This Week in Horror History | Saw, The Walking Dead, Ghostwatch & SIGNALIS (Oct 26–Nov 1)

0:01 The last week of October doesn't drift quietly into November. It arrives through radio static, a locked bathroom, and the glow of a screen that just might be watching back. A replica wakes beneath a cold sky. Two men wake in chains. Mars attacks America through a living room radio, while the dead claim cable television, and a British ghost hunt borrows the authority of Live news. This is Halloween history at full voltage. Machines that lie, broadcasts that bite, and houses designed to keep secrets. So check the dial, count the chains, and do not answer the tapping in the wall. Welcome back to This Week in Horror History, your weekly time machine through the creepiest anniversaries in film, TV, books, comics, and games. Tonight we're talking all about October 26th through November 1st. Coming up, Signalis wakes a machine on a frozen planet and asks what a promise really costs. Saw locks two strangers in a bathroom. and turns a tiny production into a global franchise. The War of the Worlds

1:34 weaponizes the trusted sound of breaking news, and The Walking Dead brings a full zombie apocalypse to Sunday night television. Then after the break, Ghostwatch turns the BBC's own familiar faces into the most dangerous special effect in the room. October 27th, 2022. Signalis launches, and survival horror receives a transmission from somewhere cold, bureaucratic, and deeply wrong. Developed by Rose Engine, the game follows Elster, a technician replica, who wakes from cryostasis inside a wrecked vessel. Her search for a missing partner pulls her through abandoned facilities, failing machinery, aggressive propaganda— and memories that refuse to stay filed away.

2:30 The old survival horror grammar returns. Scarce ammunition, tight inventory space, locked doors, and puzzles that make you study a room. Pixel-sharp figures move through brutalist corridors, while anime-like interruptions, repeated symbols, and damaged transmissions make the screen itself feel unreliable. The result is not only about escaping monsters. It's a melancholy story of identity, duty, and remembering a promise when reality can no longer hold still. You can play it right now by purchasing it for PC on Steam or the PlayStation 4 through the PlayStation Store. The PS4 edition is playable on PS5, so scare yourself tonight. And you might get a little depressed too, but hey, It's all for the spooky season, right? October 29th, 2004. Saw began its wide U.S. release, and one filthy bathroom became the most valuable piece of condemned real estate in modern horror. James Wan directed from Lee Wannell's screenplay, based on a story they developed together. Cary Elwes plays Dr. Lawrence Gordon. Wannell plays Adam. They wake chained at opposite ends of a decaying room, with a body between them, a clock running, and instructions that turn survival into an argument about how

4:04 far a person will truly go to live. The first film is smaller and more mystery-driven than the franchise's reputation would suggest. Its engine is confinement, two people, limited information, and a killer who treats engineering like a moral philosophy. The puzzle works before any sequel even expands on it, and the numbers don't lie. The film cost $ 1. 2 million and had a worldwide gross of just under $ 104 million. The original still builds its pressure inside just one room and was able to launch more than 10 sequels, so that tells you a lot about this film. And if you want to watch it this Halloween season, especially if you don't remember just how good it was, it's available to stream with your membership on Peacock or to rent or buy on Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV, and Fandango at home. So, who wants to play a game? October 30th, 1938.

5:12 CBS carried the Mercury Theater on the air's live radio broadcast premiere. of the war of the worlds, and horror learned how powerful a trusted format could be. Orson Welles directed and narrated. Howard Koch adapted H.G. Welles' novel, moving the invasion to the United States and rebuilding it as weather reports, dance music, urgent bulletins, and failing connections. The Martians are frightening, but the real weapon is the trusted language of crisis. Some listeners, especially those tuning in later, were alarmed. But the legend that the nation stampeded is another fiction. A later Library of Congress account says a 5,000 household telephone survey found about 2% listening, and most understood it was a play. Of course, it didn't hurt that they were constantly mentioning that it was fiction over and over again during the broadcast, but Who listens all the way?

6:19 I hope you do. Anyway. That correction, though, it sharpens the achievement. The show was able to generate fear before an audience even questioned the message. You can listen to this very easily, and I do recommend you do. The War of the Worlds broadcast is super good. The American Archive of Public Broadcasting has a recording of the original broadcast in its online reading room. So give it a listen when you're done listening to all the important stuff right here on Weekly Spooky. October 31st, 2010. The Walking Dead premiered on AMC at 10 o'clock. On Halloween night, closing Fearfest with a 90-minute invitation to wake up after the world has ended. Based on Robert Kirkman's Image Comics series, the pilot was written and directed by Frank Darabont. Andrew Lincoln's Rick Grimes emerges from a coma in an empty hospital, then enters a landscape where silence can be as threatening as the dead. The episode lingers on abandoned rooms, grief, and practical choices before anyone has the rules for survival.

7:34 That patience made a huge difference. Television had featured zombies before, but this committed to serialized apocalypse. as well as what prolonged fear does to family, leadership, and mercy. AMC reported more than 5.3 million viewers for that premiere, then the largest audience for any original series on the network. The dead had not just reached television, they had found a weekly home and millions of viewers ready to keep tuning in. I feel like the first two or three seasons of The Walking Dead are absolutely legendary, and rightfully so. The rest of the series, I think your mileage varies, but you can't beat the beginning of The Walking Dead, in my opinion. And of course, it's streaming right now with your subscription on Netflix. So give it a watch if you need another binge while you, well, another binge aside from the candy binge, that is. Tomorrow on Weekly Spooky, Jack Scratch is taking us trick-or-treating through Millhaven. The candy is free. Everything else comes with a price. Behind one door, a stranger has returned to collect a bargain made 20 years ago. Behind another, a friendly invitation hides a terrifying voice.

9:02 And down the street, two cops answer a Halloween noise complaint at a house that refuses to let them leave. Join us for Neighborhood Nightmares by Keith Tomlin. Three tales of Halloween terror with one devilishly charming guide. Make sure you're subscribed so you don't miss it. And we have something scary every day leading up to Halloween and beyond because we're not letting that vibe die. Oh no, Halloween is in us all. All right, spookies, let's take a quick breather, but when we come back, it's October 31st, 1992, a trusted television host in the studio, a children's presenter inside a haunted house, and a phone line filling with witnesses.

10:09 We're back, my spookies. So let's get into it. On October 31st, 1992, BBC One first broadcast Ghostwatch, a feature-length screen-one drama that dressed itself as a live supernatural investigation and trusted the audience's television habits to do half the haunting. And I do want to mention we did a massive deep dive last week on Terrifying and True all about the controversies of Ghostwatch. Go and check that one out if you missed it because it's a doozy and it's fascinating. Writer Steve Volk and director Leslie Manning built the program around broadcasters playing versions of themselves. Michael Parkinson anchors from the studio. Sarah Green reports from a Northolt council house where Pamela Early and her daughters describe a violent presence that they call pipes. Mike Smith works the phone desk.

11:08 Craig Charles speaks with the crowd outside. These were not anonymous actors pretending to be reporters. Viewers already know these personalities, and the familiar presenting style makes the fiction feel disarmingly ordinary. The program had been recorded months earlier, and it did identify itself as a drama. Multiple times, what with the Screen One logo and Vogue's writing credit appearing at the start, and Radio Times printing out a cast list, and it was even on a time of night when they showed dramas. But viewers who arrived late... Distracted by the phone number or simply accustomed to trusting the presenters could miss those signals, I suppose. Then the machinery of live television just snared deeper.

11:58 Experts debate in the studio. Callers offer stories. A camera catches something in a room and then can't find it again. The family home, the broadcast truck, the BBC studio, they all begin to feel like parts of one spooky circuit. This is why Ghostwatch still works to this day. I really, really recommend watching it around Halloween. It earns your trust. It checks the line, returns to the host, asks the public to participate. Each ordinary ritual makes the next disturbance harder to miss. See, now it feels like an ancestor to many found footage movies and every stream where the comments realize the danger before the person holding the camera.

12:44 It's aged beautifully, it is a solid, scary, found footage-ish type of film, and if you've never seen it, you need to. For real. It's streaming on Shudder or AMC Plus with your subscription, but you can also rent or buy it on Amazon Video Fandango at home, and yeah, Apple TV, you guessed it, you're doing good, but trust me, Ghostwatch, it'll creep you out. Just trust me. Now it's time for some horror-related birthdays, including one that we were just talking about. On October 26th, 1962, Cary Elwes is born. Dr. Gordon in Saw, Lord Arthur Holmwood in Bram Stoker's Dracula, and a sly bridge between romantic adventure and very dark rooms.

13:34 A very happy birthday to Cary Elwes. Born on October 29th, 1971, Winona Ryder. Genre royalty through Beetlejuice, Bram Stoker's Dracula, Alien Resurrection, and the terrified, determined heart of Stranger Things. A very happy birthday, Winona Ryder. Born on October 31st, 1961, and how fitting, it's Peter Jackson. Before Middle Earth, he built a splattery cult kingdom with films like Bad Taste, Braindead, also known as Dead Alive, and The Frighteners. Peter Jackson... I am jealous. I wish my birthday was on October 31st, but you have definitely made the most of it. A very happy birthday, Peter Jackson. And on Dia dos Muertos, November 1st, 1972, we have Toni Collette, an actor who makes supernatural terror painfully human in The Sixth Sense, Hereditary, and Krampus. She really has become a mainstay of someone who has a little darkness to them, but you still believe you can trust them. Now, whether that's wise or not is a different conversation. Happy birthday, Toni Collette, and all of our horror birthdays. This week for our Then and Now, fear keeps entering through systems people trust. In 1938, radio bulletins turn fiction into an emergency. In 1992, Ghostwatch

15:08 makes the television studio part of the haunted house. In 2004, Saw converts rules and recorded instructions into a prison. In 2010, The Walking Dead makes Apocalypse a weekly appointment. And in 2022, Signalis buries memory inside damaged machines. So the technology changes, but the trap remains the same. Somebody controls the signal. And it's not you. And for our weekly recommendation, if you want one more house with hostile architecture, queue up Wes Craven's highly underrated The People Under the Stairs, which began its wide U.S. release in November 1st of 1991 in theaters. Brandon Adams plays Poindexter Fool Williams, a boy who enters the fortified home of the landlords pushing his family toward eviction. Inside are traps, barred doors, passages behind walls, and stolen wealth. Everett McGill and Wendy Roby play the owners with grotesque menace. Craven wrote and directed turning the house into both a maze and a class system, with locks firmly planted on it. The movie is funny and outrageous, but its anger is never decorative. Fool is resourceful because powerful adults have made survival his responsibility. It's really got

16:41 a lot going on. It's scary. It's funny. It's bizarre. It's upsetting. Everything I love about horror is featured in People Under the Stairs. AFI reported that the idea came from a 1978 Los Angeles area news story. Wes Craven then turned that spark into a fairy tale about exploitation and hell on earth. The film topped its opening weekend with about $ 5. 52 million. making it a competitive film, although not a monster hit. It's a perfect November first watch. The Halloween energy is still crackling, but pointed toward the real monsters, who aren't just inside the house so much as they own the building. As far as where to watch this film, if you've never seen it, you need to fix that. And if you haven't seen it in a while, I assure you, it holds up. You can stream it on Peacock with your subscription today. or rent or buy it through Amazon Video, Apple TV, and Fandango at home. You guessed it, kids. Good job. There's a line in this film I still think about all the time, which is, sometimes in is out. Ugh, great film. And that, my spookies, is your trip through October 26th to November 1st in horror history. I'm so honored you're hanging out with me during your spooky season, and I want you to remember spooky season never ends. Here at Weekly Spooky, we have something scary and fun for you to listen to every single day of the week, rain or shine.

18:14 I don't know why that would affect the show, but that's also true. Don't forget to come back tomorrow, Wednesday, for a brand new scary tale featuring Jack Scratch and three nasty little pieces of work. And on Saturday afternoon, the afternoon of Halloween, we'll be releasing our very special Halloween episode featuring a brand new story from Shane Migliavacca. Something for you to listen to while you put on your makeup and get ready for the little monsters heading to your door. But now I need to get back to it, and while I'm at it, I'm going to have a little cider or something. I need a little more spooky in my day. Believe it or not, somehow reading all these stories just doesn't quite cut it enough. And of course, I'll be right back here next week, celebrating our first full year of This Week in Horror History.

19:00 So until next time, remember, our days are numbered. Because that's how we tell them apart. See you next week.