Grown Up Fears -- Haunted Houses Target Older Visitors

Oct. 30, 2006 — -- Ghosts, goblins and fake gooey brains may be enough to scare children in a haunted house, but once past the age of 6, it usually takes a bit more to generate a scare.

That's why a crop of new haunted houses are targeting adults with more elaborate spooks as entrepreneurs work to capitalize on the burgeoning Halloween industry.

The newer haunted house, like the Headless Horseman in Ulster Park, N.Y., are multimillion dollar theatrical experiences with robotic monsters and live actors performing choreographed story lines to re-create frightening experiences and supernatural phenomena.

Confronting Phobias

In New York City, theater director Timothy Haskell pioneered a more psychological trend for his giant haunted houses, which attract tens of thousands of visitors in the fall. To design his scares, Haskell polled New Yorkers to find out what most frightened them. He said he was surprised by how "elaborate" people's fears were.

"We had some real simple one-word answers, and then we had what I call the'story fears,' where they just go on and on and on like they've beenthinking about this all the time," Haskell said.

Some of the most frequent answers he received included aphephobia, the fear of being buried alive; coulrophobia, the fear of clowns; and domatophobia, the fear of being in the house alone.

Haskell decided to bring these phobias to life for Nightmare, Face Your Fears, in which visitors pay between $20 and $50 a head to endure a psychologically terrifying experience. He said it's scared some visitors so badly they've wet their pants.

"No one just likes to be by themselves in a house," Haskell said. "So here they get abducted. The second one is the fear of being trapped. There is a wall that closes on you and pushes you up against the wall.Most people are pretty uncomfortable about that. "

One visitor said the experience had remedial benefits and considers a good scare therapeutic, or cathartic. "It's something that runs through your blood; it kind of gets you going … wakes you up," explained Christine Larranaga, who visited Haskell's haunted house in Manhattan.

This year there was so much interest Haskell expanded the houses to all of New York City's five boroughs.

Why the psychological focus? With horror in the movies, violent video games and even the news -- the houses have to reach new heights to compete in a horror-soaked world.

But the creators only responded to the most popular fears from their surveys. Some of the answers would have been a little more challenging to construct, such as those that focused on fear of politicians or one's mother in law.