It is genuinely frightening without ever being bombastic.
Other things are frightening without danger to yourself.
Many of them are fascinatingly tied to a relatively new character, mad doctor Liesl Obrecht, played to striking perfection by Kathleen Gati (pictured below), who consistently makes the over-the-top doc funny and frightening without allowing her performance to degenerate into ridiculous camp.
"There were times when you were really frightened, without a doubt," said Mr. Rose, a former Spitfire fighter pilot who is still dapper at 92. "But there wasn't much time to be really scared in the air".
The absence of supervising grown-ups is both scary and exciting, and the monstrous house will remind audience members of all ages of the pleasure of being frightened without pushing the fear past comfortable limits.
The park's Haunted Graveyard, a walk-through attraction of six haunted houses, has, in its second year, already established a reputation for its ability to frighten without blood and gore.
If Mr. Ashcroft feels that one part of that information stream looks more sinister and reliable than the rest, he is right to share that with the nation, even if people resent being frightened without getting enough specifics on which to act.
"We reviewed the procedures and improved them in a number of steps along the way," he said, adding that Roche sought to do so "without frightening the organization into a zero-risk policy".
And Parcells, legitimately concerned about his health, seemed like a blustery apparition, frightening people without being seen that often.
Imagine: I was eight years old, blinded in one eye by a brother who was frightening even without a pellet gun, ridiculed constantly at school by children who knew no better and to whom my appearance was now odd, in a building that had once been the state penitentiary, and on whose floor, at the very centre of the school, was the circular imprint of the recently removed electric chair.
In France Mr. Hollande needs to engineer an economic turnaround without frightening the bond markets, and make reforms without alarming his activists.
