There are plenty of scary movies, scary books, scary shows on cable news television. But can anything really beat the eternal goosebumps that come from classic radio horror, from Orson Welles’ War of the Worlds broadcast to the reading of scary stories in hushed tones as we sit in the dark, listening from under covers? Okay, so you had an uncle who could tell a good story, and there’s still that friend of your dad’s who first cast a flashlight’s creepy glow up under his lantern jaw.

This Saturday, October 29, Shadowland Theatre presents its second annual Halloween “Terror on the Mike” horror series of onstage classic radio drama recreations at its Depression-Era theatre in downtown Ellenville. Featured this year will be Zero Hour, written by the great Ray Bradbury, and Lucille Fletcher’s The Thing in the Window.

The 1950 Bradbury piece, like so many of his classic films, television scripts and science fiction novels, builds on small-town American fears as a mother grows increasingly suspicious of her young daughter’s new playmate, who is teaching all the local kids a mysterious new game named Invasion. The Fletcher story, originally performed in 1946 with Joseph Cotten as a man convinced that he is seeing a dead body slumped in a chair in an apartment across the street, is a classic example of growing paranoia. Hey, who needs costumes to scare the bejeezus out of oneself?

The radio plays will be produced complete with old-time live radio commercials featuring local Ellenville area businesses, with new advertising jingles created by legendary music producer John Simon, of the Band, Janis Joplin and early Leonard Cohen fame.

This October 29 performance starts at 8 p.m. and is a benefit for the not-for-profit Shadowland Theatre, located at 157 Canal Street in the Village of Ellenville. For further information and reservations, call (845) 647-5511 or visit www.shadowlandtheatre.org.