7 Halloween Horror Stories: Cursed VHS, Slashers & Video Store Horror

Seven Halloween horror stories rewind the season into nearly five hours of cursed VHS tapes, video store nightmares, slasher killers, occult rituals, late-night horror television, and supernatural scary stories. Weekly Spooky presents Rituals, Reels & Rentals, a retro Halloween horror compilation for listeners who love horror fiction podcasts, 1980s horror nostalgia, cursed media, vintage video stores, Samhain folklore, and long-form scary stories.

These tales move from an ancient graveyard spell on Halloween 1986 to a brutal sacrificial party, a horror host who can reach through the television, vampires stalking an all-night rental shop, a storm-soaked video store slasher, a cursed black-and-white VHS tape, and an occult cassette that can erase people from existence itself. If your Halloween podcast queue includes VHS horror, supernatural fiction, slasher stories, cursed movies, retro media horror, and old-school video store atmosphere, press play and settle in.

Inside this Halloween horror compilation: • “Halloween 198666” by Dan Wilder - On Halloween night in 1986, two friends find an ancient spell book and take a very bad idea into a snowy graveyard. Their attempt at forbidden magic turns a raven, a stolen offering, and a teenage crush into a winged demonic nightmare with an extremely 1980s sense of humor.

• “The Halloween Party” by Keith Tomlin - Amber is abducted on the way to a Halloween party and wakes inside an abandoned factory where a ritualistic killer is making sacrifices to the Dark Lord. Then Clyde arrives, and the night reveals a second visitor whose connection to Hell may be worse than the slasher himself.

• “PHANTASMAGORIA” by Morgan Moore - Young Stephen secretly stays awake for an all-night Samhain horror marathon hosted by the terrifying Moloch. The late-night horror show becomes much more than television when its host selects one viewer for a ritual that can reach straight through the screen.

• “Special Halloween Hours” by Rob Fields - Charlee Brewster takes the overnight Halloween shift at Strickfield Video and discovers that the store really does serve every kind of customer. A birthday hunt for a rare horror tape becomes a chase involving vampires, wolves, a Harley, and the most dangerous movie rental of the night.

• “Deadly Rental - A Valley Halloween Tale” by Charles Campbell - In 1983, a violent storm traps employees and customers inside Valley Video. A strange caller keeps asking “trick or treat,” the power dies, and a