Ethan Hawke’s new supernatural horror podcast isn’t just bringing back old-fashioned radio storytelling. After listening to the first episode, I’m convinced it’s a tribute to the legendary Art Bell. And I’m already hooked.
There’s something about driving down a dark road at night, listening to a mysterious voice coming through the radio, and wondering whether the story you’re hearing is actually real. If you were lucky enough to experience Art Bell during the golden years of Coast to Coast AM, you know exactly what we’re talking about.
And now Ethan Hawke might have found a way to bring that feeling back!
A new scripted supernatural horror podcast called Midnight Radio premiered on October 22, 2026, and when I first heard about it, I was immediately intrigued. The series stars Hawke as a mysterious late-night radio host known as “The Radio Man,” who takes calls about strange occurrences, conspiracy theories, unexplained transmissions, and things that might be better left alone.
The nine-episode series is being released weekly, which seems rather appropriate for a program trying to recreate the magic of old-fashioned radio. The first episode, “Phantom Cosmonauts,” deals with mysterious radio transmissions, secret space missions, and a caller who might know considerably more than he’s letting on.
When I first started researching this show, I wondered whether it was supposed to be an homage to Art Bell. There had been comparisons made in articles about the series, and certainly the premise sounded familiar. But I wasn’t convinced that the creators were deliberately trying to recreate Bell’s atmosphere.
I listened while driving at night, which, quite frankly, is exactly how I would recommend experiencing this show. Forget sitting at your computer in the middle of the afternoon. If you’re going to listen to Midnight Radio, wait until the sun goes down. Find yourself a quiet place, turn off the distractions, and let the story unfold.
There are several things in the very first episode that immediately took me back to Art Bell’s broadcasts during the 1990s and early 2000s.
First, Hawke’s character opens up the telephone lines to callers, much like Art would do during his famous open-line segments. But it isn’t simply the fact that he’s taking calls. He actually identifies callers as being east of the Rockies or west of the Rockies.
Sound familiar?
If you listened to Art Bell, it certainly should.
That was practically a trademark of his broadcasts. Art would announce the lines based on geography, sometimes opening special lines for particular topics or experiences. It was part of the rhythm of the show, something longtime listeners would recognize almost immediately.
Then there’s another moment when a caller gets on the air and starts cursing. Hawke’s character promptly cuts the caller off.
Again, that’s classic Art Bell.
Art certainly wasn’t afraid to entertain some pretty outrageous people, but he had rules for his callers. And if you got on the air and started swearing or wasting everybody’s time, there was a good chance you weren’t going to be on the air very long.
But the moment that really sealed the deal for me was when Hawke’s character told a caller to turn their radio down.
Oh, come on!
If that isn’t a deliberate nod to Art Bell, I don’t know what is.
How many times did we hear Art tell callers to turn down their radios because of the feedback? It was one of those little things that became part of the personality of Coast to Coast AM. It wasn’t necessarily something that made the program famous, but for those of us who listened regularly, it was as familiar as Art’s voice itself.
And there it was, coming through my speakers again, only this time from Ethan Hawke.
At that point, I wasn’t just listening to a new horror podcast. I was experiencing a little bit of radio nostalgia.
And I absolutely loved it.
Now, before we get too far ahead of ourselves, let’s talk about the people responsible for this.
Midnight Radio comes from Scott Derrickson and C. Robert Cargill, the creative team associated with Sinister and The Black Phone. Ethan Hawke, who previously worked with them on those films, takes the lead role here. Ryan Hawke is among the executive producers, and iHeartPodcasts is distributing the series.
The creative team has discussed the appeal of classic radio storytelling, and published coverage of Hawke’s interview with Collider has connected the project to the atmosphere of Art Bell’s Coast to Coast AM. There’s also an obvious historical comparison to Orson Welles and his famous 1938 broadcast of The War of the Worlds.
But after listening to the first episode, I think there’s something much more specific going on here.
This isn’t simply a fictional radio program that happens to be scary.
It feels like somebody who loved Art Bell wanted to bring his radio world back to life.
And I think that’s wonderful.
Because I would argue that without Art Bell, the paranormal podcast industry we have today might look considerably different.
Long before everybody had a podcast, a YouTube channel, or a TikTok account, Art Bell was sitting in the Nevada desert, broadcasting into the darkness and allowing people to tell stories that ranged from the unbelievable to the downright terrifying.
And the genius of Art Bell was that we didn’t always know what was real.
More importantly, sometimes I don’t think Art knew either.
He would let his guests talk. He would let his callers explain their experiences. Occasionally, he would challenge somebody or call out something that didn’t make sense. But most of the time, he left it up to us.
Did we believe the person who claimed to have encountered an alien? Did we believe the caller who said they had traveled through time? Did we believe the person who insisted the government was hiding something extraordinary?
That was our decision.
And Art Bell was the voice in the night guiding us through it.
One of the most memorable examples was the infamous Area 51 caller in September 1997. A frantic man called the program claiming to have inside knowledge of secret government activities and impending disasters. As the caller became increasingly emotional, the show’s satellite feed suddenly went down.
Think about how incredible that must have been for people listening live.
Here was a man supposedly revealing terrifying government secrets, and suddenly the radio program itself disappeared from the air.
Years later, a caller identifying himself as the original man admitted that the whole thing had been an act. But even that didn’t explain the perfectly timed satellite interruption, which became part of the legend surrounding the broadcast.
Was it coincidence? Almost certainly. But for those listening that night, it was an extraordinary moment of radio.
And then there were the Phoenix Lights.
On March 13, 1997, reports of mysterious lights over Arizona began pouring in. Art Bell was on the air that night, speaking with Peter Davenport of the National UFO Reporting Center as eyewitness reports were coming in. The following night’s broadcast continued examining what people had witnessed.
Think about that for a moment.
Before social media could instantly flood our phones with videos, before everybody was livestreaming everything, there was Art Bell, narrating an extraordinary event through the voices of people who were actually experiencing it.
Listeners weren’t just hearing somebody talk about something that happened last week. They were hearing reports of something that was happening, or had just happened, in real time.
It was almost like witnessing history through a radio speaker.
Whether the Phoenix Lights were something extraterrestrial, military activity, or a combination of misidentified events is an entirely different discussion. The point is that Art Bell made us feel like we were there.
Let’s face it. The podcast world has become so saturated that sometimes it feels like everybody is trying to sell us something. There’s a sponsor, a scripted advertisement, another sponsor, and then maybe somewhere in between there’s actually a conversation.
Yes, Art Bell had advertisements. Of course he did. But there was something different about those long nights when it felt like it was just Art and us.
His voice was soothing. He could be talking about ghosts, government conspiracies, alien abductions, or the end of civilization, and somehow he could make you feel comfortable while simultaneously scaring the living daylights out of you.
But something fascinating has happened since his passing. His old broadcasts continue to circulate on YouTube, TikTok, and social media. A whole new generation is discovering the man who helped make paranormal talk radio a cultural phenomenon.
And those of us who were there the first time around are still listening.
I personally maintain a subscription to Coast to Coast AM, now hosted by George Noory, largely because I want access to the classic Art Bell broadcasts. I’m paying around six dollars a month to listen to radio programs that, in some cases, are nearly thirty years old.
Think about that.
In a world where we have virtually unlimited entertainment available at our fingertips, I’m still willing to pay money to listen to a man sitting in the desert talking about mysterious lights in the sky.
That should tell you something about the magic Art Bell created.
Which brings us back to Ethan Hawke. Could Midnight Radio actually recreate that feeling? After listening to the first episode, my answer is that it comes remarkably close.
There’s certainly a difference between the two. We know Hawke’s show is fiction. We know the callers are actors. We know the supernatural events are part of a carefully constructed story.
But then again, people knew Orson Welles was an actor, too. His famous War of the Worlds broadcast demonstrated how powerful fictional radio storytelling could be, even if the popular legend about widespread panic has been exaggerated over the years.
Maybe the trick is simply allowing ourselves to suspend disbelief.
And that’s exactly what I did while driving through the darkness listening to Ethan Hawke take calls from people who supposedly had information about strange events.
For a little while, I was back in the 1990s, listening to Art Bell.
There was something comforting about it, even when the story itself was getting unsettling.
And perhaps there’s even some comfort in knowing that whatever terrifying things happen during Midnight Radio, they’re fictional.
Art Bell never gave us that guarantee.
I’m genuinely hoping the remaining episodes live up to the first one. Not simply because I’m a horror fan, but because I think there’s a market for this kind of storytelling again. People are rediscovering the appeal of slowing down, listening to a voice, and allowing their imaginations to do the work.
And after hearing those little details in the first episode, from the east and west of the Rockies lines to the unruly caller and that familiar instruction to turn the radio down, I can’t help but believe the people behind this series understand exactly what made Art Bell so special.
We’re going to keep listening, and I really hope you do too.
You can find Midnight Radio on iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, and other major podcast platforms. New episodes are scheduled to arrive every Thursday.
But I’m going to give you one piece of advice.
Listen to this show at night.
Seriously.
If you have a nighttime drive ahead of you, put on the first episode. Or wait until the house is quiet, turn down the lights, and put on your headphones. Give the show your attention and allow yourself to get lost in the story.
That’s how I experienced it, and I think it made all the difference.
Maybe we’ll all find ourselves looking forward to Thursday nights again, turning down the lights and listening to a familiar kind of mystery unfolding over the airwaves.
And maybe, just maybe, Ethan Hawke and company can give us that night owl feeling we haven’t quite experienced since Art Bell was behind the microphone.
After the first episode, I’m convinced they’re on the right track.
I hope they can keep that magic going for the rest of the series, because there’s still something wonderful about a voice in the darkness telling us a story, leaving us wondering what might be out there, and reminding us that we’re not the only ones awake.
