That’s one reason why podcasts are, if you’ll pardon the pun, the perfect medium for spooky stories. Without special effects, latex masks or wringing out an eighth sequel from some IP that should’ve been left alone two decades ago, podcasters can conjure up haunting soundscapes and engrossing stories so well precisely because you have to bring them to life yourself.

Whether it’s new fiction using the storytelling possibilities of audio, film fans delving into the history of horror cinema, retellings of shocking true crime or investigations into the paranormal, there’s absolutely tons of podcasts out there that’ll give you what MR James, the master of the ghost story, called “a pleasing terror”. Try not to have nightmares.

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Uncanny

The podcaster who’s done more than most to bring spooky listening to the mainstream is Danny Robins. The Battersea Poltergeist was a blockbuster investigation of one of Britain’s most famous hauntings; Uncanny is the ongoing follow-up, which takes on a different case each time. With new interviews by the people at the centres of the stories and on the ground investigations to see how much of the story stands up, the ever-likeable Robins is a wide-eyed and empathetic guide. It’s gone on to a live tour and TV version. Listen on your podcast app >>

Last Podcast on the Left

The horror buff’s horror podcast, this one has been going for more than a decade and pretty much set the template for many scary podcasts to follow. Each time there’s a different mystery, conspiracy, ghost story, alien abduction, historic disaster or true crime intrigue to learn about, and Ben Kissel, Marcus Parks and Henry Zebrowski stand ready to both recognise how horrible they are and try to neutralise the horror with their own kind of daft nonsense. Not one for those of a particularly sensitive disposition though.. Listen on your podcast app >>

Welcome to Night Vale

This was one of the very first fiction podcasts to make it really, really big. The hook is that we’re listening to radio broadcasts to a small community somewhere in America – adverts for carnivals, local election reminders, that sort of thing. Except the carnival sounds horrific and the only vote in the election comes from disembodied voices in a hidden gorge. Both funny ha-ha and funny peculiar. Listen on your podcast app >>

Alice Isn’t Dead

Rather appropriately, this podcast is sort of undead: the main series ran from 2016 to 2018, but very occasional new episodes have been known to claw their way up through the cold earth. It’s a horror-leaning thriller from Welcome to Night Vale’s co-author Joseph Fink, and follows a lonely trucker as she traverses America on the search for her wife, who’s gone missing. Their relationship isn’t straightforward, but then neither is this America: it’s full of ghostly no-places lost in time, not-quite-human serial killers and, at its heart, a sprawling conspiracy. Listen on your podcast app >>

A Podcast to the Curious

This one started out as an exploration of the life and work of MR James, the master of the English ghost story. It’s literary rather than alarming, digging into the context and the story of how each story was written as well as dissecting the tales themselves. They’ve tip-toed into the dimly lit library of other English ghost stories too, from Dickens to writers who followed James’ lead. Listen on your podcast app >>

They Walk Among Us

To these British ears, there’s something quite distant about American true crime podcasts. No matter how gruesome or sad, there’s always the sense of relief that nothing so outlandish could happen in the dull old UK. They Walk Among Us, though, shows that there is terror out there in the mundanity. Each time husband and wife duo Benjamin and Rosanna Fitton retell a British true crime story with a forensic but empathetic eye, exhuming the strange and the sad and reminding you that it could happen to you too. Listen on your podcast app >>

The No Sleep Podcast

The tradition of the anthology horror movie has found a modern home in podcasting, and few places do it as well as this one. Each time there are new, original stories drawn from listener submissions – a couple for free listeners, six or seven for paid subscribers – with some performed by a narrator and some by a full voice cast, with subtle sound design to ramp up the creepiness. We’re knocking on for 500 episodes of scary short stories now after nearly 12 years, and some writers have gone on to launch successful writing careers off the back of it. Listen on your podcast app >>

The Harrowing

The frame of this audio drama is a police investigation into a mysterious tragedy on a remote island off the west coast of Scotland called Toll Mòr. A growling stranger walks into a church warning of doomsday and demons, and local police sergeant Jackie O’Hara (Downton Abbey’s Joanne Froggatt) arrives just as a huge storm rolls in. Listen on your podcast app >>

Lore

Though the horror pod wave has been driven by mixtures of fact and faction, some of the most spine-tingling are those like Lore, which meticulously research true scary stories which inspire folklore. Each time there’s a different theme – opportunity, confidence, music – which are explored by the tales different cultures tell each other about them. There’s a truly vast back catalogue of nearly 200 episodes here to creep into. Listen on your podcast app >>

Can’t get enough scary podcasts? Make sure you check out Pod Bible’s Horrible Halloween playlist for the ULTIMATE list of scary shows…  

The post These are the best spooky podcasts for Halloween appeared first on POD BIBLE.

Sorry. But puns aside, they really are. The magic of hearing a ghost story isn’t in what’s being said as such, but in the images being conjured up. Your brain is capable of forming terrors far more terrible than anything you could actually see, and around the virtual campfire those images are that much more vivid with artfully deployed sound design.

We’ve been living through a mini-golden age of audio horror lately too. Led by the megahit The Battersea Poltergeist, a strain of podcasts which mix real-life spookiness with dramatic reimaginings has hit a nerve with listeners, and more and more producers and writers are taking advantage of the uniquely chilling atmosphere that they can create in sound.

As well as that, though, there’s long been a vibrant line-up of paranormally inclined shows which follow the My Favourite Murder format of hosts chatting amiably about something horrific. However you want to be chilled this Halloween, there’s a lot out there for you.

The Battersea Poltergeist

It’s not often that a Radio 4 drama-doc becomes so vast that it gets its own live show, but The Battersea Poltergeist is exactly that Radio 4 drama-doc. Part paranormal cold case, part dramatic reconstruction, it follows Danny Robins and his team as they go back to 63 Wycliffe Road in south London to investigate a haunting which gripped the UK in the fifties.

The Harrowing

The frame of this audio drama is a police investigation into a mysterious tragedy on a remote island off the west coast of Scotland called Toll Mòr. A growling stranger walks into a church warning of doomsday and demons, and local police sergeant Jackie O’Hara (Downton Abbey’s Joanne Froggatt) arrives just as a huge storm rolls in.

Welcome to Night Vale

This was one of the very first fiction podcasts to make it really, really big. The hook is that we’re listening to radio broadcasts to a small community somewhere in America – adverts for carnivals, local election reminders, that sort of thing. Except the carnival sounds horrific and the only vote in the election comes from disembodied voices in a hidden gorge. Both funny ha-ha and funny peculiar.

Alice Isn’t Dead

This horror-leaning thriller from Welcome to Night Vale’s co-author Joseph Fink follows a lonely trucker as she traverses America on the search for her wife, who’s gone missing. Their relationship isn’t straightforward, but then neither is this America: it’s full of ghostly no-places lost in time, not-quite-human serial killers and, at its heart, a sprawling conspiracy.

Lore

Though the horror pod wave has been driven by mixtures of fact and faction, some of the most spine-tingling are those like Lore, which meticulously research true scary stories which inspire folklore. Each time there’s a different theme – opportunity, confidence, music – which are explored by the tales different cultures tell each other about them. There’s a truly vast back catalogue of nearly 200 episodes here to creep into.

A Podcast to the Curious

This one started out as an exploration of the life and work of MR James, the master of the English ghost story. It’s literary rather than alarming, digging into the context and the story of how each story was written as well as dissecting the tales themselves. They’ve tip-toed into the dimly lit library of other English ghost stories too, from Dickens to writers who followed James’ lead.

Did we miss your favourite podcast? Let us know on Twitter!

The post 6 Spooky podcasts for Halloween appeared first on POD BIBLE.