Jul 31, 2009
Posted in Tales of Suspense
The Buoy
Copyright 1987
55 minutes
Radio Thriller
Edward Wolcott is an innocent tourist abducted from his motel room, taken by boat, and strapped to a large sea buoy in the Woods Hole Passage. His strange night bobbing alone at sea turns into one of sheer terror, when he realizes the current is slowly dragging the buoy under.
An excellent Halloween story, this Pit and the Pendulum-style thriller places the listener on the buoy with Mr. Wolcott to experience the terror first hand.
Strap yourself to the sofa… we’re going down!
syzygy!
This is an excellent tale of suspense. The story synopsis draws a comparison to Poe’s “Pit and the Pendulum.” This comparison is completely apt, but it reminded me very much of “The Hitch-Hiker,” a story that was done on radio’s Suspense in 1942 and redone 18 years later on The Twilight Zone. The ending is a twist that you’ll never see coming and all the helpless protagonist can do is react in terror to things he cannot understand as his fate unfolds.
This is also another testament to the power of audio drama. The soundscape painted for the listener’s imagination is pitch perfect, rounded out by the surf, foghorns, buoy bells and creeking anchor chains. The imagination is the perfect breeding ground for terror. Fear is most often generated by things unseen and, as those of us who love audio drama are well aware, sound plays into the subconscious better than any scary visual image projected upon a movie screen. The Buoy illustrates that the CCRMT should go back to the realm of suspense.
I purchased this program as an mp3 download and the sound transfer was excellent. The copyright was 1987, but there are no digital artifacts or tape hiss problems that smudge the listening experience. If you want to be introduced to modern audio drama at it’s best, this is the place to start.
Thank you to the cast and crew of CCRMT for keepign this medium alive.