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Aug. 10th, 2009 08:26 amSo...one of the really great things about being a horror fan in this marvelous internet age is the sheer amount of stuff that is available for free on the web. You want to read Lovecraft or Machen or MR James? Free on the internets. I put Varney the Vampire and The King in Yellow on my Kindle and am finally getting to read them, after wanting to for years and being stymied by libraries that didn't have copies.* (Oddly, though I am perfectly happy to read novel-length fanfic at my computer, I lose concentration when it is an actual novel. I don't know why that is.)
And recently, I have discovered the immense amount of vintage radio horror I can find for free. It is astounding. And okay, a lot of it is kinda cheesy, but it is the kind of cheese that I sincerely enjoy.
Things I Have Learned (So Far) From Old-Time Horror Radio:
- The hosts are hilarious. Because mostly, they are trying to be creepy while they introduce whatever story is being performed that episode and then they turn around and do the commercials. It is awesome.
- Secondarily, how much do I love old radio commercials? So much.
- There's this guy on, I think, The Creaking Door who sounds amazingly like Colin Clive (except for brief moments when he sounds like Claude Rains) and he keeps playing these crazy neurotics and basically, he is my favorite thing of today. Because Colin Clive! Who doesn't love Colin Clive! (Oh, Sara, nearly everyone in the world...)
- Vincent Price is made of awesome. I mean, that isn't exactly new information, but it bears restating. So is Boris Karloff.
- The people who wrote these things were on crack. There was one that was basically Arsenic & Old Lace except the old ladies ran an antique shop with piranhas in the basement that they fed robbers to. There was one with Nazi scientists shrinking people to three inches tall? Why? I don't know - they're Nazi scientists. It's apparently the kind of thing they do. There was one where a guy (the Colin Clive guy, in fact) paid another man to go into the future and steal his wife's skeleton because that would cause the woman to disappear in the present. That makes no frelling sense at all, I have to say. Completely on crack.
- Quiet, Please is probably the creepiest horror radio I've heard yet. Mostly because they don't ever bother to explain anything and the premises, though not as crack-addled as some other shows, are pleasingly surreal. It's like the Sapphire & Steel of radio drama. Though they do occasionally have unfortunate organ music.
- The Rats in the Walls makes for fairly suspenseful radio drama, even if you already know how it ends. (Especially if you take out the damned cat.) So far, that's the only one I've listened to twice and I thoroughly enjoyed it both times. Especially the bit where the narrator collapses into incoherence as that was always my favorite part of the story and the reader does it amazingly well.
I'm going to have to break out my copy of Danse Macabre and reread the section on radio horror. Maybe I can find some of the shows Mr King mentions.
*I do not actually in any way blame the library for not having a copy of Varney the Vampire as it is actually pretty dreadful. Though kinda fun. The fact that my library has no Arthur Machen and next to no MR James is saddening, though.
And recently, I have discovered the immense amount of vintage radio horror I can find for free. It is astounding. And okay, a lot of it is kinda cheesy, but it is the kind of cheese that I sincerely enjoy.
Things I Have Learned (So Far) From Old-Time Horror Radio:
- The hosts are hilarious. Because mostly, they are trying to be creepy while they introduce whatever story is being performed that episode and then they turn around and do the commercials. It is awesome.
- Secondarily, how much do I love old radio commercials? So much.
- There's this guy on, I think, The Creaking Door who sounds amazingly like Colin Clive (except for brief moments when he sounds like Claude Rains) and he keeps playing these crazy neurotics and basically, he is my favorite thing of today. Because Colin Clive! Who doesn't love Colin Clive! (Oh, Sara, nearly everyone in the world...)
- Vincent Price is made of awesome. I mean, that isn't exactly new information, but it bears restating. So is Boris Karloff.
- The people who wrote these things were on crack. There was one that was basically Arsenic & Old Lace except the old ladies ran an antique shop with piranhas in the basement that they fed robbers to. There was one with Nazi scientists shrinking people to three inches tall? Why? I don't know - they're Nazi scientists. It's apparently the kind of thing they do. There was one where a guy (the Colin Clive guy, in fact) paid another man to go into the future and steal his wife's skeleton because that would cause the woman to disappear in the present. That makes no frelling sense at all, I have to say. Completely on crack.
- Quiet, Please is probably the creepiest horror radio I've heard yet. Mostly because they don't ever bother to explain anything and the premises, though not as crack-addled as some other shows, are pleasingly surreal. It's like the Sapphire & Steel of radio drama. Though they do occasionally have unfortunate organ music.
- The Rats in the Walls makes for fairly suspenseful radio drama, even if you already know how it ends. (Especially if you take out the damned cat.) So far, that's the only one I've listened to twice and I thoroughly enjoyed it both times. Especially the bit where the narrator collapses into incoherence as that was always my favorite part of the story and the reader does it amazingly well.
I'm going to have to break out my copy of Danse Macabre and reread the section on radio horror. Maybe I can find some of the shows Mr King mentions.
*I do not actually in any way blame the library for not having a copy of Varney the Vampire as it is actually pretty dreadful. Though kinda fun. The fact that my library has no Arthur Machen and next to no MR James is saddening, though.
