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Podcast: Bone and Sickle
Episode: Spook Shows
Description: Midnight Spook Shows featured stage illusions borrowing from techniques used in fraudulent seances alongside vaudeville-style comedy and burlesque. Performances were staged in movie theaters, paired with a film screening, usually but not exclusively from the horror genre.  The tradition began in the mid to late 1930s and ran into the early â70s, reaching its heyday in the â50s.  After World War II, shows began catering to younger audiences and emphasizing movie monsters, horror and gore.
In this episode we examine the history of the genre and a few of its colorful artists, sometimes called âghostmasters.â Â Two leading lights in th...