Giles Cosgrove’s “Saturday Night at the Movies” appears as a Halloween Xpress Radio special, but takes a sinister turn. Cosgrove, as well as writing the piece, acts as himself in a seemingly ordinary radio show where he takes requests for the best Halloween hits from classic horror movies. Cosgrove does well to allay any suspicion to anything out of the ordinary as he plays the intro for “Saturday Night at the Movies” straight into a few songs alongside chatty commentary and alerting the audience how to call/text in. After a few classic hits and some horror movie trivia, Giles receives a call from Blair, a friend, who tells Giles and his producer Glenn that she is locked in at the cinema. Giles initially laughs at the irony of the show’s title and Blair’s predicament, before trying to help her get out of the cinema. We quickly learn that Blair is not alone and that Argento, Quentin, Flo, and Alice are also subjected to the same fate when the movie they went to see fades out and they are stuck in darkness. From the darkness emerges a masked killer who begins to work their way through the group while the friends must unveil the murderer “live” on air. Cosgrove plays with Xpress Radio as the setting of a fictitious murder mystery plot as the audience sees what would happen if Scream met student radio.
Cosgrove is loyal to the radio setting, which allows for an interesting and humorous intersection between the colloquialisms of Xpress with the absurd murderous narrative that unfolds. The carefully curated soundtrack is gripping and sets the tone for the piece. Any horror fan will be able to pinpoint each track. One thing I really liked was how the music acts as an eerie preventive to the narrative which leads to the anticipation of each scene. Like calls being cut off as a character screams and Giles playing the next track while trying to regain contact with his friends. This radio show, to me, feels like a real homage to horror as a genre.
The meta idea around this concept plays with the tropes of horror in an entertaining and playful capacity. All the characters embody classic horror archetypes: clueless teens/young adults, screaming girls, and comic relief characters. I want to commend the portrayal of Blair, Argento, Alice, Quentin, and Flo as the vocal performances of the actors were clear and evident, making it easy to follow and visualise the murder mystery plot. Giles and Glenn worked really well to steady the realist radio elements alongside the outrageous narrative. I would also commend the portrayal of the secondary characters Nube, Professor Matlock, and Mrs Nadine Whitehouse for adding to the horror elements with great vocal articulation and their work driving the plot forward.
I think the acting in this piece is incredibly strong and the sound is really well edited and very slick. I would recommend listening to this show with headphones to enhance the listening experience. Not only can you better enjoy the music, but you can really experience those sound effects that complement the horror genre and make you jump.
I would really recommend listening to “Saturday Night at the Movies”, especially to find out what happens at the cinema lock-in. I won’t tell you any more. I will just leave you with some words from Giles: “You can’t have a scary movie without a twist”. When watching, please wait till the very end to hear a note from Giles and some of the cast. They all worked so hard on this show and Giles credits everyone. I will certainly be looking out for more work from Giles and his talented cast and crew and I really recommend you do the same.
You can find Saturday Night at the Movies and many more shows by going to Mixcloud.com and searching for Xpress Radio—happy listening!