It is 18 October. There are 13 days until Halloween.

I live in Los Angeles. Driving around the city as a TV and movie fan, I am constantly pointing out familiar streets, houses, and buildings to my wife. It’s exciting and surreal to casually drive the same length of road where Rita had her car accident in David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive or pass by the Doyle and Wallace houses from John Carpenter's Halloween in the middle of Hollywood.

Of all the places my wife and I enjoy driving, I think the canyons are my favorite. The Santa Monica Mountains separate the San Fernando Valley from the city center of Los Angeles. Running through the various canyons of those mountains are numerous narrow, tree-lined roads with more curves than a Major League Baseball pitcher’s arsenal. Small, residential streets branch off from the main roads and take you up the steep sides of the canyons. Houses line the walls of the canyons – some clinging like barnacles, others jutting straight out into space with only a few spindly support beams to hold them up. At night, in the dark, the canyons roads seem a million miles away from the teeming cities of Hollywood and Studio City. The trees seem to lean over the roads, blanking out what few stars can be seen in the light-polluted night skies.

They are spooky places, the canyons.

And if you are an old-time radio lover, then you hope to never find a canyon by the name of Cypress or see a house there with the number 2256. Because if there is such a canyon and such a house, then you know what is waiting for you in the closet…

“The House in Cypress Canyon” is considered by many people to be the scariest radio program of all time. Considering all the really fine work that was done during radio’s Golden Age, you’d be forgiven for thinking that ranking to be mere hyperbole. Written by Robert L. Richards, directed by William Spier, and starring Robert Taylor and Cathy Lewis, “The House in Cypress Canyon” is indeed a finely constructed tale of terror. Broadcast in December 1946 (another example of the spooky winter’s tale!), it tells the story of a young couple – James and Ellen Woods – who move into a small house in the titular canyon. From their first night in their new home, the Woodses are haunted by inhuman cries in the night that James writes off as the cry of a wildcat. Ellen is unsure. Soon thereafter, Ellen discovers a pool of blood oozing from beneath a mysteriously locked closet door.

“The House in Cypress Canyon” is a wonderful example of the ways writers in post-war America were updating the trappings of the traditional ghost story. The house that the Woodses find isn’t some old mansion or ancient castle. It’s a newly built house without a history. What haunts the Woodses isn’t an unhappy spirit looking for revenge. There is no explanation for what happens – or for the final twist in the tale. Ambiguity reigns supreme. What befalls James and Ellen could happen to anyone at any time. It could happen to you.

Listen to “The House in Cypress Canyon” here. You can follow the action with a copy of the script here. If you are interested in an understanding of what was happening in post-war America when Suspense first broadcast this program, you can read this Brad Stevens article written in 2014 for the BFI.