Five Scary Podcasts to Get You Excited for Halloween
We love holiday listicles. And this year, though we may not be celebrating Halloween like usual, we can still listen to terrifying podcast recommendations on October 31st and surrounding spooky days.
This blog post is by guest writer Cassie Jozefov, CEO and Founder of Violet Hour Media, a premium horror podcast network.
EarBuds Podcast Collective is a listening movement. We send a weekly email that contains a theme and five podcast episode recommendations on that theme. Each week is curated by a different person from around the world. Anyone can sign up to curate a list. Sometimes, in addition to our newsletter lists, we like to offer holiday-specific lists so that you can get in the spirit of the season. With that in mind, here’s Cassie Jozefov on her favorite scary Halloween-related podcast recommendations.
Halloween has always been my favorite holiday.
Halloween has always been my favorite holiday. I mean – what’s not to like? As a kid you get to dress up in elaborate costumes, eat a ton of candy, and carve creepy faces into pumpkins. As an adult, you still get to dress up in elaborate costumes and eat candy, but the entirety of October opens up as an opportunity to lean into all things macabre.
Watching horror movies and visiting haunted houses are Halloween classics, but perhaps you’re looking for something a little different to kick off the spooky season. Scripted (fiction) horror podcasts are emerging as a fun, effective way to feel some chills without ever leaving your home. Better yet, all of these podcasts are free to listen to and available on all major podcast platforms.
You can curate your own level of scariness with the horror podcast listening experience. If you’re looking to really challenge yourself, then turn off all of the lights, grab a high-quality pair of headphones, and immerse yourself in the darkness. For the horror novice, listen with earbuds while you’re taking an evening walk through the crisp fall air. Either way, interacting with tales of ghosts, haunted houses, deranged families, demonic possessions, and life after death is sure to get you in the Halloween spirit.
Our team has spent the last year consuming as many scary scripted podcasts as we can, and we’re delighted to share our favorites with you. Fair warning: after listening to a few episodes you may start seeing fleeting glimpses of mysterious figures around your home or find yourself checking under the bed before you go to sleep. However, if you make it through, you’ll be rewarded with some extremely memorable stories and deeply scary moments.
5 Scary Podcasts to Get You Excited / Terrified for Halloween:
LifeAfter –
On the sci-fi edge of the genre, LifeAfter tells the story of a man coping with the loss of his wife. Technology, in the form of a slick new social media platform called VoiceTree is meant to help that coping process, but things go wrong quickly. This elegantly written podcast with minimalistic sound design touches on a wide variety of important themes: government conspiracy, societal reliance on social media, artificial intelligence, and death. It’s amazing story-telling on a Black Mirror-esque theme. Plus, there’s a twist at the end that I did not see coming.
Inside The Exorcist –
This is a fictionalized version of the true story behind the troubled filming of The Exorcist. With its debut in 1974, this gut-wrenching movie about a young girl becoming possessed by a demon exceeded all box office expectations. It went on to be nominated for a record 10 Academy Awards. However, the set was rumored to be cursed and terrible things started happening to the cast and crew – including one death and a massive fire. Host Mark Ramsey does an amazing job with his one-man-show, playing the role of narrator, cast and crew. The compelling story is paired with top quality sound design, such that you feel like a fly on the wall of that cursed set in the 70s.
Tanis –
Tanis is a darker, fictionalized version of the popular non-fiction investigative journalism podcasts (e.g., Serial). If you like conspiracy theories, rabbit holes, and dogged journalists diving deep into the story they are chasing, then Tanis might be for you. We follow Nic Silver, an intrepid and charismatic journalist, as he seeks to uncover the truth behind an entity known as Tanis. His journey takes him through a minefield of ancient history, fraudulent big business practices , and unsavory cover-ups found on the dark web. One of my favorite parts of the show is Nic’s banter with a hard-as-nails hacker named Meerkatnip, who becomes an important part of the story.
The Darkest Night –
Ready or Not meets Knives Out, but in podcast format. Narrated by Lee Pace, this dark thriller follows a couple of scientists as they relive the final moments of several recently deceased people. The plot thickens when you realize all of these memories, and people, are connected to a dark web of corporate greed and insidious morals. Our two protagonists are scientists that work for a prestigious institute on a top secret assignment called Project Cyclops. Fittingly, their job is to literally look through the detached eyes from corpses to understand circumstances around their death. This anthology-style show doesn’t shy away from gore and has the matching sound design to make even seasoned horror fans squirm while listening.
In Another Room –
Do you believe that some places are just born bad? This series of interlocking 30-minute ghost stories seeks to answer that question, as listeners follow amateur paranormal investigator Wendy Morrow through each room in a notoriously haunted house. In Another Room delivers everything you want in a scary podcast: 8 episodes that are steeped in period detail, a wide variety of disturbing ghost stories, some seriously impressive acting performances and next level sound design. I found myself so invested in Wendy’s journey to figure out the mystery behind the haunted house, and potentially save her own soul, that I binged the first four episodes in one sitting. Tune in if you’re interested in what happens to two girls playing with a Ouija board in the 70s, a fraudulent psychic medium in the 1900s, a dinner party gone very wrong in the 20s, and many more haunting subjects. Beware, it’s getting a reputation as too scary to listen through Episode 1 entirely. Maybe I’m a little biased since this is a Violet Hour Media original podcast, but I’d argue it is the scariest podcast of the year.
If you’re in the mood to share the scare with scare with other brave souls, consider setting up around a campfire or fire pit. Let it get dark, roast some marshmallows, and crank up the volume on one of these scary stories.
Horror Creativity Explored
After listening to any of these podcasts, you’ll see that the podcast medium allows for a shockingly wide range of creative interpretations. Uninhibited by logistical challenges that visual mediums – like film and television – are hampered by, podcasts are free to run rampant with your imagination. That’s important because your imagination can be far scarier than anything you’ll ever see on the screen.
Hey, readers! Did you enjoy this blog post? We wanted to combine two of our favorite things: podcast listening and guest contributions. Do you have an idea for a blog post that combines podcasts with your favorite things? Let us know! We’d love for you to write a guest blog post for us!
