Bumps in the Night

Collection Summary

As the air cools and leaves turn, we get ready to celebrate All Hallows' Eve with candy, costumes, and horror-related content.

The Bumps in the Night collection features over 130 television and radio shows from the late 1950s to the 2000s, painting a rich picture of how topics related to the otherworldly and human anxieties about the supernatural have been approached in public broadcasting throughout the years. Many of the programs and series included in this collection were broadcast in October as stations joined in the fun of celebrating Halloween. However, one will also find programs broadcast throughout the year on topics such as local folklore and legends, like this episode of WUNC’s North Carolina: A Self Portrait (1976), in which “North Carolinians talk about faith healing and religion, ghost stories and other N.C. folklore, and geography.”

Whether you're looking for stories on UFOs and alien abductions, serial killers, abandoned and potentially haunted asylums, or even interviews with controversial demonologists, you're bound to find something that will send shivers down your spine or bring back memories of being a kid, listening to scary stories about something that definitely happened to a friend of a friend’s cousin.

Kathryn Tucker Windham’s ghostly friend, Jeffrey, makes an appearance in the collection, which also includes interviews and shows focused on various contributors to the horror genre, both in film and literature, such as Alfred Hitchcock, Edgar Allan Poe, and James Whale. After all, it's the perfect time to ask yourself, is Freddy Krueger scarier than Dracula? So turn off the lights, grab your favorite fall drink, and get ready to explore what goes bump in the night!