During a period from 1941 to 1952, which spanned the golden era of classic radio, this macabre anthology series invited listeners each week to pass through its famous opening creaking door into a world which provided a unique mixture of horror with the darkest of comedy. In its own era, Inner Sanctum was perhaps the quintessential radio program, using sound to produce effects which wove a spell unique to the medium. In a larger sense, the show's peculiar combination of chills and chuckles has influenced the American horror genre ever since and has found expression in everything from EC Comics in the 1950s to the self-referential works of Stephen King and Wes Craven in the 1990s. A listener today who has the nerve to step through the Inner Sanctum doorway (being careful not to bump into that corpse "just hanging around over there") will discover a...