Daily Bruin "Fright Night" promises over an hour of
"spine-chilling sounds."
By Kelsey McConnell
Daily Bruin Contributor
Waiting for the bus one day, I noticed a homeless man sprawled
at my feet. Having been taught to always talk to strange men, I
nudged his side and said “hello.” He sprang to his feet
like I had insulted his mother and took the seat beside me.
I asked him how long he had been sleeping in bus stops. He
slowly raised his right hand and pressed a tobacco-stained finger
to his lips. I noticed he only had four fingers on his righty, but
I let that go. “Are you a veteran?” I asked.
“Korea? Vietnam? Spanish-American?”
“Yes, I am a veteran,” he said, “but of a war
against the one evil greater than communism.”
“Cell phones that ring during movies?” I asked.
He shook his head so violently I thought it would come off.
“More evil,” he said in an accent I couldn’t
place (or maybe he was just drunk). “Spooky sounds
tapes.”
The mere mention of “tapes” was enough to horrify
me, but I kept listening.
Scary sounds albums like this one, “Spooky Tales and Scary
Sounds,” feature organs, footsteps, howls and a Jeremy
Irons-sounding narrator, along with other creepy Halloween noises.
Tapes and CDs like this one can be found at a nearby Rite-Aid.
“I got some spooky sounds tapes one Halloween and when the
last had played I was huddled in a corner shivering with
fear,” he continued. “My roommate found me the next
day, but I was too terrified to speak, so he took me to the street
outside and locked the door behind me. I was never allowed back
into society, all because of those spooky noise tapes … and I
killed a man.”
His story was enthralling. I glanced at the approaching bus and
when I looked back to where the old man had been sitting, he was
gone.
I thought of his mumbled words all the way back to my apartment.
I drove as if I were possessed to Rite Aid. I walked like a zombie
through the drug store aisles, past the rows of Halloween candy and
black and orange decorations, until I found what I was looking for.
I picked up “Fright Night” and “Halloween
Howls” on CD. In remembrance of the old man, I took the only
tape, “Spooky Tales and Scary Sounds.” Then I grabbed a
black light because I think they’re neat.
The cashier looked at me like I was the spawn of Satan. She
asked me if I really wanted to do this … so many spooky noises.
But I was out of control: the scary sounds were all that
mattered.
I stuck “Halloween Howls” in my CD player. The
opening sequence left me clenching my fists in sheer terror. There
was thunder, rain and the clanging of metal against metal. Out of
nowhere, a deep voice said “come inside” and that was
followed by a bloodcurdling laughter like no other.
Later, organ music played and a female voice cooed,
“Hello, my little pretties. I have a treat for you.”
The voice was less than frightful but the organ music was a little
freaky. The shattering glass sound was so real I checked to see
that my window was still intact. That was followed by what sounded
like pennies being dropped into a glass, but I’m sure it was
really the souls of children being sucked out.
After some loud knocking and a muffled male voice yelling,
“Let me out of here,” my roommate came in to see what
was going on. We sat holding each other, staring at my CD player as
high shrieks and miscellaneous dripping noises filled the apartment
air. She leaned toward me and whispered, “I haven’t heard
heavy breathing like that since the midnight phone calls I got in
high school.”
After “Halloween Howls” came “Fright
Night” ““ a superior scary noise CD. The clanking of
keys was more ominous, the cat fight was more shrill and the
footsteps were like poetry ““ each more thudding than the
next.
“Halloween Howls'” “Let me out of
here!” was replaced with the scarier, “Wha- wha- what
are you doing? No, no, no!” The looped wolf’s howl
literally killed my roommate and it left me gasping for breath.
Down one roommate and two CDs, I began to play the tape. The
sound effects were narrated by a neo-Shakespearean, Jeremy Irons
clone.
“There’s a foulness to the air, it’s the
witching hour,” he said.
I listened, transfixed, to my ghoulish guide. I truly believed I
had walked through a haunted graveyard and over Dead Man’s
Hill. I was convinced that I took shelter from a sudden storm in a
mausoleum where I was told to not let the door close behind me at
the exact moment that it slammed shut. I ran to keep the
flesh-eating rats “at bay” and a mere vampire, pendulum
room, werewolf, laser gun, siren’s song and mad organist
later, the tape had ended along with my innocence.
The tape was spookier than both CDs combined and I ran screaming
into the hall where several neighbors calmed me down. I was luckier
than the old man: I wasn’t tossed into the street. But my
trilogy of spooky noise recordings left an indelible mark on my
psyche. I will never see a black cat or a dripping corpse with the
same naivete.
So this Halloween the curious can pick up a copy of
“Halloween Howls.”
The daring can buy “Fright Night.”
But only those with a death wish should get “Spooky Tales
and Scary Sounds.” All available at your terrifying local
Rite Aid.