The paranormal comes to life as husband-wife duo Dan Cummins (acclaimed standup comedian and true horror fan) and Lynze Cummins (costume and wardrobe stylist for numerous film and television productions) share terrifying stories that will leave you sleeping with the lights on. Dan’s goal? To scare Lynze with creepy accounts of demonic possession, shadow people, and other eerie phenomena. And when he’s done, Lynze fights back with chilling fan-submitted tales of true horror. Together, they explore the darkest corners of the web, dusty old books, and even their own eerie surroundings—a studio filled with occult objects and located right next to a cemetery. Don’t forget to check out the mini-series Nightmare Fuel, airing on this feed the first and third Friday of every month, where Dan narrates a short piece of original horror fiction.
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Dan brings us one, long tale today. We meet a young woman who moved into an old San Francisco house with roommates and then began to hear things. The more she hears, the creepier and more disturbing things get. I don’t want to give away any more than that. No lore, no historical set ups, just a deeply disturbing story. Lynze balances out the show with three tales the go from creepy, to creepier, to creepiest! We begin with two young kids creeping out their mom, then we go on to an uninvited visi...
Dan shares tales of two islands this week. We’ll head to the remote Pacific Samoan island of Ofu, where there’s a stretch of beach so feared that many locals refuse to walk it after dark. A place believed to be a gathering ground for spirits who’ve never crossed over. A place where ghosts can do more than just scare you. Next, we’ll head to the other side of the world to the Azores. High above a volcanic crater on São Miguel, an abandoned luxury hotel looms out of the fog - a five-star dream tha...
We begin this week in 1970’s Sardinia, where a quiet, deeply devout teenage girl began to wake up every night at exactly 3:00 a.m., convinced something terrible was standing next to her bed… watching her… and waiting to enter her. Then we head to Christmas Day, 1929, when a well-liked North Carolina farmer committed the unspeakable. Has it spawned paranormal activity? Then we find ourselves visiting the same house, ten years apart, both times the home is for sale and empty... or is it? Lastly, a...
During a dark Arctic winter in Tromsø, a seemingly ordinary meeting at Kessel Technologies is interrupted by a vengeful active shooter. As executives try to escape, they uncover a terrifying truth about Wilhelm Kessel and his family: they are ancient vampires with a chilling history rooted in Nazi-era atrocities. The episode details a desperate fight for survival and the Kessel clan's powerful influence in covering up their monstrous existence.
Dan takes us to downtown Dallas, across from Union Station, to an old hotel that’s changed names so many times it’s like it keeps trying to hide from its past. Room 1009 doesn't seem to care what the hotel is called, though. Stories of encounters with its ghosts remain unchanged. The room allegedly has a long, sordid history of murders and suspicious deaths tied to it. Then we explore the lore of the elegant Adolphous Hotel. It’s been collecting tragedy since the first month it opened. On the ni...
Dan delves into two puzzling missing person cases: Maura Murray, a nursing student who vanished after a car crash on a haunted New Hampshire road, and Barbara Bollock, an experienced hiker who disappeared in seconds on a Montana trail. Both cases are riddled with strange details and supernatural theories. Lynze then shares three listener stories, including a terrifying encounter with a hat man, a comical yet spooky bathroom ghost, and a chilling visitation from a pale, humanoid entity.
In a gripping conclusion, Ellen and her friends devise a desperate strategy to liberate her brother Ned's soul from Dr. Blackwell's torturous experiments at the Liminal Lodge. They confront the insidious spirit, luring her into an ancient Dybbuk box, thereby dismantling her sinister soul-harvesting machine. The episode culminates in Ned's emotional reunion with his lost love and the lodge's rebirth as a place of peaceful communication and healing, though Blackwell's presence in the box remains a potent, contained threat.
Dan takes us to Peru for our last stories of 2025. We begin in the Amazon, where indigenous villagers say seven-foot-tall armored beings with glowing yellow eyes drift through the trees at night, freezing their victims in place and taking “samples” of skin, fat, and organs. Then we go beneath the city of Lima, to a maze of tunnels stacked with the bones of tens of thousands of colonial dead, arranged in spirals and pits like macabre artwork. Tourists and locals alike report getting lost in the d...
It's our seventh annual holiday episode where Dan shares a classic tale! This year, he picked a tale from the amazing Mary Shelley! We hope you enjoy this modern telling of an old story from the mother of horror! Then Lynze has three tales to give us. The first is about an unknown haunted doll, the second is a beautiful confirmation tale from the other side and ends with a topsy turvy tale of a ghost named Genevieve. December Charity: This year, with your help, we were able to support 91 kids in...
Following Ned's tragic death at Tacoma General after Dr. Blackwell's "Quiet Room" experiment, his sister Ellen decides to transform the Liminal Lodge into a grief retreat, aiming to provide a safe space for communication with the deceased and secretly hoping to reach her brother. However, her attempts to contact Ned via a Ouija board reveal he is trapped by Blackwell, who manipulates him to lure Ellen, a "natural conduit," into becoming her next victim, continuing her horrifying experiments to open a permanent portal between worlds.
Dan shares two terrifying Swedish ghost stories, starting with Borgvattnet Vicarage, home to the sorrowful Grey Lady and a territorial spirit in the "bishop's chair." He then recounts the intensely malevolent hauntings of Frammagorn, where priests and investigators have fled in terror from shadow figures and violent attacks. Lynze follows with personal tales, including a Halloween party gone wrong after a Ouija board opened a doorway to a "Lady in White" and a family's unsettling encounters with a cloaked forest entity and a ceiling-crawling doppelgänger.
A really fun show this week with stories that are somewhat traditional and somewhat not! We hope you enjoy the variety. Dan takes us to Ohio for a dybbuk box tale, which is wildly interesting. Then we head to North Carolina to explore the Duke mansion. Lynze has three short stories this week. She covers a new kind of fear based coping mechanism, then takes us to Myrtle's Plantation and lastly, we fist fight a ghost together! Do you want to get all of our episodes a WEEK early, ad free? Want to h...
Ned's perilous journey into previewing the afterlife at the Liminal Lodge intensifies, guided by Dr. Blackwell's spirit, alarming his sister Ellen and his contractor Cal. As Ned's physical and mental state deteriorates from self-starvation and strange experiments, Ellen, fearing for his life, begins the process of involuntary commitment. However, Ned, indoctrinated by Blackwell, believes he's on the verge of a breakthrough, even as he experiences a terrifying full immersion into the lodge's hidden "quiet room" where he receives further instructions, setting the stage for a dramatic conflict over his fate.
Dan begins with a little known case of the Warren's about a grieving family heirloom and a century-old pact. Then, we’ll examine what many consider to be America’s first documented ghost story. Was Sullivan, Maine really home to America’s first documented ghost? Then, Lynze gives us two unsettling tales this week. Her first takes us to a prison infirmary for a both a paranormal and very real life set of fears. She wraps up this week with a teacher and a student both experiencing something rather...
We head to Northern England for Dan's first tale and meet the creepy bog hag, Jenny Greenteeth. She’s the monster kids went to sleep fearing for centuries there, worried the next time they strayed to close to a pond’s edge, they might get sucked in and never return alive. Then we go to Japan for more water horror. We’ll meet the kappa a river monster who might come for your butthole if you don’t give him a cucumber. Finally, we’ll head to Australia and meet a billabong-haunting cryptid called th...
In this forty-fifth installment of fictional horror written and narrated by Dan Cummins, tech millionaire Ned Watkins becomes dangerously obsessed with resurrecting a century-old sanitarium’s occult legacy after uncovering the hidden journals of its founder, Dr. Mildred Blackwell. When his sister Ellen visits, she fears the lodge isn’t just haunting her brother… it’s consuming him. ** originally envisioned as a two-parter at the time of this recording, it is now a four-parter ** For Merch and ev...
Dan offers us a poltergeist double header this week! We start with some wild, cool and interesting science that explores these strange occurrences. From Zimbabwe to Kentucky, poltergeists know no bounds. Then, in response to Lynze's request for widow tales, she brings us just that. Lastly, a very detailed encounter from one man on his daily run and the strange, out of date character he runs into. Do you want to get all of our episodes a WEEK early, ad free? Want to help us support amazing charit...
We head to South Africa to start this week. Two South African men vanished from separate hospitals in recent years - only to be discovered days later, their bodies found in the strangest of places. Official explanations have never added up. Were they murdered? And if so… was their murderer human? Or something else entirely? Then we’ll head to England, where, perched high above the sea on the island’s northeast coast, the ruins of Whitby Abbey have stood for nearly fourteen centuries - silent, wa...
Sixteen-year-old Tommy Calloway is found as the sole survivor of a mysterious shipwreck near Cape Fear Lighthouse in 1921. He recounts a terrifying story of Captain Bannister's ghost, a spectral pirate who massacred his crew for retrieving cursed gold. The head keeper, Malcolm Rourke, initially skeptical, soon finds his home haunted as the vengeful spirit follows Tommy, leading to a horrifying confrontation.
Dan shares a modern encounter where a man and his friend repeatedly see a mysterious shadow figure, years later discovering others also witnessed it. He then delves into the "Falkirk Triangle," a Scottish hotspot for numerous UFO sightings and alleged abductions in the 1990s. Lynze recounts a fan's haunted college dorm experience with a spectral visitor and another fan's strange encounters with their podcast playing spontaneously, suggesting a ghostly fan.
In this forty-third installment of fictional horror written and narrated by Dan Cummins, we head back to 1985, when ten year-old Ryan Mellard and three friends went trick-or-treating for the first time without parental supervision. When they passed by The Dead House, a site supposedly haunted by the ghost of a woman who used to live there, they dared Ryan to enter. And what he found inside changed him forever. Happy Halloween! For Merch and everything else Bad Magic related, head to: https://www...
Hello Creeps and Peepers! Welcome to one last Halloween revisiting of a few of my favorite Nightmare Fuels as we lead up to tomorrow's special new Halloween Nightmare Fuel release. Today, we look back (or take a first look if you're new!) at a story set in San Francisco, where a monster from Hmong horror lore, the Night Hag known as Dab Tsog, shows the young members of one Hmong family how it is anything but harmless superstition. This episode is scored by Logan Keith. We recommend listening wit...
Hello Creeps and Peepers! Welcome to yet another Halloween revisiting of a few of my favorite Nightmare Fuels as we lead up a special new Halloween Nightmare Fuel release. Today, we look back (or take a first look if you're new!) at when Claudia Nelson's life is changed forever by a shooting star that lands on her property outside of the fictional town of Dillon. What cosmic horror does the cursed meteorite bring? And what Hell will it unleash on Claudia and the other residents of her small, rem...
Dan has two awesome legends for us this week. We start in Chicago to learn the legend of Resurrection Mary followed by many encounters with her. Then, we go across the pond to learn about The Dark Huntsman. Lynze shares some great fan tales specifically around Halloween. The first involves some adults using a ouija board for the wrong purposes. The second takes us trick or treating with an unfriendly ghost. Scared To Death LIVE! 5th Annual Halloween Show! https://www.moment.co/scaredtodeath/scar...
Hello Creeps and Peepers! Welcome to another Halloween revisiting of a few of my favorite Nightmare Fuels as we lead up a special new Halloween Nightmare Fuel release. Let's look back (or take a first look if you're new!) at the first episode that seemed to really excite a lot of you about this series. The third horror story I wrote. The tale of a mysterious beast that's been brutally killing men for decades in the former gold rush town of Bodie, California. And out introduction to Ezra Calhoun....
Hello Creeps and Peepers! Welcome to a Halloween revisiting of a few of my favorite Nightmare Fuels as we lead up a special new Halloween Nightmare Fuel release. Let's take another look (or a first look if you're new!) at Sam. Sam's a strange doll found by a young boy, Jack, when he and his sister and mother moved into a new home following the death of Jack's father. Sam looks like she comes from another world, and she does. And her world is full of nothing but evil... This episode is scored by ...
Both of Dan's stories come from Thailand. Thailand has a LOT of supernatural stories! We begin in Bangkok where we explore an abandoned and supposedly haunted skyscraper. Then, we’ll head to one of Thailand’s biggest college campuses, Chiang Mai University, to examine a few of the resident spirits there. And learn a bit about the relationship between Thai culture and the spirit world along the way. Then, Lynze has three very different stories this week. We begin in a hospital with a patient who ...
In this forty-second installment of fictional horror written and narrated by Dan Cummins, we meet Tess Hughes in another standalone story. She's just bought her first house in Missoula, Montana. It's a fixer-upper that needs a lot of work. And, is it also haunted? Does is hold secrets that might get her killed? For Merch and everything else Bad Magic related, head to: https://www.badmagicproductions.com Subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts+ to listen to new episodes of Scared to Death ad-free and a wh...
We are off to Lima, Peru to explore the very dark legend of what many claim to be Lima’s most haunted location, La Casa Matusita with Dan. Has a 16th century curse led to a whole lot of blood and madness? Then, we’ll head to the suburbs of Chicago for a modern encounter that starts with a shoe print. Then in Lynze's half of the show, we have two fantastic tales! Her first is a second hand account of a man who needed to get away after a bad break up. What he found while camping alone may have bee...
Dan's first tale this week is wild. What if you brought some type of demonic presence home from a vacation and it ended up possessing your neighbor, and then your demonically possessed neighbor than attacked you? We head to Ireland for that one. And then, we’ll take a quick trip to Australia to hear about a supposedly haunted, and deadly, body of water known as the Devil’s Pool. Lynze has all over the map this week both geographically and spoopily! We begin in Nigeria where a family uncovers a p...
