Spooktober is finally upon us. As the chilly nighttime air breaks the accustomed heat of the South Georgia day, a primal desire comes to the surface for most of us. We want to be scared. We want to cover our eyes and ears as some unspeakable horror unfolds before us. We want fright to consume us.

With the lackluster lineup of blockbuster horror movies this year, your best option for a good squirm may have to come from podcasts. For those of you who haven’t adopted the habitual podcast listening lifestyle, you’re in luck. You’ve got a lot of binge listening to do with these three twisted pods’.

Sword & Scale

Having just reached its 100^th episode, this true crime phenomenon is a staple for many podcast listeners. Host Mike Boudet recounts tales of murder, mayhem, and depravity in this thoroughly investigated eclectic series.  From Ted Bundy, crazed puppeteers, wannabe cannibals, and to harrowing tales of survival, this podcast is sure to have something that will keep you pressing play on the next episode. As you may expect, viewer discretion is extremely advised because you’ll find that the tagline proves true: “The worst monsters are real”.

Lore

Sometimes the truth behind the myths of old can make you question reality as we think we understand it. The thin veil blanketing our existence and keeping us comfortable is lifted by host Aaron Mahnke in this grim, soft-spoken podcast. We exist in a modern world ripe with superstition, but the centuries and millennia that have past left behind lore that still influences us today.

This bi-weekly podcast has eerie atmosphere in spades that serves as a crescendo until the last line of the show. By the time Mahnke brings the story full circle, you’ll be scrambling to don torches and garlic to hunt down the beasts that lie in wait in the dark corners of every room you step foot in.

Largely hailed as one of the best podcasts on the market, Lore was recently green-lit as a television series for Amazon Prime. If podcasts aren’t exactly your forte yet, feel free to catch some of the show’s best stories brought into this visual medium.

Spooked

A product of audio juggernaut NPR’s Snap Judgement podcast, the appropriately named Spooked podcast is everything you’d want during Halloween-time. Paranormal and supernatural experiences are told week-by-week by gifted story tellers in this creepily crafted collection of work. As opposed to the distance you allow yourself to create from the old-timey tales you may hear in Lore, these fresh horror stories are made even more terrifying by the idea that those telling them believe them to be true.

If you physically experience something ultra-terrestrial, all-the-while trying to convince yourself that it can’t possibly be true, then the situation has just justified its own means. It is real because your mind went through the ordeal. You felt the presence, saw the being, or just felt the mood change in the room. The idea that we believe something should not, CAN NOT exist in this realm, does not apply to those entities themselves. These are the questions raised by the Spooked podcast and unfortunately, those are just the one’s we allow ourselves to ask.

Happy spooking, my pretties.