Mysteryshows.com

james410 · Joined: 19 Dec 2007 Posts: 1

What specific radio show, and what series, would you nominate as the scariest show you have ever listened to in the dark......
If you haven't listened to three skeleton key from Ecape, with Vincent price or any of the Peter Lorre shows on Mystery in the air, you need to turn out the lights, and remember how powerful the theater of the mnd can be.....

arkie44 · Joined: 28 Nov 2007 Posts: 23 Location: Central Arkansas

The scariest show in my opinion is "The Book Of Hell" from the Nightfall series.

rrrhre2s · Joined: 27 Nov 2007 Posts: 21

rrrhre2s · Joined: 27 Nov 2007 Posts: 21

ftp://ia331337.us.archive.org/2/items/NightfallOTRKIBM/Nightfall-Episode033-BookOfHell.mp3

Well hidden shall we say...

rrrhre2s Wink

human · Joined: 20 Nov 2007 Posts: 233

Thanks for reminding me of Nightfall! I used to love that series when I was in high school. I liked to get my homework finished up by 10:00 so I could listen to CBSRMT on WDNC AM and then I'd switch over to WUNC FM at 11:00 to catch Nightfall before I went to sleep. Despite the similarity of the call letters, the two stations were not related. Nightfall came on one night a week (Thursdays, maybe?) as part of "The Radio Program, Adventures in Sound and Language for the Ear and Mind". They'd have a different show on each night. "Hitch Hikers' Guide to the Galaxy" was part of that block, as was "Bradbury 13", Ken Nordine's "Word Jazz", The "Star Wars" radio shows, and several OTR favorites like "Suspense" and "Jack Benny".

The older shows were supplied by a local collector, who also fed shows like "Escape," "Gunsmoke," "My Favorite Husband," and X-Minus One to another local listener supported station, which broadcast them nightly at 6:00 p.m., just ahead of the BBC World Service News. It was pretty cool to be able to catch a couple of hours of OTR each night in the early '80s, when it was considered pretty much a dead art form. The Radio Program continued to run as a buffer between the station's classical programming and its late night jazz offering until the mid-1990s. Ironically, it went away when the station transitioned to an all-talk format with bumper-to-bumper news and public affairs programming.

All that to say I've now downloaded Nightfall from Archive.org, and I'm throughly enjoying listening to them all over again.

Mike Hobart · Joined: 23 Oct 2007 Posts: 217 Location: Australia

Thanks for telling us about your early experience with Old Radio.

In the pre-Internet era [back in the days of cassette tapes] the only shows I was able to listen to were on a low-powered community radio station 7RPH. They used to run a serial at 7:15 pm on weekdays, sometimes a drama at 9:30pm, and once a week in the afternoons they had Theatre of the Mind, which was made up of shows from the collection of the National Film & Sound Archive in Canberra.
http://www.nfsa.afc.gov.au/the_collection/collection_spotlights/theatre_of_the_mind.html

The NFSA show eventually went off the air, and they ran out of serials, but it was great while it lasted.

And nowadays we have great websites like this one.
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tuned in from down under

human · Joined: 20 Nov 2007 Posts: 233

I now have the "Nightfall" series and will upload it in the next few days.

JulieH · Joined: 27 Jul 2009 Posts: 9 Location: Seattle

I vote for "Revolt of the worms" from Lights Out
Or possibly "The Thing on the Fourble Board" from Quiet Please.

Or, more recent, "The Hypnotist" from Cape Code Radio Mystery Theater
Cool

TheShadowKnows · Joined: 29 Mar 2010 Posts: 4

My favorites (I'll probably add to this as I think of more):
Suspense - House in Cypress Canyon
Escape - Casting the Runes
Hall of Fantasy - He Who Follows Me

Tombcreeper · Joined: 07 Dec 2009 Posts: 12

Mindwebs is pretty scary. Has a very creepy intro, too.

Brad · Posted: Sat Apr 03, 2010 1:18 pm Post subject:

I like Suspense. Some of these can be pretty scary.

Brad
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Tombcreeper · Joined: 07 Dec 2009 Posts: 12

Brad · Posted: Sat Apr 03, 2010 3:50 pm Post subject:

Brad · Posted: Sat Apr 03, 2010 3:51 pm Post subject: Re: Scariest OTR in your opinion

teger8 · Joined: 18 Jan 2010 Posts: 2 Location: cambridge, ohio

My favorite otr horror show is the dark, from arch obler's light's out radio series. i have a modern remake that WKBW radio did on it's Hallowe'en night show called The Darkness. it was made in 1973.

Brad · Posted: Sat Jan 29, 2011 9:45 am Post subject:

Welcome to the forum Teger8.

Brad
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gooby · Joined: 11 Jul 2011 Posts: 3

Thanks everyone for the posts in this thread. I love horror and OTR, so thanks to y'all I have some shows to search for.

As for Mind Webs, I hadn't heard of that one before. Thanks!

Brad · Posted: Tue Jul 12, 2011 8:10 am Post subject:

Welcome to the forum Gooby.

Brad
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boston blackie · Joined: 13 Oct 2009 Posts: 90 Location: illinois

For me, Lights Out is the darkest form of 'scary.'

Talley · Joined: 12 Jul 2011 Posts: 3

Did anyone catch the name of the insane killer in On a Country Road?
I listened to all four Suspense versions, and I still can't make out her exact name. Confused

crich70 · Joined: 19 Sep 2008 Posts: 316 Location: Monroe Wisconsin

My own scariest OTR is Rocket From Manhattan. It's a part of the Lights Out series. Though parts of the premise (are to my knowledge) known to be unreal it still has a very good chill to it.

MSF17 · Posted: Sun Oct 09, 2011 8:33 pm Post subject:

It ain't uploaded in here, but it ought to be. I found it at

http://www.archive.org/details/OTRR_Dark_Fantasy_Singles

It's "The Demon Tree" episode from Dark Fantasy series on Lux Radio Theater. It's spooky Twisted Evil

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MSF17

elisabeth · Joined: 29 Nov 2011 Posts: 11 Location: U.S.A.

Thanks to james for recommending Three Skeleton Key. I haven't uploaded any Escape shows yet, but I found a version of this show among my Suspense episodes, also by Vincent Price. Definitely a good one! Kind of reminds me of the Hitchcock movie The Birds.

http://ia600300.us.archive.org/20/items/SUSPENSE7/561111ThreeSkeletonKey.mp3

elisabeth · Joined: 29 Nov 2011 Posts: 11 Location: U.S.A.

I found this one, from the Beyond Midnight series, quite scary. I usually find the eerie/uncanny type of horror more effective than the more straightforward gory kind. That's the kind of horror this show offers.

http://ia600201.us.archive.org/12/items/otr_beyondmidnight/Beyond_Midnight.19xx.xx.xx_Let_Me_See_Your_Face.mp3

human · Joined: 20 Nov 2007 Posts: 233

Beyond Midnight is a good series. Too bad only a handful of episodes survive. It originated in South Africa in the late '60s and was written and produced by the same guy who did the science fiction series SF68. Television didn't exist in South Africa until well into the '70s, so they were producing a lot of excellent radio shows there well after radio's golden age had faded into the sunset here. One of my other favorite South African radio shows of that era is their adaptation of the British TV series The Avengers. The sad thing is the South African broadcasters made no efforts to preserve their programs, so much of it is lost forever. What little survives is off-the-air recordings by listeners.