With Halloween right around the corner, all you’re probably thinking about is getting into costume, eating tons of candy, and watching the scariest horror movies with you friends. However, with the massive workload that college brings, it’s hard right now to get into the Halloween spirit.
Well I have the solution to your problem!
When you don’t have time to sit down and watch a horror movie, a podcast is the next best thing! You can download a podcast right onto your phone for just about anything you’re passionate about. Whether you’re into politics, movies, books, mental health, conspiracy theories, or literally anything else, there’s a podcast out there for you. The great thing about podcasts is that you can play them anytime, anywhere: in your room while you study, on your walk to class, on a weekend when you have nothing to do, and much more!
Below is a list of my top 5 favorite podcasts that will surely get your spine tingling this holiday season.
1. Dead Meat
If you’re a real horror nerd, then you’ll love listening to the Dead Meat podcast, starring James A. Janisse and Chelsea Rebecca, boyfriend and girlfriend “who like to get scared together!” The Dead Meat podcast—an extension of the YouTube channel with the same name—is overloaded with horror movie reviews, background into film history, and just topics that will make your skin crawl! Listening to these two obsess over horror movie villains and dive into their love for the art of film will have you wanting to put down your textbook and turn on a horror movie so you can be a part of the hype. There are so many great episodes, but my some of my favorites would have to be “Horror Movies Inspired by True Events,” “Final Girl,” and “Guess the Tagline!”
2. Halloween Unmasked
With the new Halloween coming out, symbolizing 40 years after the first time Laurie Strode narrowly escaped Michael Myers, I thought it was best to catch up on my movie knowledge about the famous Halloween franchise. This podcast is a series entirely devoted to diving deep into the director John Carpenter’s inspiration for the masked killer that would come to terrify millions of moviegoers, along with other people involved in the making of Halloween. If you’re a Michael Myers fan, or just someone who wants to learn more about the process of how this revolutionary horror movie made, then this is the podcast for you!
My favorite episode: “Episode 4: Jamie Lee Curtis: Final Girl and Hollywood Survivor”
3. Haunted Places
Haunted road trip! In this podcast, each episode focuses on a different haunted location around the world and the details of how it came to be that way. Each episode opens up with the speaker, Greg Polcyn, giving a spine-chilling reading of some of the most prominent events that occurred at each location in a storytelling format. This is a personal favorite of mine because I have always been interested in the paranormal and how common it is for people to say that different places are haunted. If you love shows or documentaries about haunted places, then listening to this podcast is definitely the way to go if you want to have a spooky time!
My favorite episodes: “Episode 13: Gettysburg Battlefield” and “Episode 23: Villisca Axe Murder House”
4. Stuff You Missed in History Class
Tracy Wilson does endless amounts of research into people, places, stories, art, and movies throughout history (all cited with each episode) to give listeners quality information about the creepy topics that speaker, Holly Frey, discusses at length. Together, they cover a variety of topics, such as people in the horror movie industry like Lon Chaney, or people in parts of history who come to an unexplained and mysterious demise like Theodosia Burr Alston (a woman mostly known today by her focus in Hamilton: An American Musical). If you’re a history buff who wants to learn about the frightening realities of the past to get in the mood for Halloween, then this podcast is a must for the rest of the month.
My favorite episodes: “Building Disneyland’s Haunted Mansion Pt. 1,” “Building Disneyland’s Haunted Mansion Pt.2,” and “The Mysterious Disappearance of Theodosia Burr Alston”
5. Scary Stories Told in the Dark
Audiobook: Horror edition. This one is for the people who love listening to scary stories being read with dialect and tone. In each episode, there are 2-4 stories written by various authors that are read aloud by Otis Jiry, a man with a captivating and quite unsettling voice that makes for a perfect recording of terrifying tales. I usually listen to this podcast on the way to class or on the weekends when I have a longer period of time in my day to pay attention to what’s happening. My favorite episodes are Season 1, Episode 21: “Retrospection,” and Season 2, Episode 13: “Horror Finds a Home.”