What better to keep you awake on a stormy autumn night than turning out the lights for a spine-chilling tale of horror from a past era?
Stop me if you’ve heard this one…
Perhaps some of the best, certainly the most popular and most well-remembered by the OTR community, these are the top ten most commonly recommended radio shows. Many websites proclaim they are of the highest quality writing and the scariest of tales. If you are unfamiliar with OTR, these are a great place to start!
The Most Commonly Recommended Horror OTR:
Escape
Lights Out
Lights Out
Lights Out
Mysterious Traveler
Nightfall
Quiet, Please
Suspense
Suspense
Suspense
Three Skeleton Key (Vincent Price)
The Dark
Death Robbery (Boris Karloff)
Cat Wife
Behind the Locked Door
The Porch Light
The Thing on the Fourble Board
Sorry, Wrong Number
Ghost Hunt
The House in Cypress Canyon
I just never felt they were all that scary; not nearly the best Old Time Radio has to offer. Without question you won’t go wrong with any of the popular titles on this list, but we want to take you further into the dark labyrinth of horror from yesteryear and present the shows we feel are the weirdest, most bewitchingly captivating… and most frightening:
Madmen, Mayhem, & Murder:
Weird Macabre Tales from the Golden Days of Radio
Clarissa (1945)
A poor man takes a room with an old man filled with vitality and his daughter’s ghost. Beautiful atmosphere. Worth listening twice, as the twist is not clearly spelled out.
The Thirsty Death
(John Carradine, Bela Lugosi) A jealous husband locks his wife and her ex-beau in a house surrounded by mad dogs, then injects “one of them” with rabies! He leaves a knife for one to kill the infected when they go mad…
The Devil’s Workshop
A wax sculptor notices his figure of the Devil in a new location each day until it disappears. That day, a man with no face shows up asking him to mold one in the sculptor’s own image… which allows him to steal the sculptor’s girlfriend. She grows increasingly violent, then the sculptor notices his Bloody Mary figure is also missing. Crazed, he burns off the Devil’s face!
Lonely Sleep
A window-dresser doesn’t like being made fun of by his crush… so he kills her and hides her body in the window display. It’s so lifelike, it starts to draw a crowd!
Mahogany Coffin
A gravedigger prepares for his own death, but is thwarted by a man who is jealous of his job. The gravedigger’s corpse comes looking for his bed-cum-coffin, but there’s someone there!
Don’t Go Down in The Mine
A crazy drunk tells the story of a coal mine cave-in. Two men are stabbed to death as sacrifices with invisible knives held by the ghosts of druids. The mine was dug on an ancient sacred site.
The Screaming Woman
A girl hears a woman’s cries from under the ground of an abandoned lot– but no one will believe her! Most suspenseful story ever! (Also by:Suspense) [Adapted from Ray Bradbury]
Can’t You Do Anything Right?
A hen-pecked husband gets revenge on his wife by using the very same home improvement she nagged him about. But he didn’t even do that right!
The Heavy Death
A mad scientist makes himself “heavy” (as in heavy water, or uranium.) His might crushes men’s skulls! He also has a death ray! But the ghost of a man with a crushed skull comes for revenge!
The Secret of XR-3
Gorgo, a vaudeville dwarf is dominated by is giant partner. When given a chance at normal height, he must kill for the ‘opportunity for growth.’
William and Mary
An overly controlling husband dies and leaves his brain to science. He is kept alive, immobile, with one eye intact, while his wife plots revenge! [Adapted from Roald Dahl] (See also Fear on Four, It has been adapted for television on Tales of the Unexpected)
Flesh Peddler
(DeForest Kelly) Talent agent wants to sign a ventriloquist act at a carnival. Yup. The dummy walks, seeking revenge for his mother’s murder. One of the best.
Fugue in C-Minor
(Vincent Price) Man’s wife haunts a mansion with an organ in the walls. He murders his wives by organ music.
The Hairy Monster
A woman will inherit a mansion if she can sleep there every night for a year. The female occultist benefactor’s corpse comes inside to steal the woman’s body.
The Mannequin
An artist buys a dummy for his studio, a beautiful female with glass eyes and realistic hair. When it comes to kill his wife in jealousy, they discover its hideous secret!
The Devil’s Number
Thirteen drops of blood fall on the skull of a wizard and re-animate his body! The woman whose blood was spilled becomes his slave! She is only saved by dum-dum bullets, a cross cut into their head.
Funeral Arrangements Completed
A man inherits a mansion, but is tricked by a ghostly innkeeper and a man in a coffin. Then his wife is dragged to a lime pit. A trap-door! Buried silver! Vengeance from the grave!
Spawn of the Subhuman
A female vocalist’s flight is hijacked. By a gorilla. Who sings opera. It is her ex-fiancee’s voice inside the simian! Guess what the mad doctor’s plans are for her? But wait… did the gorilla’s voice just crack?
The Green Vase (Lanceford House)
A man buys the Lanceford House, in which there sits a vase that cannot be moved lest horrifying repercussions befall the one who touched it. He plays with the vase by only placing a coin underneath. Dumb move.
The Ash Tree
A witch curses a house as she is hanged. Thereafter, people who sleep in the bedroom near the ash tree in that house die painful deaths… from the spiders with long, gray hair that crawl out of it! A cat dies. When the tree is burned, guess who’s mummified body they find inside? [Adapted from M.R. James]
Dance of the Devil Dolls
Tiny dolls do an animated dance at midnight at the behest of an old woman. The old toy-maker is killed and the dolls with her. Creepy tapping sounds!
The Shadow People
The shadows “want the girl.” When they can’t get her, they begin to kill her family one by one. Her only weapon: the light. They are just playing with her. When they are ready, they blow the fuse box and take her. They are still out there.
A Knock at the Door
A woman decides to murder her mother-in-law to get ahead in life, but she keeps coming up from the basement!
Revolt of the Worms
A scientist allows his assistant to dump leftover growth serum in the backyard. His wife hears strange sounds like movement beneath the ground… before she disappears down a giant hole!
It Happened
A wealthy girl looking for fun runs into the wrong sort and ends up wandering the sewers of Paris. Another of the wrong sort finds her, and forces her to make necklaces of bone. Scary first person horror, but the twist ending doesn’t add up.
Burn Witch Burn
A local “doll woman” runs afoul of the mob. A doctor investigates and the strega possesses him, ordering him to “Kill, kill, kill!” anyone who gets to close to her secret. But… he knows Latin!
Horror of Dead Lake
Mad Scientist in deserted pirate castle creates giant genetic mutations. He and his giant leech and venus flytrap are just misunderstood.
They Bite
Very Lovecraftian. Out in the desert, a paleontologist is presented with a way to get even with his sadistic C.O. from Vietnam. Stray things have been glimpsed out at the old Carker place. A lot is left to the imagination (or edited). What could cause teeth marks millions of years ago in fossil… that might also affect isolated homesteaders today? [Adapted from Anthony Boucher (1943)]
Lazarus Rising
When a reporter investigates a man returned from the dead, he churns up the secrets of a country town. George Sannox was murdered, but isn’t looking for revenge. It was his daughter Sarey who resurrected him for vengeance, but it’ll take the whole town to send him back.
Final Resting Place
A man agrees to be buried alive for a sizable payment. Hypnotized by Prof. Vincent, he successfully awakes a week later… but there are more experiments to be done.
The Screaming Skull
A man is haunted by screaming sounds at night… and the skull of a friend’s murdered wife!
Pleasant dreams… What was that scratching at the window?
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*Links updated 9/11/2020
I wish I was a wee lad during these golden age radio times. The family time that must have been enjoyed during the airing of these programs, must have been so nice. Nice fire burning, hot coco and grandma’s cookies, kids on the floor, pops in his chair and mom and grandmother on the love seat. All wrapped in the drama of each episode of the various shows. Not to mention the fear, propaganda and true horrors of Morrows WW2 London broadcasts. Great time in our history, along with the horrors of War. Wow, the drama.
Hi, I really enjoy listening to otr horror shows at night, but the use of “horror” music (like the constant irritating louder-than-the-main-audio organ stabs, etc) makes it difficult. Which still available radio shows don’t have this?
Thanks for the site, very helpful
Hello, I also love OTR. I only started listening to it a few months ago and instantly fell in love, specifically with Horror Theatre. However, unfortunately, I used to be able to rewind/pause/fast forward whichever show came onto the station “Horror Theatre.” However, when I tried to do that today, rewind and fast forward, The buttons were grey. (as something does when it’s no longer selectable) I always listen on Tunein radio. As you can imagine, this was amazing! But for some reason doesn’t work anymore. I use my iPhone 13 to listen with the Tunein app. And I also tried my father’s phone to see if it was just something specifically with mine, and I wasn’t able to on his either. As I said, this is very important to me because I tend to miss a lot, and rewind supports a remedy. So, any information you can give me will be greatly appreciated. Thank you for your help and time!
Hi Shawn, It looks like this is a common problem with the TuneIn App. I would have to recommend that you look for the Horror Theater streaming channel on a different iPhone app. I understand how important that 10 second rewind is! Try Googling “TuneIn alternatives”. Good luck!
I have been having fun with my sister today reminiscing about old time radio and especially the old shows on WOR radio. One that came to mind was Nightmare, a scary nightly series narrated by the one and only creepy Peter Lorre way back in the 1950’s. We were 2 young impressionable girls who delighted in scaring ourselves silly at night, rearranging our bedsheet into a tent, playing the radio quietly, so our mother would not discover we were still up. I discovered a website that has some of those scratchy recordings that somehow seem a bit laughable today, but Lorre is just as creepy as ever…there will never be another voice quite like his…
Looking for a spooky radio show that was popular in the 70’s
That’s pretty general, so I’m going to go with the big, popular one: CBS Radio Mystery Theater
Old time radio shows have provided me with a lot of quality listening pleasure over the past ten or so years. “Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar” with Bob Bailey, especially the episodes with five parts, is one of my favorite shows; however, as a long-time horror fan, I get great satisfaction from shows in that genre, too. One of my favorite creepy episodes is “Quiet, Please – Whence Came You”. I get goose-bumps no matter how many times I listen to it. I only wish someone had kept some better-quality recordings of the “Quiet, Please” series, as most of them are in less-than-stellar condition. On the other hand, I am grateful to have them to listen to. I intend to listen to some of the shows on this page in hopes of getting a thrill or two.
I love old time radio, two of my favorites are, “The Sealed Book – Death at storm house” and “Dark Fantasy – Pennsylvania Turnpike”
I love “Suspense.” I have listened to its episodes for about a decade now.
Some of my favorite episodes include “Kaleidoscope,” from Ray Bradbury; “The Crowd,” also from Bradbury; “Dutch Schultz,” about a real gangster; and Richard Widmark in “Tell You Why I Shouldn’t Die.”
I was inspired to write a book about the twenty year history of “Suspense.” It is called “Radio’s Outstanding Theater of Thrills,” and is available at Amazon.com in both print and kindle editions.