It is 11 October. There are 20 days until Halloween.

Sometimes I think I was born too late. For instance, I love listening to old time radio shows. I can only imagine what it was like to have so many wonderful stories to choose from, to hear the voices of so many terrific actors in their prime acting in well-written dramas of every genre. Could you imagine looking forward to the new episodes of The Whistler or The Abbott & Costello Show? The radio dramatization of Star Wars in 1981 was the closest I ever got to “Must Hear Radio.”

By the time the 1970s rolled around, radio drama as a viable source of entertainment was D.O.A. There were a few programs that tried to carry on the tradition, the CBS Mystery Theater and Nightfall to name a few. Though they tried to reanimate the corpse of radio theater, all these “modern” shows managed to do was to kick the last few clumps of dirt onto the casket. They sounded flabby, as if they could have used a few more rewrites. They also displayed the paucity of imagination at work in the field at the time. The producers, writers, and actors who really understood the strengths of the medium, who knew the power of the listener’s imagination when given the right “poke” with an audio cue, were in radio’s past.

To hear radio drama at the height of its power, you need to go back to the 1940s, and to hear the best of the best, you need to listen to Quiet, Please.

Wyllis Cooper (who was also responsible for the radio show Lights Out), and announcer/actor Ernest Chappell created one of the most potent, imaginative, and just plain creepy radio programs in Quiet, Please. Every show is a veritable “how-to” course for creating dread, terror, and suspense by the perfect combination of writing, acting, and sound design.

The cream of this dark crop is 1948’s “The Thing on the Fourble Board.” I’ll say nothing more about this episode for fear of ruining the surprise for those of you who have never listened to it before, save that a “fourble board” is the working platform on an oil derrick. (It is not, as I believed before I listened to the show, a large piece of furniture like a sideboard. Don’t ask me why I thought that.)

Cooper’s story is perfection. The characterization is clear and concise. We know who these people are and what they look like by how they sound. The sound design – especially the work of actress Cecil Roy – sends chills up the spine. And the ending – the ending! – is unexpected and unforgettable.

You can listen to “The Thing on the Fourble Board” here. You can follow along with the script here.

Enjoy!

It is 4 October. There are 27 days until Halloween.

One of my all-time favorite pictures is John Carpenter’s The Fog. Sure, it’s a spooky movie, and it’s got POTA (Pittsburgh’s Own, Tom Atkins), but the main reason for my love is Stevie Wayne, as played by Adrienne Barbeau. Why? Because she’s got the perfect job and the perfect workplace, that’s why. Stevie is the sole owner/sole operator of AM radio station KAB (located on your dial at 1340), broadcasting the smoothest of jazz from atop a lighthouse hugging the rocky coast near Antonio Bay, CA.

The fact that she drives a Volkswagen Thing to work everyday and lives in a town where you can get a Stomach Pounder and Coke for lunch is just an added bonus.

While living and/or working in a lighthouse holds a certain amount of romantic appeal, there are numerous dangers. Like Ms. Wayne, you could be attacked by leprous ghost seeking revenge. You could be surrounded by semi-sentient, carnivorous plants that have taken over the world (Day of the Triffids). You and a friend could lose your minds, drink the fuel meant for the light, and kill each other (The Lighthouse). Or, as is the case in today’s featured radio drama, your little island could be overrun by rats. Hundreds, maybe thousands of rats.

What a choice!

It’s a bit ironic when a radio program asks its listeners if they “want to get away from it all,” then proceeds to tell a story filled with such paranoid, insular, cramped, asphyxiating horror as “Three Skeleton Key.” This radio play takes place in a single setting, a lighthouse, but as the action progresses, the setting shrinks until you are trapped along with the men in a single room.

The programs of the Golden Age of Radio had at their disposal a frightening array of actors. Men and women like Boris Karloff, William Conrad, Mercedes McCambridge, and Agnes Moorehead lent their vocal skills to scores of radio drama. “Three Skeleton Key” was performed many times on the air with many great actors (including the aforementioned William Conrad). The version I’ve chosen, stars the one and only Vincent Price. A man more well known to radio audiences for playing the suave Robin Hood-type criminal, Simon Templar, otherwise known as The Saint, Price uses his mellifluous voice to play the rough-and-ready, Jean. As the stakes get higher and the rats get closer and closer, Price matches the terror and horror of the situation. Through him, the listener can feel the vermin that came ashore aboard the unmanned ship nip at their heels.

The tale was based on a short story written by French author Georges-Gustave Toudouze. It was published in 1937 in Esquire, the same magazine that, a year later, would publish another “man vs nature” classic, Carl Stephenson’s "Leiningen Versus the Ants." (Stay tuned to this blog for more on that story!) If you want to read the story yourself, click here for a copy. Click here to listen to the 1950 version as aired on Escape. You can follow along with the script by clicking here. As usual, HorrorBabble offers a wonderful reading of Toudouze’s short story. There is also a short film made from the story over on Vimeo.

This play may not be the usual Halloween fare. There are no ghosts or vampires or anything supernatural, but I’ve always found it to be chilling and terrifying. The sound of the rats gnawing their way into lighthouse will stay with you for good long time.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to jump into my VW Thing and run out to get a Stomach Pounder and a Coke…

It is 3 October. There are 28 days until Halloween.

I used to work at the circulation desk in a public library. It was a great job to stumble upon new books and music. One day, someone returned an audio book with an interesting cover. It was a close up of a pair of eyes. The picture had the grainy quality of a blown-up photograph. It wasn’t quite black-and-white because there was just the suggestion of blue in the color of those eyes. The light and shadow dappling the face gave it a quality of a Maya Deren film. It seemed to be a collection of ghost stories spooky poems. I recognized some of the names. Intrigued, I quickly checked it in and just as quickly checked it out to myself.

On my day off, I listened to it. I didn’t get very far, because the first story pinned me to my chair. It was by A.M. Burrage, and it was called “Smee.” I’d never heard of either Burrage or his tale. Twenty minutes or so later, and, along with a cold shiver up my spine and gooseflesh on my arms, I felt that A.M. Burrage was a writer that I must know more about.

“Smee” is an example of the “Christmas Ghost Story” that was once so popular in England during the 19th century. It has a simple story-within-a-story construction: a group of friends prepare to play a post-dinner game of hide-and-seek on Christmas Eve. One of the party, Jackson, refuses to play. In turn, Jackson tells the group (and the reader) his tale of why he chooses to play the spoil-sport.

It seems that Jackson had a bad experience some years before at another friend’s house playing a similar game:

‘I wonder if any of you have played a game called “Smee”. It’s a great improvement on the ordinary game of hide-and-seek. The name derives from the ungrammatical colloquialism, “It’s me.” You might care to play if you’re going to play a game of that sort. Let me tell you the rules.

‘Every player is presented with a sheet of paper. All the sheets are blank except one, on which is written “Smee”. Nobody knows who is “Smee” except “Smee” himself—or herself, as the case may be. The lights are then turned out and “Smee” slips from the room and goes off to hide, and after an interval the other players go off in search, without knowing whom they are actually in search of. One player meeting another challenges with the word “Smee” and the other player, if not the one concerned, answers “Smee”. 

‘The real “Smee” makes no answer when challenged, and the second player remains quietly by him. Presently they will be discovered by a third player, who, having challenged and received no answer, will link up with the first two. This goes on until all the players have formed a chain, and the last to join is marked down for a forfeit.’

A simple game, no? Burrage uses the rules of the game – the dark house, the silence, the solitude – to chilling effect. “Smee” has a wonderful ending that, although you see it coming, is still powerful enough to elicit a shudder. Along the way, there are many moments where Jackson and his fellow players rub up against the uncanny and outré. One moment, in fact, on a staircase, involving the accidental (?) miscount of the number of players in the game made the bottom fall out of my stomach. It was described so matter-of-factly that it hit me between the eyes before I knew what had happened.

You can find a copy of “Smee” here. Don’t have the time to sit down and read it? There is a terrific audio reading by the folks at HorrorBabble, and the old South African radio program Beyond Midnight produced a great “modern” version in 1968.

It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year!

No, just because the stores have started to celebrate Christmas doesn’t mean I have. Christmas stopped being a big deal for me ‘round about the time I became more excited to find a pair of socks in my stocking instead of a Star Wars action figure. The most wonderful time of year that I am alluding to is centered around eating candy, wearing masks in public, watching tons of movies, and getting the pants scared off of you.

Hmmm. It seems that Halloween and life in 2020 have a lot in common. I guess COVID is just another of life’s drear events that horror movies prepared me for.

Normally, I would be spending the coming month posting all sorts of spooky nonsense on Facebook for my friends and family. Having recently left Facebook for good, however, my celebration of Halloween will take place here at LARPing Real Life. So, for the next thirty days, I want to share some Halloween memories, movies, and stories with you.

As someone who read the HBO guide religiously as a kid, marking off every airing of every film that promised adult situations, adult language, and graphic violence, I thought I’d give you a schedule of sorts so you can tune in when you want. Here’s what you can expect for the next month:

• Thursdays will be all about my personal feelings and remembrances of Halloween.
• Fridays you’ll get a spooky movie.
• Saturdays will bring a short story (maybe even one of my own!)
• Sundays we’ll listen to an old-time radio program or new-fangled audio drama podcast.
• Mondays we’ll listen to music.
• Tuesdays are for movie trailers and tv spots.
• Wednesdays are wild cards. I have no idea what we’ll do!

Honestly, I hope I can complete this project and make it through to Halloween in one piece. Being a very slow writer, this is going to be quite the gauntlet for me. I am, hopefully, setting myself up to succeed. Unlike the other writings you’ll find on LARPing Real Life, my Halloween posts will be short, sweet, and to the point (if they even have one). I want them to be more like the oral tales you tell around the campfire. They won’t be anything you’ll have to spend too much time with, but, hopefully like those fireside stories of old, they’ll affect you and stick with you.

So, get ready, folks, the show is about to begin!