By JM Cozzoli
Before EC Comics, before TV Horror Hosts, and before the mad scientists, psychos, and domestic and foreign ghosties and beasties took over the megagoogaplex screens, there was dramatized horror on radio just a twist of the dial away up until the 1950s. I started listening in the 1970s.
I fondly remember pulling out the Webcor reel to reel tape player to listen to old time radio shows I had collected on tape, and my favorite episode will always be Three Skeleton Key with Vincent Price, otherwise known as “that one about the rats.” Imagine being trapped in a lighthouse with a horde of ravenous rats that have eyes and taste buds only for you; inexorably finding their way in until you have no where else to run.
With the advent of MP3 players, it is now easier than ever to rediscover the sinful pleasures of old time horror radio drama. Much of it is in the public domain these days (script writers and budding horror authors take note!), and can be found online or in CD collections for a nominal charge. Hot on your list should be audio plays from Lights Out, Suspense, Inner Sanctum, The Creaking Door, and The Haunting Hour, though there are many more series extant.
Aside from Three Skeleton Key, other superb radio dramas to listen to are Sub Basement and Spider, from Lights Out, and The Dunwich Horror and The House in Cypress Canyon from Suspense. In Sub Basement, a man takes his wife to the sub basement of a big department store with plans of murder on his mind, but something else in the basement has other plans for them. And in Spider, two weary jungle hunters meet their match in another furry, but not so little or cute multi-legged, and very patient hunter. Just what, exactly, is in the closet in The House in Cypress Canyon will make your neck hairs stand on end. That one is a classic.
Listening to horror can be quite frightening indeed. As you hear these chilling tales of terror and horror, be careful your imagination does not run too wild. Go to Radio Echoes and the Internet Archive to start listening. And remember, listen with the LIGHTS OUT!