Saturday, September 14, 2019

Spooky podcasts, part 1! The Wrong Station

Welp, it's September 14th. That's close enough to October for me. Time to get the Halloween festivities started!

I listen to a lot of podcasts while I'm driving. I enjoy a variety: history, D&D, culture, social issues, narrated stories. But my favorite, by far, are horror podcasts. And one of my absolute favorite horror podcasts is The Wrong Station.



Imagine you’re driving down a dark, lonely road late at night. To keep yourself awake you turn on the radio and flip through the stations. There’s some static, a couple old crooners.  Then you come across a voice. The narrator is warm, genial. He speaks directly to you as if you and he are old friends. He wants to tell you a story. Music drifts in. A piano. Pleasant at first. Perhaps a little melancholy. Perhaps a tad ominous. 

Something isn’t quite right. A subtle, but unmistakable dread drips into your gut. The narrator continues and you slowly realize you’ve turned into, well, the wrong station.

The Wrong Station draws from the same slow-burn horror of classic radio programs such as “Quiet, Please” or “Lights Out”. It is like the Twilight Zone, but with more body horror. Sometimes the full horror only dawns on the at the end. Sometimes the exact nature of the horror is left mysterious and only hinted at. But you know you have glimpsed a dark place and you cannot fully shake off the cold whispers you have heard.

Music and sound effects are rare, so there is little to distract you as the narrator reels you into deeper, darker waters.  I would highly recommend The Wrong Station to anyone who likes a good slow-build dread in their scary stories.

And if you're not sure where to start, one of my current favorite episodes is Classic Car. It gives you a good sense of the show's flavor.

You can find episodes at this website:

Episodes are also available on Apple Podcasts and anywhere where you can find podcasts.

Follow them on Twitter at: TheWrongStation