Weekly Spooky | Scary Stories for Spooky Season

Summer horror gets radioactive, gothic, mechanical, and undead in this episode of This Week in Horror History, covering the week of June 29 through July 5. This time, we’re crawling through giant insect mayhem, modern gothic literature, Japanese cyberpunk body horror, George A. Romero’s underground zombie apocalypse, and one deeply twisted Italian gothic shocker from the early 1960s. 

Inside this episode:
June 29, 1977 — Empire of the Ants opens in New York
A radioactive drive-in creature feature turns Florida real estate, toxic waste, Joan Collins, and giant ants into pure summer horror chaos. J
une 30, 2020 — Mexican Gothic is published
Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s modern gothic landmark sends Noemí Taboada into a poisonous mansion where family secrets, sickness, inheritance, and fungal horror take root.
July 1, 1989 — Tetsuo: The Iron Man releases in Japan
Shinya Tsukamoto’s black-and-white cyberpunk nightmare turns the human body into metal, noise, panic, rust, drills, and unforgettable industrial body horror.
July 3, 1985 — Day of the Dead receives its New York/limited release
George A. Romero traps the end of the world inside a military bunker, where zombies own the surface and the survivors may be more dangerous than the dead.

Deep-Cut Spotlight — The Horrible Dr. Hichcock
Barbara Steele stars in Riccardo Freda’s morbid Italian gothic horror film about obsession, death, forbidden desire, and a mansion where the past refuses to stay buried. Horror Birthdays This Week:
Dan Aykroyd, Larry David, Tom Cruise, and Gloria Stuart all land in this week’s horror-adjacent birthday roll, from paranormal comedy and classic Universal horror to vampire films, alien invasion, and anxiety comedy.

Weekly Recommendation — Tales of Terror
Roger Corman, Edgar Allan Poe, Vincent Price, Peter Lorre, and Basil Rathbone bring classic anthology horror, gothic dread, revenge, madness, and candlelit old-school atmosphere to this week’s recommendation.

From Empire of the Ants and Mexican Gothic to Tetsuo: The Iron Man, Day of the Dead, The Horrible Dr. Hichcock, and Tales of Terror, this week in horror history proves that summer is never safe from monsters, machines, mansions, zombies, or the dead things waiting underground.

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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

What really happened to the children of Hamelin on June 26, 1284? This June on Monthly Spooky, Henrique and Michelle follow the real history behind the Pied Piper of Hamelin—from the medieval town chronicle and the legend of 130 missing children to theories involving plague, the Children’s Crusade, dancing mania, mass migration, and a brightly dressed recruiter known as a “locator.” Then the show takes its usual turn into the month’s funniest, creepiest, and most bewildering paranormal news, bizarre archaeology, weird science, unexplained mysteries, strange animals, haunted houses, and new horror movies.Inside this episode:
The Pied Piper of Hamelin, June 26, 1284, and the earliest surviving evidence behind one of history’s darkest fairy tales
Why plague, the Children’s Crusade, medieval dancing mania, German migration, and supernatural forces have all been proposed as explanations
A 7,000-year-old mass grave at Vráble, Slovakia, containing 78 bodies—and 77 headless skeletons
Reported ghostly child footprints, handprints, and unexplained noises inside an appliance shop in Mendoza, Argentina
United Airlines Flight 236 turning back toward Newark after a Bluetooth device appeared under the alarming name “BOMB”
The still-unfolding search for Gracie, the giraffe who escaped Cedar Hollow Ranch and disappeared into the rugged Texas Hill Country
Scientists baking sourdough bread with yeast recovered from Ötzi the Iceman’s 5,300-year-old mummy
The Ocean Census announcing 1,121 strange marine species—including a ghost shark and a mysterious worm living inside a deep-sea “glass castle”
A live frog named Greg discovered inside a sealed Woolworths bag of lettuce in Esperance, Western Australia
Australia’s record seizure of 100,000 illegal Madagascar hissing and Dubia cockroaches
Virginia’s allegedly haunted Octagon Mansion, a Civil War-era paranormal landmark listed for only $295,000
Henrique’s spoiler-light theater reactions to Scary Movie (2026), Passenger, and The Death of Robin Hood
A terrifying Reddit “glitch in reality” story about a finished basement that suddenly ceased to exist—and the disturbing gas-leak explanation behind it
Henrique’s growing Dayton folklore TikTok audience, local urban legends, and the viewers determined to correct every detail
New here? Monthly Spooky is the paranormal comedy and weird-news companion to Weekly Spooky, hosted by filmmaker Henrique Couto and Michelle. Every episode mixes haunted history, creepy folklore, unexplained mysteries, bizarre science, strange but true news, horror movie reviews, and the kind of late-night conversation that makes frightening stories even more fun.Follow or subscribe so you never miss the last Monday of the month. Which mystery gets under your skin most: Hamelin’s missing children, Slovakia’s headless dead, Mendoza’s phantom footprints—or the house whose basement seemingly vanished? And seriously—how do you lose a giraffe?

🎧 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

Four chilling tales converge on one broadcast tonight. Conspiracy to Defraud weaves narcotics agents and deadly foreign intrigue. Then Taboo ventures into Carpathian darkness where village fears of werewolf horror may be terrifyingly real. Menace in Wax transforms a wartime London museum into a murder trap of espionage and hidden messages. Finally, The Whistler drifts through fog-shrouded shores where a harbor killing remains unsolved. Horror fiction anthology meets true crime mystery—expertly narrated supernatural folklore for the darkest hours.

Four stories. Four disguises. One broadcast that smiles politely while leading you deeper into the dark.

🎧 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

Late night horror fiction anthology featuring vampire stories that bite into four different corners of the undead mythos. From a daylight-walking Master Vampire made vulnerable by a solar eclipse, to supernatural romance in a convenience store and brutal strip club slaughter—these vampire horror tales deliver the dark supernatural folklore, mature themes and creature-feature terror that Weekly Spooky fans crave. Perfect for horror enthusiasts, scary story collectors, and late-night listeners seeking immersive, cinematic storytelling.

Inside this episode:
• Mortal Eclipse — by Rob Fields
A powerful Master Vampire becomes dangerously human during a rare solar eclipse, leaving her vulnerable to enemies who have been waiting for the perfect time to strike. What begins as a quiet moment above the city turns into a brutal vampire battle involving old grudges, dark magic, and the terrifying price of immortality.
• Vampire Night — by Joe Ruston
A group of women out for one wild night in Cleveland cross paths with a pack of vicious vampire punks, turning a strip club into a neon-lit slaughterhouse. As the bodies pile up, a bartender fights to survive a savage urban vampire attack that may not end when the sun comes up. 
• Stakes n’ Shoguns — by Dan Wilder
On New Year’s Eve, a man hoping to watch a bloody samurai movie in a grimy theater finds himself trapped with drunken vampires, bat swarms, a disgraced priest, and something that may be Count Dracula himself. It’s a filthy, funny, chaotic vampire nightmare soaked in grindhouse energy and midnight-movie madness.
• Convenience Store Vampire — by Douglas Waltz
A bored night-shift clerk at a convenience store meets a mysterious woman who appears without setting off the doorbell and slowly draws him into her strange, romantic, undead world. When violence erupts during a robbery, his ordinary life ends… and eternity begins.
 
If you love vampire horror podcasts, scary vampire stories, bloodsucker fiction, supernatural romance, punk vampires, Dracula horror, midnight movie monsters, vampire attacks, and darkly funny horror, this compilation delivers a bloody mix of action, atmosphere, comedy, romance, and undead terror.

🎧 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

Unsolved murders, true crime mystery, and urban legends collide in this 10-part horror anthology. From Johnny Gosch's vanishing to the Keddie Cabin bloodbath, Mandela Effect phenomenon, Men in Black encounters, and the legendary Angikuni Lake disappearance—explore real cases, cryptid folklore, and paranormal gaps that blur fact and fiction. Perfect for late night listening.

🎧 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