For those who love night terrors, all podcast episodes (22 so far) of A Fear Beyond Fear are available on amazon/Audible. Keep checking back for more!
The Wild Man of Orford: Fact or Folklore
The Twelfth Century half man, half beast caught in a fishing net off England’s Suffolk coast is quite possibly a drama from real life. Who was he? Why are the details of this “legend” so precise?
Episode 16: Ghost Stories that Beg to be Filmed
The radio and the ghost story have a special affinity for each other. Creaking doors, echoing footsteps, the breathless delivery of the narrator. Great opportunities for suggestive details, but enough scope for the imagination to fill in the gaps. In 1926 L.P. Hartley expertly anticipated the long relationship between the radio and supernatural terror with this story of a self-made millionaire returned to London after decades in Australia, drowsing to the sound of the BBC in a hotel lounge while some thing travels through the rain to catch up with him.
Episode 14: Dutch Masters and Ghost Stories, Strange Event in the Life of Schalken the Painter
Sheridan Le Fanu’s 1839 ghost story Strange Event in the Life of Schalken the Painter stands out as a remarkable melding of fiction and biography. Godfried Schalken was a historical character, as was his mentor Gerrit Dou, a former pupil of Rembrandt. The story plunges us into the world of the Dutch masters and expands upon themes of darkness and transactional sexuality hinted at in some of Schalken’s later works. In 1979, the story also spawned one of British television’s most ambitious and daring dramatizations directed by art documentary/drama specialist Leslie Megahey. I discuss both story and film.
Episode 13: Guilt, Hallucinogenic Drugs, and Rainforest Ghosts
We’re deep inside a rainforest somewhere near the border of Mexico and Guatemala, 1972. Simon Corbet, a 42-year-old entomologist with a passion for mantids, has been drawn here. Or is he running away? Running from grief, uncertainty, and a guilt he doesn’t understand. Simon is haunted, both figuratively and literally, by the ghost of Penelope, a young woman who tragically died. Michelle Paver’s Rainforest was hot off the press right at the end of 2025. We talk about where it lies in her oeuvre.
Episode 12: A Last Judgement and a Mystic Fen: Wakenhyrst
Michelle Paver’s 2019 novel, Wakenhyrst, set in Suffolk fenland, explores medieval superstition and patriarchal religion. To daughter, Maud, struggling for freedom, the fen is about inspiration and release. To father Edmund it is the home of a demon who seeks to punish him for a long-forgotten sin. Woven through the story is local folklore about exorcism and the entrapment of evil. The novel updates a number of themes common to the Edwardian ghost story, breathing new life into the genre.
Episode 11: Coming January 20, The Three Nosferatus
Running parallel to the dapper, handsome count of stage and screen, this alternative take on the noble vampire — bald, hunched, rat-toothed — has haunted cinema history for more than a century, starting with F.W. Murnau’s unauthorized 1922 use of Bram Stoker’s story. Three Nosferatus cast their folk horror-ish shadows over the vampire genre, Murnau’s, Werner Herzog’s 1979 remake Nosferatu the Vampire, and, most recently, Robert Eggers’s 2024 production. How do they relate to each other and, just as interestingly, how do they relate to Stoker’s 1897 novel?
Episode 10: Demons, Ghosts, and Martians: Quatermass Mixes the Genres
The December 1958 to February 1959 tv production of Quatermass and the Pit by Manx author Nigel Kneale remains one of the most ambitious productions ever mounted by the BBC, combining science fiction, folk horror, and supernatural themes, and positing a source for humankind’s concept of evil. Filmed and broadcast mainly live with only some exterior pre-taped scenes, this third series in the Quatermass canon remains Kneale’s most impressive achievement as a writer of science fiction and cerebral horror.
Episode 9: Lost Hearts and Murderous Adults
It’s lurid, ghoulish, and impishly provocative, almost body horror in modern parlance. How else is M.R. James’s Lost Hearts different from most of his other short ghost stories? Why was he not happy with it? I’m delighted to discuss M.R. James’s Lost Hearts with James aficionado , educator and short story performer, John Carpenter. We’ll discuss thematic links with Henry James’s The Turn of the Screw, which is also about the corrupting influence of adults on children. Up for debate is the 1973 adaptation written by Robin Chapman, directed by Lawrence Gordon Clark, and featuring Joseph O’ Conor as the sinister Mr. Abney. The snatches of Hurdy Gurdy music featured in this episode are by Guilhem Desq.
Episode 8: Borley Rectory, the Most Haunted House in England
The true story of Borley Rectory on England’s Essex-Suffolk border influenced Shirley Jackson, Richard Matheson and many, many other authors of supernatural fiction. Few, of any, serious books about the history of ghosts fail to feature it. Between 2017 and 2025, there have been no less than four feature films directly inspired by events in the rectory which burned to the ground in 1939. We’ll be looking at this famous haunted house and its extraordinarily persistent legacy.
See, alternative (also free) link on Audible
Episode 7: Creepy Dolls and Christmas Stories
I look at a surprisingly direct late entry M.R. James ghost story and one truly terrifying independent short film adaptation.
Episode 6 Enfield II
I talk to Dr. Bernard Wills, professor of Humanities and Historical Studies. Dr. Wills puts poltergeist hauntings in general and the Endfield case in particular into philosophical and historical perspective.
Spotify link above. Amazon link to all episodes here.
Episode 5 An Everyday Haunting: The Enfield Poltergeist
This November 4 episode, the first of two on the Enfield Poltergeist, I will explore arguably the most thoroughly documented case of poltergeist activity in the English-speaking world. How did a quiet street in the North London town of Enfield become the focus of national and, in the end, international news from 1977 to 1979?
I’ll be covering the events themselves and exploring how the case crops up in popular culture, film and tv.
Part II, I’ll have a special guest from the world of academia and we’ll try to dig down into the question of what this case really means from a Humanities and Historical Studies point of view. (For those unfamiliar with the term ‘Humanities’; don’t worry, it’s simple. It means pretty much everything!)
Episode 4 now live! Who is This Who is Coming?
Oh, Whistle and I’ll Come to You, My Lad is an iconic Edwardian ghost story, set on the Suffolk coast. It’s the most instantly recognizable M.R. James short story. Its first tv dramatization in 1968 kick-started the tradition of the BBC’s Ghost Story for Christmas.
The cloistered atmosphere of the period makes this supernatural sub-genre a perennial favourite. But what does a modern dramatist do if they want to make it relevant to a present day audience? With reference to the James’ 1904 original, and the tv adaptations from 1968 and 2010, this podcast explores the pros and cons of bringing real life issues into the ghost story.
Episode 3 now live! The greatest ever supernatural horror film. Follow A Fear Beyond Fear on Spotify to be notified when each new episode is published.
Can a dramatization of supernatural horror be, well, too horrible? Episode Two, Oil and Water, a New Woman in Black discusses Hammer film’s 2012 movie of Susan Hill’s novel.
Does visceral, real life horror clash with the chill of the supernatural? Or is just the way of all horror in the 21st century? The James Watkins-directed movie from a Jane Goldman script takes Susan Hill’s original story to another sphere in terms of traumatic horror. Do the terrible and tragic events in the movie squeeze out the essential supernatural frisson? Take a listen to two contrasting views.
Episode One
This podcast is a journey into supernatural fiction, drama, TV, and film through the ages. We will explore what frightens us most about ghost stories and why we are still drawn to them.
Episode one explores Susan Hill’s The Woman in Black, the novel and the play. Why does it scare some people senseless and leave others unmoved?
The 1989 TV version scripted by Nigel Kneale and directed by Herbert Wise keeps to the spirit although not necessarily to the plot details of the 1983 Susan Hill novel and the stage play that followed.
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