this is "nightline." >> tonight, from harvard-bound to jail-bound. the defendant in a prep school rape trial now sentenced to a very different future than the one he'd imagined. details from inside the courtroom tonight. and his victim's emotional new message. scare house. it's almost halloween and our obsession with fake fear is in full swing. >> let's get this over with. >> no better time for nick watt to subject himself to the holiday spirit. tonight the spooky science behind why on earth we do this to ourselves. and will the final chapter of "the hunger games" be a box office hit? we're banking on it. elizabeth banks reveals secrets of the new movie and her secret to success with our katie couric. but first the "nightline 5." >> think your heartburn pill

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good evening. we begin tonight inside the courtroom of that prep school rape trial. a case that made national headlines and sparked painful, very private conversations in homes across the country. after dramatic testimony and tears on both sides the defendant receiving his sentence

just hours ago. here's abc's geo benitez. >> reporter: the once harvard-bound former prep school student saying a quiet prayer at his sentencing. the 20-year-old's future in the hands of this judge. >> this is a case where lives have been destroyed. yours and the victim's. >> reporter: and their heartbroken parents trying to make sense of it all. labrie, 18 at the time of the crime, was convicted for sexually assaulted a 15-year-old freshman girl at their elite prep school. the victim described the attack in emotional testimony in august. we have distorted her voice. >> i was raped. i was violated in so many ways. >> reporter: today, the victim's mother pleading for the judge to hand out the maximum sentence. >> in raping our child, labrie robbed our entire family of so much of what we valued. it was a safe harbor for our family. >> reporter: while labrie's also devastated mother looking for

leniency, painting the picture of a hard-working scholarship student from a humble family, playing violin as a child are visiting harvard after earning a full ride there. an opportunity he has since lost. the then 18-year-old was placed on 24-hour suicide watch for four days, shaking and sobbing for seven to eight hours, his mother writing "he has been punish beyond a degree that anyone else could possibly understand but i see it in the fear and sadness in once-bright and joyful eyes." under the glare of the media his decision. >> you are neither the angel that is portrayed by your counsel nor the devil that is portrayed by the state. and i am sentencing you as a human being who has been convicted of five crimes. >> reporter: facing up to 11 years in prison, labrie was given one year and must register for life. >> there's no question the judge

knows the world is watching. and if he had sentenced owen labrie to probation, there would have been a rhetorical price to pay in the media, social media, et cetera. does that mean that's why he did it? no. but are judges human? yes. it's clear this judge was looking for a compromise. >> this case is setting a precedent that is going to put most parents who are paying attention on alert. it is time to have conversations not only with your daughter, but with your son, about what consent looks like, how to make sure you have consent. >> reporter: the victim said she was raped by labrie when they met up as part of what prosecutors characterize as a school tradition that some called the senior salute where a graduating senior spends time with an underclass man, sometimes intimately. she said kissing quickly gave way to more and she asked him to stop. at trial labrie maintains that

>> we kissed more afterwards. but i didn't have sex with her. >> reporter: it became a he said/she said drama that unfolded in court. at its core a sexual encounter that labrie's attorney argued was full of mixed messages. >> he took your pants off, right? >> yes, i did. >> you helped him do that, didn't you? >> i lifted my hips up to make it easier for him, yes. >> were you excited to have him attention? >> during the kissing, yes, i was. >> young women are definitely under a lot of pressure to have sex. as a society we're telling them that they should be modern and comfortable with sex and that she should be out there kind of having fun. at the same time she's not necessarily ready for that, she's getting pressure. not only often from the boys but from the girls as well. >> reporter: the victim stressed that she was very clear about saying no, but did not physically fight him.

>> i didn't kick or scream or really push. but i did say no. i said no three times. >> we started to kiss. just a little bit. anyway, she giggled, i giggled. >> reporter: he said in the middle of making out he had a sudden change of heart. >> i thought to myself, maybe we shouldn't do this. it hadn't been my intention going into the night to have sex. >> reporter: friends claim labrie bragged about having sex with the girl after. >> he told me that he had sex with [ muted ]. >> guilty or not guilty? >> guilty. >> reporter: in the end the jury acquitted him of the most serious charge, felony rape, but found him guilty of misdemeanor sexual assault and a felony charge of using a computer to lure an underage girl. a controversial offense for a generation dependant on digital communication. >> the social media plays such a tremendous role in everyday life and has become the primary

younger generations. that to hold a young man responsible and destroy his future over sending a flirtatious message seems to me a heavy price to pay for something that most teenagers and many adults do every single day. >> reporter: his attorneys say he will remain free on bail while they pursue an appeal. >> any possible possibility owen labrie will never serve any jail time? >> i think there's absolutely a chance. >> reporter: today, following his sentencing, labrie officially registered as a sex offender and will remain on that registry for at least 15 years. >> you were adamant did that sex offender registry. in there, in court, he registered. as of today he is a sex offender. >> that's correct, that's correct. regardless of the sentence being stayed during appeal, his registration requirement takes

effect immediately. trial. what's your message to the community? >> my message is that the victim in this case was incredibly strong. she stood by us. she did what she needed to do. she told the truth. it was not easy for her. >> reporter: for the young victim who delivered a video message in court today, there is no real relief. >> what he did to me made me feel like i didn't belong on this planet. and that i would be better off dead than having to deal with the terrible things that every day were thrown in my direction after doing the right thing. >> reporter: for "nightline," i'm geo benitez in concord, new hampshire. next, finding out the real reasons we do this when we're scared.

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halloween -- what leaps to mind? for me, candy. hershey kisses, reese's cup, zero candy bar fella, just saying. if you chose trick or treat you're not alone. americans are obsessed with creeping themselves out. unlike sugar, scaring yourself could be good for you. tonight our self-proclaimed scardy katnik watt is going in for the thrill. >> reporter: scarehouse, pittsburgh, pennsylvania. a haunted house, halloween attraction. right? wrong, very wrong. deep in the basement two scientists from the university of pittsburgh -- >> let's get this over with. >> nice to see you. >> reporter: are analyzing fear. why do we flock to ghostly

movies like "poltergeist"? to zombie flicks like "night of the living dead"? why do we go to haunted houses? >> people go to a haunted house and come out feeling wonderful, they feel terrific. we want to ask why. >> reporter: we will spend $7 billion on halloween this year alone, candy overdose aside it might be doing us good. okay, first some pre-scarehouse markers. >> is this an elaborate joke? >> reporter: how do i react cold to disturbing pictures? the cool parts of this brain scan show that i'm not relaxed. when i hear loud noises, even with the comfort of holding one of the scientist's hand, also not happy. i am a person prone to a little anxiety. but if they're right when i come out of the scarehouse i might be a changed man. >> this is not what i signed up for. >> reporter: i'm wired with a heart monitor and electrodes on my fingers to measure

i'm going in. >> this way! >> aahhh! no! bloody hell! >> reporter: first of all, i react with a scream so strong i accidentally tear off my finger electrode. >> i'm not sure it survived or is going to take good readings. >> we're looking at whether or not there are any differences when i was holding his hand during the startle. >> reporter: margy kerr, as well as helping design this place, wrote a book about fear aptly named "scream." >> though it's to our advantage to jump, have a response. because that's going to aid in our survival. >> to scream? to frighten the thing off? >> to alert others. to appear more scary ourselves so when we scream, our face takes on a more contorted expression, which can be scary. >> aahhh! >> reporter: we look scary because we're scared in a haunted house or home on the couch watching "the walking dead." >> we expect something to be a

human and then it starts not acting like a human. that is a violation. something different than what we expected. >> and we freak out? >> yeah. fear is largely a result of basically disruptions of our prediction systems. >> reporter: prediction systems can come into play with clowns. >> they are supposed to look happy and they have these painted-on smiles and very exaggerated expressions. yet their eyes and mouth aren't reading the same. >> reporter: the guy playing the clown at a kids' party isn't smiling with his eyes and that subconsciously freaks us out. >> why are we scared of ghosts? >> ghosts are scary for lots of reasons. there's of course the fear of our own mortality that ghosts bring to mind. >> the dark. >> and the dark, we have no control. anything could attack us without our knowledge. it's harder to locate our body in space. we lose all sense of where we are. >> reporter: but yet many of us

seek fear out. >> the first time i came to scarehouse was because i so desperately wanted to escape the stress of writing my dissertation dissertation. there's something that's been woven into our dna that wants to go out and see new things, explore new areas. and to challenge ourselves. >> reporter: in the modern world we get fewer chances of that. >> for many americans, life is pretty structured. >> too boring? >> yes. >> reporter: there isn't a lion at the watering hole to scare souse we seek out fear in books, movie houses, scarehouses. this might be good for us. >> when we're scared our thinking brain is taking a break. all the worry and the concern, it gets pushed to the side because our body wants to prioritize things that are going to help us survive. >> reporter: i'm out. time for the post-match analysis.

sounds that previously made me >> the startle, whether or not you were holding margy's hand, was very high gamma. >> i didn't flinch at all with the noises? >> yep. >> less emotional response to >> reporter: here's my brain when i saw those distressing pictures before. and after. those warmer areas proving i'm much, much less agitated. >> you could be having an endorphin response. so it's sort of like the runner's high has now taken over, your brain is flooded with stress hormone and so things that would be stressful just don't register as much. >> reporter: medical science might one day use something like this to treat depression. >> thinking about the negative thing, i couldn't hold the negative thought. >> when you go through a scary experience, it seems to recalibrate you. >> reporter: the scarehouse was so bad that everything else pales into insignificantance. we just don't sweat the other

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finally tonight, get ready for "hunger games" mania to take over again. the final movie almost here.

scene stealer elizabeth banks is with our colleague and yahoo! global news anchor katie couric talking fashionably ferocious heroines onscreen and off. >> welcome to the 76th hunger games. >> reporter: in just three weeks get ready for the premiere of the fourth and final installment of "the hunger games." >> i can't say how i would usually say it but i would say [ bleep ] goes down. >> reporter: who better to put the finishing touches on the hugely successful franchise than the fierce fashionista aka elizabeth banks. >> eyes bright. chins up. smiles on. >> any surprises in this last film? and does it stay true to the book? >> it stays more true to the book than even i expected. it's the cull minute naig of the battle between katniss and president snow. >> i know for the role you wrote a letter to the director gary ross. you have no hesitation of going for what you want, do you? which is great.

>> i got great advice a long time ago, you do not get what you don't ask for. if i love something i'll do whatever it takes. >> reporter: sitting at home is not her style. when the opportunity to direct "pitch perfect 2" came around she went for it. >> hey sxlm. >> hey, banks. >> why are there so few women directors? >> i find that human beings are not fond of change. parity in hollywood is going to require that those in power share a little of that power and that requires a real partnership with the men in our industry. >> reporter: until then banks has found no shortage of jobs. this year she starred in the hilarious realtor.com commercials. >> this one's going to be a billionaire, aren't you? >> reporter: shared screen time with channing tatum in "magic mike xxl." >> give your mama some sugar! >> reporter: and her role in "love and mercy" is getting her early oscar buzz. >> you look really great. >> reporter: the film is