Sounds Like Murder: Early 1980s Gothic on North American Radio

Horror and the Gothic have long been staple genres of radio drama, including drama revival series late 1970s–early 1980s , CBS Radio Mystery Theater (1974–82). During same time period, Canadian government, recognising an emergent national-identity crisis in relation to its southern neighbour, invested heavily original programming on Broadcasting Corporation (CBC). This resulted popular horror Nightfall (1980–3), which Danielle Hancock argues presented ‘murder as a national narrative’ (2018). While CBSRMT occasionally adapted existing stories from other media, majority output for both were original, written-for-the-air dramas. Embodying returns past upon present effects transgressive conduct society, murder is examined trait episodes CBSRMT. Radio’s ambiguities intimacies provoke listeners these programmes confront disjunction. The differing worldviews – American masculine nationalism neoconservatism subverted; polite tolerant masculinity turned upside down by nihilistic rejection values focus spotlights each country’s anxieties.