Title: The Halloween Tree
Author: Ray Bradbury (Adapted)
Producer: Colonial Radio Theater
Type: Adaptation of a Short Story
Genre: Fantastic Drama
Availability: Paid Release
My Two Cents: Jerry Robbins and The Colonial Radio Theater have had the incredibly awesome pleasure of working with Ray Bradbury and their treatment of his work doesn’t disappoint. The Halloween Tree is Bradbury at his imaginative best, and Colonial does a fine job as realizing that imagination in a fantastic audio adventure. This is a worthy listen that won the Silver Ogle Award this year.
If you would, imagine A Nightmare Before Christmas and its richly realized caricature of a Hallowen world, and you’ll have an idea of the kind of job Colonial has done in The Halloween Tree. A group of young kids, dressed in their Halloween best, go searching around a haunted house and find themselves chasing after one of their lost number into a series of more outrageous underworldly locations. The music and sound effects are completely over the top, which is befitting this high-adventure story.
If audio had CGI, this would be it. Luckily, we can do in sound what it takes millions of dollars for computers to do, and have our imaginations tickled more than the movies ever can. Bravo.