Weekly Spooky | Scary Stories for Spooky Season

The Lost Boys, Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives, Fright Night, The Village, and The Collector headline this episode of This Week in Horror History, covering July 27 through August 2. Summer horror gets vampiric, supernatural, folklore-soaked, and dangerously familiar as we revisit an iconic 1980s vampire movie, the resurrection of Jason Voorhees, M. Night Shyamalan’s isolated village nightmare, a brutal home-invasion trap thriller, and a modern Métis horror novel about a loved one who returns profoundly wrong. 

Inside this episode:
July 28, 2020 — Empire of Wild receives its U.S. publication
Cherie Dimaline’s supernatural horror novel follows Joan, a woman searching for her missing husband. When she discovers a charismatic preacher who looks and sounds almost exactly like him—but insists he is someone else—her search leads toward Métis folklore, the rogarou, stolen identity, grief, and an ancient hunger wearing a familiar face. 
July 30, 2004 — The Village releases in the United States
M. Night Shyamalan transforms an isolated community surrounded by forbidden woods into a haunting story about fear, control, ritual, and the dangerous power of a carefully protected lie. The villagers have been taught that creatures wait beyond the boundary, certain colors must never be worn, and safety depends upon everyone obeying the same rules. 
July 31, 1987 — The Lost Boys releases in the United States
Joel Schumacher gives vampire horror leather jackets, motorcycles, beach fog, neon boardwalks, and unforgettable 1980s style. Beneath the lights and nightlife of Santa Carla, a gang of young vampires offers danger, immortality, and the seductive promise of never having to grow up. 
August 1, 1986 — Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives releases
Tommy Jarvis accidentally resurrects Jason Voorhees with a bolt of lightning, transforming the Crystal Lake killer into a fully supernatural slasher icon. Faster, funnier, and more self-aware than many earlier entries, Jason Lives combines gothic cemetery imagery, summer-camp terror, black comedy, and one of the franchise’s most memorable versions of Jason.

Deep-Cut Spotlight — The Collector A desperate thief breaks into a wealthy family’s home and discovers that a masked killer has already transformed the property into an elaborate maze of wires, traps, locked rooms, and carefully arranged suffering. The Collector captures the brutal energy of late-2000s horror, combining home-invasion suspense, post-Saw trap horror, survival-thriller momentum, and the terrifying idea that every possible escape route has already been anticipated by someone waiting inside.

Horror Birthdays This Week: David Warner, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Michael Biehn, and Wes Craven enter the birthday roll, bringing connections to The Omen, Waxwork, Predator, The Terminator, Aliens, Planet Terror, The Last House on the Left, The Hills Have Eyes, A Nightmare on Elm Street, and Scream.

Weekly Recommendation — Fright Night A teenage horror fan becomes convinced that his charming new neighbor is a vampire—but nobody believes him. Desperate for help, Charley Brewster turns to Peter Vincent, a washed-up television horror host who has spent his career pretending to battle monsters. Funny, stylish, spooky, and filled with practical-effects vampire horror, Fright Night remains one of the great horror-comedies of the 1980s. It combines the vampire-next-door premise with suburban paranoia, late-night horror television, supernatural action, and the realization that imaginary courage may suddenly need to become real.

From Empire of Wild and The Village to The Lost Boys, Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives, The Collector, and Fright Night, this week in horror history proves that the most dangerous monsters do not always remain hidden. Sometimes they wear the face of someone you love, live inside your community, move into the house next door, or rise from the grave when lightning strikes.

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🎵 Music by Ray Mattis 👉 Check out Ray’s incredible work here !
👨‍💼 Executive Producers: Rob Fields, Bobbletopia.com
🎥 Produced by: Daniel Wilder
🌐 Explore more terrifying tales at: WeeklySpooky.com

Summerween arrives with a laugh you can hear from across the midway. In this July edition of Monthly Spooky, Henrique Couto and Michelle dive into Laughing Sal, the towering carnival animatronic whose haunting mechanical cackle became American folklore. They explore how this six-foot funhouse nightmare evolved from a popular midway attraction into a cryptid-like legend—appearing in movies, museums, and paranormal stories. Discover the strange history behind one of America's creepiest cursed objects and why we fear the mechanical as much as the supernatural. Perfect for horror enthusiasts who love cryptid encounters and supernatural folklore.

They trace the strange history of this six-foot mechanical nightmare, from her early days as one of America’s most popular funhouse attractions to her appearances in movies, museums, and pop culture. Why did generations of amusement-park visitors love Laughing Sal? Why does her endless recorded laughter feel so threatening today? And how did a freckled, gap-toothed carnival figure become one of the world’s most uncanny animatronic dolls?Before entering Laughing Sal’s funhouse, Henrique and Michelle take a funny, creepy trip through the month’s strangest spooky news, cryptid folklore, paranormal investigations, UFO reports, and archaeological mysteries.Inside this episode:
Gracie the missing giraffe is finally found alive in Texas after spending two weeks on the loose.
Butler County, Ohio deputies confront a snake hiding beneath a resident’s bed.
Lansing, Michigan introduces the Hooga Hooga, a hairy, Bigfoot-like summer-camp cryptid said to tunnel beneath a local nature center.
A Japanese real-estate service sends investigators into stigmatized homes overnight to test them for ghosts and paranormal activity.
A rare Antarctic titanosaur fossil is rediscovered after sitting unnoticed inside a drawer for decades.
Centuries-old royal tombs in Barcelona contain unexpected remains and far more bodies than researchers anticipated.
Divers recover a haunting carved face and possible ritual animal bones from a Polish lake.
The Pentagon investigates a reported swarm of mysterious UAPs and watercraft near the Virginia coast.
Archaeologists enter a sealed chamber beneath a medieval Ukrainian castle and search for additional underground rooms.
Michelle closes the episode with a wonderfully unsettling Glitch in the Matrix story about a childhood McDonald’s collectible glass that apparently duplicates itself—complete with the exact same crack.

Come for Laughing Sal. Stay for cryptids, ghosts, UFOs, secret chambers, ancient burials, haunted real estate, bedroom snakes, and one deeply suspicious drinking glass. This funny and frightening Summerween episode is perfect for fans of creepy carnival history, animatronic horror, haunted attractions, paranormal podcasts, Bigfoot folklore, unexplained mysteries, Halloween in July, and the early spooky season.

🎧 LISTEN NOW and subscribe for spine-tingling horror stories every week!

🎉 Unlock exclusive bonus episodes and support the show on Patreon!
👉 WeeklySpooky.com/Join

📬 Contact Us / Submit Your Horror Story!
Twitter: @WeeklySpooky
Facebook: facebook.com/WeeklySpooky
Email: WeeklySpooky@gmail.com

🎵 Music by Ray Mattis 👉 Check out Ray’s incredible work here !
👨‍💼 Executive Producers: Rob Fields, Bobbletopia.com
🎥 Produced by: Daniel Wilder
🌐 Explore more terrifying tales at: WeeklySpooky.com

Halloween in July begins with classic old time radio horror, vintage suspense, gothic mystery, witchcraft, Lights Out terror, and spooky season nightmares.

Unknown Broadcast returns with an extra-large Halloween-in-summer transmission featuring six eerie radio dramas from CBS Radio Mystery Theater, Escape, Suspense, The Whistler, Lights Out, and The Mysterious Traveler. This classic OTR horror lineup includes Here Goes the Bride, Ancient Sorceries, The Lord of the Witch Doctors, Mirage, Cat Wife, and Beware of Tomorrow — stories of haunted brides, occult villages, witch doctors, jealous murder, catlike transformation, killer robots, artificial life, and sci-fi horror from the Golden Age of radio.

👰 “Here Goes the Bride” — CBS Radio Mystery Theater
A gothic old time radio mystery about a new bride, a haunted estate, a dead first wife, ghostly voices, family secrets, and a honeymoon poisoned by jealousy. Perfect for listeners searching for CBS Radio Mystery Theater horror, E.G. Marshall, gothic radio drama, haunted bride stories, and classic supernatural suspense.
🧙 “Ancient Sorceries” — Escape / Algernon Blackwood
A traveler enters a strange Welsh village where cats, witchcraft, occult temptation, and ancient supernatural forces blur the line between folklore and nightmare. A must-hear for fans of Algernon Blackwood, Escape radio show, witchcraft horror, supernatural folklore, occult radio drama, and classic Halloween stories.
🦁 “The Lord of the Witch Doctors” — Suspense / John Dickson Carr
Suspense delivers a vintage radio thriller of jungle danger, drums in the night, colonial intrigue, murder, hidden power, witch doctor terror, and John Dickson Carr mystery. This one brings classic Suspense radio drama, old time radio adventure, murder mystery, and psychological dread into the Halloween in July mix.
🌫️ “Mirage” — The Whistler
A jealous murder plot becomes a trap of guilt, deception, false appearances, and noir suspense. The Whistler turns obsession into punishment in a classic radio crime drama built around betrayal, confession, and the deadly price of believing your own illusion.
🐈 “Cat Wife” — Lights Out / Arch Oboler
One of the strongest horror hooks in the broadcast: a miserable marriage, a cruel husband, and a wife who may be transforming into something feline, furious, and not entirely human. Arch Oboler’s Lights Out brings surreal body horror, domestic terror, cat horror, and vintage radio nightmare fuel.
🤖 “Beware of Tomorrow” — The Mysterious Traveler
The night ends with classic sci-fi horror about artificial life, mechanical men, experimental brains, and the terrifying future of human invention. Long before modern fears about artificial intelligence and killer robots, The Mysterious Traveler warned listeners to beware of tomorrow.

This episode is built for fans of old time radio horror, OTR suspense, classic radio drama, vintage horror radio, Halloween in July, Summerween, spooky season podcasts, CBS Radio Mystery Theater, Escape radio show, Suspense radio drama, The Whistler, Lights Out, Arch Oboler, The Mysterious Traveler, Algernon Blackwood, John Dickson Carr, gothic horror, witchcraft stories, haunted bride tales, cat horror, sci-fi horror, killer robots, and classic supernatural mystery.

Six stories. Six doors into the dark. A haunted bride waits at Bon Repos, an occult village purrs with ancient sorcery, jungle drums summon a witch doctor, a mirage turns murder inside out, a cat wife claws at sanity, and tomorrow arrives with metal hands.

Halloween may still be months away, but Unknown Broadcast is already tuning the static toward spooky season.

🎧 LISTEN NOW and subscribe for spine-tingling horror stories every week!

🎉 Unlock exclusive bonus episodes and support the show on Patreon!
👉 WeeklySpooky.com/Join

📬 Contact Us / Submit Your Horror Story!
Twitter: @WeeklySpooky
Facebook: facebook.com/WeeklySpooky
Email: WeeklySpooky@gmail.com

🎵 Music by Ray Mattis 👉 Check out Ray’s incredible work here !
👨‍💼 Executive Producers: Rob Fields, Bobbletopia.com
🎥 Produced by: Daniel Wilder
🌐 Explore more terrifying tales at: WeeklySpooky.com

Celebrate Summerween and Halloween in July with four complete narrated Halloween horror stories featuring Bigfoot, vampires, zombies, demons, supernatural folklore, and terrifying encounters after dark.

 In this special Weekly Spooky horror compilation, a night watchman is hunted across a remote wind farm by a violent Sasquatch, a centuries-old vampire couple spends its anniversary inside a shopping mall after closing, a bicycle courier risks his life delivering supplies during the zombie apocalypse, and a desperate manager discovers that his mysterious new employer may be recruiting workers for Hell itself.

These four scary stories combine Bigfoot horror, Sasquatch attacks, vampire horror, zombie apocalypse survival, demonic bargains, workplace horror, dark comedy, supernatural suspense, cryptid encounters, and Halloween campfire storytelling into one feature-length audio horror anthology.

Start spooky season early with this Summerween horror special, perfect for listeners searching for Halloween stories, scary stories, horror fiction, creepypasta, cryptid stories, vampire fiction, zombie horror, supernatural thrillers, narrated horror podcasts, and frightening stories told around the campfire.

“I Guard Windmills, and I’m Not Sure If I’ll Survive the Shift” Written by Michael Kelso
A survivor of two disastrous supernatural jobs accepts an overnight security position at a remote wind farm. But when he discovers a burned turbine and evidence of something enormous moving through the surrounding forest, his quiet night shift becomes a brutal chase involving a furious Bigfoot with a violent grudge. 
“A Night at the Galleria” Written by Rob Fields
A seemingly young couple hides inside a shopping mall for an after-hours anniversary celebration. When three thieves break into the deserted galleria, they have no idea that the romantic strangers watching them have remained together since the Black Death—or what the ancient vampires intend to do next.
“Send Beer” Written by Michelle Antisocial
In a city devastated by the zombie apocalypse, bicycle courier Felix and a flock of homing pigeons keep isolated survivors supplied with groceries and medicine. But when a regular customer stops responding and one of the birds returns covered in blood, a routine welfare check reveals an infected family and an unexpectedly useful bottle of vodka.
“Torture and Other Job Skills” Written by Killian Crane
After losing the management position that defined his life, a cruel and desperate man answers a mysterious help-wanted advertisement. The address leads him to a black-glass office tower where revenge, torture, and complete moral surrender are not workplace violations—they are requirements for employment.

Turn down the lights, escape the summer heat, and celebrate Halloween in July with four tales of monsters, bloodsuckers, the undead, and infernal employment. Summerween begins now on Weekly Spooky.

🎧 LISTEN NOW and subscribe for spine-tingling horror stories every week!

🎉 Unlock exclusive bonus episodes and support the show on Patreon!
👉 WeeklySpooky.com/Join

📬 Contact Us / Submit Your Horror Story!
Twitter: @WeeklySpooky
Facebook: facebook.com/WeeklySpooky
Email: WeeklySpooky@gmail.com

🎵 Music by Ray Mattis 👉 Check out Ray’s incredible work here !
👨‍💼 Executive Producers: Rob Fields, Bobbletopia.com
🎥 Produced by: Daniel Wilder
🌐 Explore more terrifying tales at: WeeklySpooky.com

Join filmmaker Henrique Couto as Cutting Deep into Horror explores The Houses October Built (2014)—a found footage nightmare about five friends hunting the most extreme haunted houses across America. Discover how this supernatural folklore film captures real haunted-house horror, extreme-tourism fears, and the dark secrets lurking behind roadside attractions. Perfect for early Halloween spooky season listening.

Henrique is joined by Rachael Redolfi for a spoiler-filled review of director Bobby Roe’s Halloween horror film, which blends fictional found footage with real haunted attractions, genuine haunt performers and documentary-style material.The group’s road trip becomes increasingly dangerous as their search for a secret underground attraction called the Blue Skeleton draws the attention of masked performers who begin following, filming and confronting them far beyond the supposed safety of the haunts.

Henrique and Rachael discuss the film’s documentary origins, its countdown toward October 31 and the way it transforms the excitement of Halloween tourism into something threatening and deeply uncomfortable.The conversation explores:
The documentary origins of The Houses October Built
Real haunted houses and Halloween attractions
Henrique and Rachael’s personal haunt experiences
Touch passes and interactive haunted attractions
The mystery surrounding the Blue Skeleton
Haunted-house actors dealing with frightened or violent guests
Extreme haunt legends and McKamey Manor
The difference between theatrical scares and genuine abuse
Why human villains can be more frightening than supernatural monsters
Comparisons with Hell House LLC
Then Henrique and Rachael go completely behind the curtain to explain The Houses October Built ending, including the kidnapping at the Halloween festival, the group being separated, the coffins, the threat of being burned alive and Brandy’s horrifying buried-alive finale.Does the movie’s ambiguous conclusion make it more frightening? Is the Blue Skeleton an extreme haunted attraction, a criminal organization or something even darker? And why does this unsettling movie continue to stand out among modern Halloween found footage films?Celebrate Summerween, enjoy some Halloween in July horror, and begin building your early Halloween movie watchlist with The Houses October Built.

Next time on Cutting Deep into Horror, Henrique and Rachael continue their Summerween haunted-attraction double feature with Hell House LLC.

🎧 LISTEN NOW and subscribe for spine-tingling horror stories every week!

🎉 Unlock exclusive bonus episodes and support the show on Patreon!
👉 WeeklySpooky.com/Join

📬 Contact Us / Submit Your Horror Story!
Twitter: @WeeklySpooky
Facebook: facebook.com/WeeklySpooky
Email: WeeklySpooky@gmail.com

🎵 Music by Ray Mattis 👉 Check out Ray’s incredible work here !
👨‍💼 Executive Producers: Rob Fields, Bobbletopia.com
🎥 Produced by: Daniel Wilder
🌐 Explore more terrifying tales at: WeeklySpooky.com