There’s a current discussion on the Internet OTR Digest about the scariest horror series broadcast. It got me thinking a bit, not about the scariest series, but about the most frightening program I’ve heard in my years of collecting.

I’m going to give that “honor” to a somewhat unexpected choice; an episode of Lights Out titled “State Executioner.”

I can remember the first time I heard it like it was yesterday…I was in my apartment on Market Street (the one above a porn shop; when I moved there, it was a record store, but things…er…changed), bustling around doing some general straightening up. I had just received a Murray Hill box set of record albums (it’s ok, kids, go ask your parents what records were) and was anxious to listen to them. I started “State Executioner,” and…time disappeared. I slowed down, slower and slower, until by the end of the episode I was standing in the middle of the room, transfixed by the sounds and voices.

There are more “frightening” programs, certainly (Quiet, Please wins hands-down, in my humble opinion, for most ghoulish and frightening program, impressive in its minimalist dependence on the talents of writer Bill Cooper and actor Ernest Chappell), but this one sticks in my mind because of the perfect combination of story, talent, and my own state of mind. When I think of how the best of old-time radio can affect one, I think of that evening so many years ago.