Nightmares on Congress Street, Part V

By: Ray Bradbury, Edgar Allan Poe, H. P. Lovecraft, Alex Irvine, Fitz-James O'Brien, Hugh B. Cave, Michael Duffy

Narrated by: full cast

They're baaaaaaaaaaaaacckkkkk!!! Rocky Coast Radio Theatre returns with yet another copious cornucopia of classic concoctions, crafted and compiled for the captive congregation (gotta love that thesaurus!). Nightmares on Congress Street, Part V offers dramatized adaptations (complete with music and sound effects) of chilling stories penned by Edgar Allan Poe, Hugh B. Cave, and H. P. Lovecraft, as well as a few additional treats. So douse the lights, snuggle up with your favorite corpse - oops! "life-challenged" person - and prepare to be thoroughly goosebumped.

Public Domain (P)2006 Tantor

Critic reviews

"These presentations of modern tales of terror have top-notch production values and excellent music.... Every one is a contemporary gem designed to scare you. They succeed." ( AudioFile)

Great audio drama!

This little collection of full-cast audio dramatizations by a group called Rocky Coast Radio Theatre, apparently lead by the late William Dufris, has good writing, great performances, and very high production values. An excellent surprise after buying several lackluster audio dramas from this site. The unusual approach to Tell-Tale Heart and the fleshing out of the Statement of Randolph Carter were especially good, and having a version of The Wind in which the wife character is a bit less shrewish is nice. The Door Below was completely new to me and I enjoyed it.

Here's the full contents, since it's missing from the book description:

"The Demon of the Gibbet" (poem) by Fitz-James O'Brien

"The Tell-Tale Heart" by Edgar Allan Poe

"Retroactive Anti-Terror" by Alex Irvine

"Much A-Zoo About Nothing" (poem) by Michael Duffy

"The Wind" by Ray Bradbury

"The Door Below" by Hugh B. Cave

"The Statement of Randolph Carter" by H. P. Lovecraft

Some of the recordings here and in Part IV were re-released by Dufris as a series called Horrorscopes in ca. 2011 after he co-founded Audio Comics, and a few of those were previously available as stand-alones on Audible (but not anymore, it looks like). Some were re-released again in a 2023 podcast called Midnight Matinees. I had accumulated about half from those sources, but I'm happy to find the original versions of all of them here to complete the collection. (Problem? I don't have a problem.)