that at least some Americans are obsessed¹ with scaring themselves, look no further than the new generation of haunted houses, definitely for adults only. ABC's Gigi Stone has a Sign Of The Times.

Say goodbye to skinned grapes as eyeballs and spaghetti for brains. Haunted houses aren't just for kids any more as the fright business increasingly tries to figure out what really scares adults.

You think this is party, huh?

My biggest fear? Er, rats.

Definitely like a creepy man, like outside my windows.

White clowns. They have that happy face where you think like everything is happy, but deep down there's like something scary or suspicious about them.

The new grown-up haunted houses use actual psychology² to exploit people's innermost phobias, like aquaphobia - fear of drowning, coulrophobia - fear of clowns, or domatophobia-fear of being in a house alone.

Help, help me...

Theater director Timothy Haskell used psychological research to design his giant haunted houses in New York City. They attract tens of thousands of visitors.

I'm surprised at how elaborate people's fears were, I mean, we have some real simple one-word answers, or one- or two-word answers, and then there were some that what I call the 'story fears' where they just go on and on and on like they've been thinking about this all the time. (Hehehe) And it's like what their journeys are…

Funny that you asked that question, because I have a litany of phobias to tell you about. (Oh, is that right? Ya...)

Visitors to Haskell's House of Horrors shell out up to $50 a head for this terrifying experience. And some of them apparently³ think the whole thing is actually therapeutic⁴.

It's something that runs through your blood, a blood that kinda gets, gets you going, you know, like raise you up.

Why the real-life fear factor? Well, with horror everywhere these days in the movies, violent video games, and even the news, the houses like this elaborate production in upstate New York have to reach new heights to compete in a horror-soaked world.

The haunted house makers⁵ only responded to the most popular fears. Some of the answers would've been a little more challenging to construct. Some people said they were most afraid of politicians, others said, their mother-in-law.

But even for a haunted house, some fears are just too awful. I'm Gigi Stone, for Nightline in New York.

Happy Halloween!

A truly creepy sign of the times.

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grisly: involving death or violence in a shocking way 恐怖的
Sign Of The Times:某事最近的趋势

1 obsessed   

adj.心神不宁的,鬼迷心窍的,沉迷的

参考例句：

• He's obsessed by computers. 他迷上了电脑。
• The fear of death obsessed him throughout his old life. 他晚年一直受着死亡恐惧的困扰。

2 psychology   

n.心理，心理学，心理状态

参考例句：

• She has a background in child psychology.她受过儿童心理学的教育。
• He studied philosophy and psychology at Cambridge.他在剑桥大学学习哲学和心理学。

3 apparently   

adv.显然地；表面上，似乎

参考例句：

• An apparently blind alley leads suddenly into an open space.山穷水尽，豁然开朗。
• He was apparently much surprised at the news.他对那个消息显然感到十分惊异。

4 therapeutic   

adj.治疗的，起治疗作用的；对身心健康有益的

参考例句：

• Therapeutic measures were selected to fit the patient.选择治疗措施以适应病人的需要。
• When I was sad,music had a therapeutic effect.我悲伤的时候，音乐有治疗效力。

5 makers   

n.制造者，制造商（maker的复数形式）

参考例句：

• The makers of the product assured us that there had been no sacrifice of quality. 这一产品的制造商向我们保证说他们没有牺牲质量。
• The makers are about to launch out a new product. 制造商们马上要生产一种新产品。 来自《简明英汉词典》