Radio Recap: The Hermit's Cave

"*cackling* Ghooooost stories! Weeeeird stories! And murders, too! *cackling* The Hermit knows of them all! Turn out your lights! Turn them out. Ahhh. Have you heard the story of...?"

The Hermit's Cave was a horror anthology program which was almost certainly inspired by the Witch's Tale; both featured an elderly, cackling host; both featured stories of the supernatural; both ran on a low budget.

The series was originally produced on WJR, a local CBS affiliate in Michigan and lasted from September 13, 1936 to May 18, 1947. This would make it one of the longest-running horror anthology programs, with potentially more than 500 broadcasts - but we have just a few episodes from here and there in the series' run.

Like the Witch's Tale, The Hermit's Cave was committed to the supernatural. The conclusions didn't walk back the supernatural with "all a dream" explanations or reveals that someone was playing a trick to force a confession from a killer. Further, the series committed so strongly to its premise that occasionally evil would triumph (like the later series Hall of Fantasy). I think it's fair to say the Hermit's Cave lacked restraint; much like the Witch's Tale, the dramas were played over-the-top.

The greatest problem I have with the Hermit's Cave is that the production values were lacking. They relied on music for many of their effects and otherwise had very limited audio effects. Consequently, so much of the Hermit's Cave is characters talking - usually at each other, as opposed to narrating or monologuing. There's no sense of how a moment of dread might be created through a moment's silence - it's talk, talk, talk. I'm afraid between the low production values and constant chatter I don't find the Hermit's Cave terribly scary. Heck, I'd say the Witch's Tale offers better creeps than this show and I find the Witch's Tale to be terribly campy.

Apparently at one point the series was produced by actor William Conrad. That seems kind of unbelievable to me as I don't know of any other producing credits under Conrad's name and it isn't even the type of material he normally performed in, but it would have been early in Conrad's career so perhaps he was just taking any opportunity for experience. One does occasionally hear familiar voices on the Hermit's Cave, such as Elliott Lewis, but most of the actors must have been locals who never had a "big break."

You can hear the surviving episodes of the Hermit's Cave on the the Internet Archive.