Atlas Obscura has a delightful look back at an old horror medium: paid phone scary calls. Nightmare on Elm Street's beloved villain started the craze, with phone numbers fans could call to hear evil commentary, and then others followed:
other hotlines [started] offering creepy audio, like 1-900-660-FEAR and 1-900-909-EVIL. Some were similar to Freddy’s ghost story service. Other 900 numbers were more creative with the technology. Ads for 1-900-490-DEAD promised to connect callers to “the phone zombies” and a chance to speak to one live (as “live” as zombies can be, anyway), 1-900-900-DARE gave your “horror-scope,” and on “Creep Phone” (“THE PHONE NUMBER NIGHTMARES ARE MADE OF”) you could record your own “screaming monster message” to be broadcast to “millions” of other “monsters and madmen,” which basically sounds like a precursor to Twitter. Some horror hotlines even served as an early interactive marketing tool for scary movies. In TV spots for Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers, fans were challenged to “Save Michael’s Next Victim,” a kind-of dial-your-own-adventure where the caller ran for their life through Haddonfield for $2 per minute.
Old media, now.
(thanks to Jesse "the call was coming from the graveyard" Walker)
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