By, Alex Maxwell, Editor in Chief
Lead Photo Credit: NeONBRAND
If there is one thing I love more than pizza, sleeping in, and procrastinating doing my homework, it would be watching shows related to one of my favorite holidays: Halloween.
Ah, watching videos and listening to podcasts about fictional and unexplainable entities, knowing full well that if I watch them I won’t be able to go to sleep until about thirty minutes before my alarm goes off. Is this a personality trait or an unhealthy obsession? Who knows.
Anyway, here is a list of the top 5 ways to get spooked for Halloween.
TheVolgun is a Youtube creator who uploads videos about the Secure Contain Protect Foundation, most commonly known as SCPs. Although most people may recognize this from the indie game called SCP Containment Breach, it was originally founded on 4chan. Fan made creatures can be found on its wiki, The SCP Foundation.
For his channel, however, TheVolgun finds SCPs and reads their information like a scientist cataloging a report on an experiment. Depending on the SCP, it can be amusing, horrifying or just plain absurd, each in the best possible way. My personal favorites are linked and are as follows: The Infinite Ikea, Reluctant Dimension Hopper and the one that still haunts me, Cousin Johnny.
2. Goosebumps
If there is anything you should have read while you were a kid, it should have been Goosebumps. These books are short, easy to read and an absolute ride to experience.
The show only made them more terrifying. Say Cheese and Die has several scenes that are so burned into my brain that I won’t ever own an antique camera. Night of the Living Dummy is probably the reason why so many people have trust issues around ventriloquist dolls, because everyone knows better than to call them dummies.
If you would like to read Goosebumps, you can find the series at your local library and the TV show is available for streaming on Netflix.
3. Haunted Places
Have you ever wanted to go creepy places, but they are either too expensive to visit? Or maybe you just don’t feel like risking getting possessed because finals are coming up and you need to get to class? If either of those things are true for you, Haunted Places is the podcast for you.
Join Greg Polcyn as he opens a portal to another time and place, letting you experience the why and how behind the world’s most haunted places. Some of you may recognize a few of the places he talks about such as the: Winchester Mystery House, The Cecil Hotel, and the Island of Dolls.
This podcast isn’t just someone someone researching and reading off a page of notes, Polcyn is putting you in the shoes of those who were there and letting you experience everything for yourself, instead of by secondhand accounts that will leave you mesmerized and wanting more.
You can find Haunted Places on the Apple Podcasts App.
4. And That’s Why We Drink
What goes better together than peanut butter and jelly? True crime and the supernatural, obviously. Although this podcast has a much more jovial atmosphere than some of the other items on this list, it still has a lot of stories that will creep under your skin.
Whether bodies in the crawl spaces of a birthday clown’s house gives you goosebumps, or the thought of unseen forces messing with you from the other side that makes you slightly paranoid, Christine Schaefer and Em Schulz will always have something for you to listen to and go, ‘what did I just listen to’?
Although I have not gotten too far into this podcast series, I enjoyed Episode 6: The Human Hair Version and the Worst Social Studies Class Ever, which goes over a toy that should have never even been created in the first place, Robert the Doll and the insane kidnapping of Elizabeth Smart.
If you want to have trust issues forever and never want to move into a new house, then Episode 4: Demon Pigs from Hell and a Call From Tamara, a little tale about a family who purposely bought a home where an entire family got murder in a town called Amityville.
Finally, if you need another reason to drink, whether it is something from the vine or a milkshake, there is the bizarre case of the missing Sodder children, who may have been either killed or kidnapped by Italian Mafia.
You can find And That’s Why We Drink on Spotify, Stitcher, and Apple Podcasts.
5. Lore
Oh look, another podcast you are missing out on.
Lore is exactly like it sounds. It is hosted by Aaron Mahnke and also has an Amazon Prime show under the same name if you are a more visual person who doesn’t really like listening to podcasts.
Each episode is about a common practice at a certain time, an event and its after effects, and beliefs such as ghosts, fae, and magic. Some are more horrifying than others and a few are just curiosities that can’t really be explained.
One of the first episodes is about tuberculosis and different methods some town used to prevent other family members getting sick after one of their loved ones have passed on.
Another is about the Hoosac Tunnel in Massachusetts that killed over 200 people. Now, there is a popular belief that the souls of these 200 victims never left. Mahnke goes over eyewitness accounts and the history of the tunnel to let you decide if the happenings at the Hoosac Tunnel are just figments of the imagination or are restless spirits stuck in a dark place they can never escape.
Lore can be found on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
I hope you all have a very happy and horrifying Halloween.
Sleep well tonight.
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