Weekly Spooky | Scary Stories for Spooky Season

As Halloween season creeps closer, Terrifying & True begins the descent into darker stories with a special compilation of disappearances, ghost ships, lost colonies, missing people, wilderness mysteries, and unexplained cases that still haunt history.

This is Vanished Without a Trace — a chilling collection of scary true stories about the places where people entered the dark and never came back.

Inside this special Terrifying & True compilation:
The Lost Colony of Roanoke — An entire English settlement vanishes from early America, leaving behind one haunting clue and centuries of theories.
The Lost Franklin Expedition — A doomed Arctic voyage disappears into ice, starvation, fear, and one of exploration history’s most disturbing mysteries.
The Mary Celeste — A ship is found drifting across the Atlantic with its crew gone, its cargo intact, and no explanation that fully satisfies the imagination.
The Disappearance of Angela Hammond — A late-night phone call turns into a terrifying missing-person case that still chills those who hear it.
The Bennington Triangle — A quiet stretch of Vermont becomes linked to a series of strange disappearances, eerie folklore, and wilderness dread.
Dyatlov Pass Mystery — Nine hikers die in the Ural Mountains under circumstances that have fueled decades of fear, investigation, and speculation.
The Vanishing of Brandon Swanson — A young man disappears while speaking to his father on the phone, leaving behind one of modern true crime’s most haunting unanswered questions.
The Alaska Triangle — A massive wilderness region becomes infamous for vanished planes, missing travelers, strange legends, and stories that feel tailor-made for the Halloween season.

Together, these stories form a journey through real mystery, dark history, eerie folklore, and the unsettling truth that sometimes the scariest thing is not finding a body, a killer, or a confession. 

Sometimes the scariest thing is finding nothing at all.

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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

Hungry Ghost Month runs August 13 through September 10 in 2026, with the fifteenth-day Hungry Ghost Festival falling on August 27. Why do some getai and wayang performances in Singapore and Malaysia leave the entire front row empty?

Thursday Thrills explores the Chinese ghost folklore, religious traditions and regional beliefs behind seats reserved for unseen guests. Henrique traces the differences among the seventh lunar month, the Daoist Zhongyuan Festival, Buddhist Yulanpen or Ullambana observances, ancestor remembrance and offerings for wandering spirits. We also examine food, incense, joss paper and documented Ghost Month taboos involving roadside offerings, nighttime swimming, reserved seats and major life events.

From Taiwan's water lanterns and Hong Kong's Yu Lan traditions to Singaporean getai, this respectful supernatural folklore journey separates living cultural practice from sensational internet horror - and asks who a performance is really for when its best seats are left empty.

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

🎉 Unlock exclusive bonus episodes and support the show on Patreon!
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Twitter: @WeeklySpooky
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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

A vampire love triangle, paranormal romance, and deadly second chance collide in “The Ties That Bind” by Rob Fields—a mature vampire horror story set in the supernatural town of Strickfield. Buster Crane has never forgotten his childhood first love, Talia Mirren. He also cannot stop loving Romy Jillian, the mysterious woman whose pale skin, cold touch, and missing reflection reveal a terrifying secret: Romy is a vampire.

When Talia unexpectedly returns during Buster’s first year at Strickfield University, their long-lost romance reignites instantly. But Romy refuses to surrender the man she still loves. A confrontation inside a crowded nightclub pulls all three into a dangerous supernatural love triangle filled with jealousy, betrayal, blood, vampire transformations, violent revenge, and one final choice that could bind them together forever.

Perfect for fans of vampire stories, vampire romance, paranormal romance audiobooks, adult horror fiction, supernatural love triangles, dark fantasy, and narrated scary stories. Celebrate Summerween, Halloween in July, and Halloween in summer with the Weekly Spooky horror fiction anthology—and begin spooky season early with a seductive, dangerous story of love after death.

🎧 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

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.

🎧 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
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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

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