playnext.fm

Campfire Radio Theater · Haunted Air Audio

The Dentist

September 1, 2013·30 min·2 clips
Dr. Stewart explains how his machine drills into brains to extract life-extending fluids.
A dental visit should be small. George Rogers walks into Dr. Stewart's office already shaken, and the bright little clinic quickly starts to feel like a torture room with magazines. Stewart is popular, cheap, and smooth enough to make comfort sound threatening. Sandra starts noticing the wrong things. A Google search says Stewart has practiced for more than 40 years and moved across Canada and the United States. That bothers her. So do the files, especially around welfare and charity cases. Jeremy would rather flirt his way out of the mood, but Sandra will not let the mystery go. She needs someone inside the office. His neglected filling gives her the excuse, which is terrible news for Jeremy, because he hates dentists completely. The setup is grimly funny because his panic makes sense, and Sandra's promise that he will be safe depends on her catching danger before Stewart does anything with it. The office stays polite the whole time. That is what makes it mean. Everyone keeps the professional voice while the room fills up with instruments, gas, and chances to hurt someone. A filling has to be replaced. By the end, talk of practice and harmless mistakes has curdled into something ugly, with Jeremy sedated and someone being told to keep poking until they learn. The horror is quiet. It sits in that awful space between medical trust and private cruelty, where a clean chair can become the worst room in town.

As heard by us

A dental visit that turns routine manners into slow, fluorescent dread.

Campfire Radio Theater's The Dentist turns a routine dental appointment into a sealed-room horror story, where fluorescent glare, cold smiles, and a quiet slide from normal care give way to something much uglier.

Read the full review in PlayNext →

Why you'd press play

If you want a dentist visit turned radio-horror appointment, this one goes straight for the nerve tonight.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →
Listen to the show on
Apple PodcastsSpotify
Play clips from this episodeMore from Campfire Radio Theater