Hey Kindertrauma, this is Adam N. wanting to share a creepy memory from the bygone days of the late ‘70s.
Someone in my family (definitely not my Mom or Dad – likely a crazy AUNT!) bought my siblings and me a horror sound effects record that we listened to with abandon. This was likely around 1977-78, when I'd have been 7 or 8 years old, the oldest of the rugrats. We'd turn all the lights off, put a sheet over the dining room table, pile underneath and listen to this intensely creepy record.
Here's where my memory and reality might diverge. See, I remember this record being not a collection of sound effects strung together semi-randomly but long SOUNDSCAPES that, through only sounds and no dialog, really told simple, ultra creepy journeys through horror. The one I can almost still hear was called (something like) "The Haunted House."
You heard footsteps on a sidewalk, wind in the trees, then a shutter banging on a house in the near distance. Footsteps continue. A gate creaks open, and the sound of footsteps on old wooden stairs. Door opening with a deafening creak, then BANG! It's shut and the wind is gone.
I remember this tinkling sound, like wind through broken glass and maybe the sound of a GHOSTLY CHILD crying. It went on, the listener following these footsteps through this haunted house until it ended with – I dunno, must have been shrieks of terror or something. I can't remember.
In the past few days I've been searching for it, and thought I found it – an A&M record from 1977 called "Halloween Horrors" but when I listened to it on Amazon, it didn't seem right.
I would love to listen to it again to see if this horrific audio triptych still holds up!
