Weekly Spooky | Scary Stories for Spooky Season

Dracula, The Hills Have Eyes, Nope, Maximum Overdrive, and Deep Blue Sea headline this episode of This Week in Horror History, covering July 20 through July 26. Summer horror gets seductive, sun-scorched, mechanical, extraterrestrial, and shark-infested as we explore gothic vampires, desert survival horror, reverse-horror gaming, Jordan Peele’s terrifying vision of spectacle, Stephen King’s killer-machine apocalypse, and genetically engineered sharks loose inside an underwater laboratory.

  Inside this episode:
July 20, 1979 — Dracula releases in the United States
Frank Langella gives Count Dracula a dangerous combination of gothic romance, theatrical charm, and supernatural menace. This version of Bram Stoker’s vampire proves that evil does not always need to force its way through the door. Sometimes it gets invited inside.
July 22, 1977 — The Hills Have Eyes premieres in Tucson, Arizona
Wes Craven turns an ordinary family road trip into a brutal desert survival nightmare. When a shortcut leaves the Carter family stranded far from civilization, the open landscape becomes a trap filled with heat, isolation, violence, and another family watching from the hills.
July 23, 2020 — Carrion releases
This reverse-horror video game flips the familiar monster formula by letting players become the creature. A growing mass of teeth, tendrils, and hunger escapes through a research facility while terrified scientists and guards discover that containment has completely failed.
July 22, 2022 — Nope releases in U.S. theaters
Jordan Peele turns the sky into a haunted house in a strange and ambitious collision of UFO horror, creature-feature spectacle, Hollywood exploitation, western imagery, animal behavior, and the dangerous human need to capture the impossible on camera.

Deep-Cut Spotlight — Maximum Overdrive
Stephen King steps behind the camera for one of the loudest and most gloriously unhinged killer-machine movies of the 1980s. After Earth passes through the tail of a comet, trucks, vending machines, arcade games, lawn equipment, and other everyday technology suddenly turn against humanity. At the Dixie Boy truck stop, a group of survivors becomes trapped by eighteen-wheelers that appear to have developed personalities, grudges, and a deep hatred of human beings. With a goblin-faced truck, massive explosions, diner panic, homicidal machinery, and AC/DC blasting through the chaos, Maximum Overdrive remains a greasy, absurd, and unforgettable piece of Stephen King horror history.

Horror Birthdays This Week: 
Diana Rigg, Josh Hartnett, Willem Dafoe, and Lynda Carter enter the birthday roll, bringing connections to Theatre of Blood, Last Night in Soho, Halloween H20, The Faculty, 30 Days of Night, Trap, Shadow of the Vampire, The Lighthouse, Nosferatu, and The Initiation of Sarah.

Weekly Recommendation — Deep Blue Sea Researchers inside an isolated underwater facility genetically engineer mako sharks while searching for a medical breakthrough. Unfortunately, making enormous predators more intelligent turns out to be a catastrophically bad idea. Packed with violent storms, flooding corridors, underwater laboratories, corporate hubris, giant sharks, and one of the most memorable shock moments in 1990s horror, Deep Blue Sea remains a fast, fun, and wonderfully ridiculous summer creature feature. From Dracula and The Hills Have Eyes to Carrion, Nope, Maximum Overdrive, and Deep Blue Sea, this week in horror history proves that summer terror can wait inside a gothic mansion, watch from the desert hills, escape from a laboratory, descend from the sky, take control of an eighteen-wheeler, or circle silently beneath the water.

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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

The murder of Brian Barrett became one of the most disturbing true crime cases of the early internet age: a deadly online love triangle built on catfishing, fake identities, chatroom deception, jealousy, and obsession.

In 2006, 22-year-old Brian Barrett was shot and killed outside Dynabrade Corporation in Clarence, New York, near Buffalo. At first, the murder seemed almost motiveless. Brian was a college student, athlete, Little League coach, and future teacher with no obvious enemies. But investigators soon uncovered a digital trail involving Pogo chatrooms, Yahoo instant messages, online romance, and a username that would become infamous: TalHotBlond.

This episode of Terrifying & True investigates the real story behind the Brian Barrett murder, the TalHotBlond case, and the online deception that led to violence. Thomas Montgomery, a 46-year-old married father, had been posing online as an 18-year-old Marine sniper named Tommy. Mary Shieler, a 45-year-old mother in West Virginia, was posing as her own teenage daughter, using the girl’s photos and voice to maintain the fantasy. Brian Barrett entered the situation as himself — a real 22-year-old man caught between two adults hiding behind fake ide

As the lies unraveled, Montgomery became consumed by jealousy, humiliation, and obsession. The online rivalry moved from Pogo games and instant messages into the workplace, where Brian and Thomas both worked. Then, on September 15, 2006, Brian walked to his pickup truck after his shift and was ambushed with a .30-caliber rifle.

We examine the evidence against Thomas Montgomery, the DNA on the peach pit, the missing rifle, the chat logs, the TalHotBlond deception, Mary Shieler’s role, and why the case became known as the internet love triangle murder. But at the center of the story is not a screen name, a scandal, or a twist. It is Brian Barrett — a son, brother, friend, coach, student, and future teacher whose life was stolen by obsession.

We’re telling that story tonight.

🎧 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

Unknown Broadcast returns with a full night of horror fiction anthology classics: CBS Radio Mystery Theater, Escape, Suspense, and The Whistler. Four eerie stories of supernatural mystery, impossible apparitions, and noir crime spanning the Golden Age of radio drama. Immersive vintage suspense for late-night listening.

Tonight’s eerie OTR lineup includes “The Walls of Jericho,” “Three Good Witnesses,” “The Singing Walls,” and “The Avengers” — four strange stories of impossible apparitions, wartime murder, hidden bodies, haunted walls, stolen gold, ghostly revenge, and crimes that refuse to stay buried.

🔥 “The Walls of Jericho” — CBS Radio Mystery Theater
A supernatural old-time radio mystery about impossible predictions, strange apparitions, psychic terror, and a private club where the impossible starts becoming real.
🚂 “Three Good Witnesses” — EscapeA
 classic radio espionage thriller set aboard the Taurus Express, filled with wartime danger, forged papers, murder, spies, and deadly secrets.
🎶 “The Singing Walls” — Suspense
A noir-style vintage radio suspense story involving amnesia, blood, a strange hotel room, music behind the walls, and a mystery that grows darker with every clue.
⛏️ “The Avengers” — The Whistler
A haunting radio crime drama about stolen gold, brotherly betrayal, murder, guilt, ghostly revenge, and the terrible price of greed.

Four classic radio dramas. Four rooms where the walls are listening. Tonight, the devil comes down the chimney, spies ride the Taurus Express, music whispers through hotel walls, and the dead return for revenge.

🎧 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

Demons, Satanic cults, and supernatural revenge collide in this horror fiction anthology. A runaway discovers a forbidden book devoted to an imprisoned goddess. A mercenary raids an asylum to film a cult. A cursed man awakens to humiliation and dark magic. Four tales of demonic possession, occult rituals, and vampire mythology—expertly narrated with dark comedy and spine-tingling twists. Perfect late-night horror for spooky season enthusiasts.

“Sin” — by Rob Fields
A murderous runaway hiding inside a Catholic academy discovers a forbidden scripture devoted to Hellweaver—and begins a bloody ritual to become the imprisoned demon goddess’s devoted daughter.
“Gamble with the Devil” — by David O’Hanlon
A delusional soldier of fortune hires a desperate cameraman to film his promotional reel, then drags him into an abandoned asylum for a heavily armed assault on a Satanic cult whose rituals have summoned something horrifyingly real.
“Breaking the Seal” — by Douglas Waltz
After a drunken encounter with a practicing witch, a hungover man awakens with a bloody pentagram on his chest and an unstoppable bodily curse that only the woman he insulted can remove.
“The Bad Schoolgirl” — by Rob Fields
A foul-mouthed, daywalking Master Vampire enters Strickfield High and follows a squad of vampire cheerleaders into the woods, where stolen souls are being used to power their supernatural jewelry.

🎧 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

What could be worse than dying? Waking up after everyone has already buried you.
Weekly Spooky presents a complete reading of “The Premature Burial” by Edgar Allan Poe, a claustrophobic gothic horror story built around one of humanity’s oldest and most terrifying fears: being buried alive.

Tormented by a medical condition that can make him appear dead, a man becomes consumed by accounts of premature burial. He studies coffins, graves, crypts, and horrifying cases of people awakening beneath the earth. As his obsession grows, he takes increasingly desperate precautions to ensure that he will never open his eyes inside a sealed coffin.
But fear has a way of following us into the darkness.

This classic Edgar Allan Poe audiobook is perfect for listeners searching for buried alive horror stories, gothic horror, classic scary stories, macabre fiction, claustrophobic horror, literary horror, and complete Edgar Allan Poe readings.

Tonight, the most terrifying place imaginable is not a haunted house.
It is six feet underground.

🎧 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