“For patrons wilting under the heat, dazzling visual effects and gripping ghost tales were more bearable than the subtleties of human-interest stories,” Gomi said.
“So maybe haunted houses don’t so much cool you down as make you forget the heat momentarily.”
At the Namjatown haunted house, which is meant to evoke an abandoned, spirit-infested town, organisers are confident about the scary tricks up their sleeves.
“In Japanese, we say ‘kimo ga hieru’, or literally ‘chilling the liver’ – a reference to the sensation of getting goosebumps,” Hiroki Matsubara, of operator Bandai Namco Amusement, told AFP.
“We believe visitors can experience the feeling of being scared, surprised or ‘chilled to the liver’, which will hopefully help them enjoy a cool feeling in summer.”