To begin with, the radio drama is not scary at all, it is full of exposition to explain to you who the characters are. However, once they begin doing the experiments to find ghosts, it begins to get rather uncomfortable, the low hertz frequencies and the recordings they do, really do start having an effect. The way that the story is told is similar to what you would see from a drama on TV, it cuts between different scenes and it is fairly obvious when it does so. The speech is recorded binaurally and gives it a real space and at times brings you incredibly close to an actors dialogue, which only adds to the tension.
Some notable points of the show:
At around the 35 minute mark, they have the female actor speaking very close to the microphones which is then cut off by a horrifying scream which is terrifying and incredibly affective at scaring you.
Multiple times throughout the piece, when they perform experiments, the way that they use oscillating frequencies is unnerving and has quite a visceral effect.
Around the 50 Minute mark, the scream that you are used to hearing is no longer heard when you expect it and what it is replaced by isn’t necessarily scary but the sudden subverting of your expectations is what scares you.
Fright Night – The Stone Tape, 00:00 30/10/2016, BBC Radio 4 Extra, 60 mins. https://learningonscreen.ac.uk/ondemand/index.php/prog/0B0512FC
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