We searched to find the kind of music that will make your hair stand on end, and add some creepy ambiance for your trick-or-treaters.

Our first stop is WGUC-FM, (90.9) which will air Tunes from the Crypt Returns and Tunes from the Crypt Goes to the Movies, 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. Friday, with an encore of Movies at 8 p.m. Halloween night.

Mark Perzel, executive producer and host of seven years of Tunes from the Crypt shows, got the idea in the mid-90s, after developing his own "front porch" soundtracks with WGUC audio engineer Bruce Ellis. Ellis is the guru of spooky sounds - such as squeaking bats and water dripping in a cave.

"It would occasionally scare off some of my trick-or-treaters. They'd only make it halfway up the sidewalk," laughs Perzel. "It occurred to us that we could do a show."

Perzel's ingredients for a good scary tune include a powerful orchestra, such as one finds in "Mars" from Gustav Holst's The Planets, Mussorgsky's Night on Bald Mountain and "Nightmare" from the film score to Vertigo. It's usually in a minor key.

And he looks for unexpected twists - "little phrases that audibly give you a little chill going down your spine, whether it's a French horn glissando, or the way the violins are shimmering in the background," he says.

Perzel's favorite hair-raising hit? Camille Saint-Saens' Danse Macabre because, "I love the imagery, based on the devil playing a fiddle in the graveyard at midnight, as the skeletons dance around the tombstones. Who needs TV?"

For your own party or porch, WGUC has produced a CD of Tunes from the Crypt Goes to the Movies ($13.99) available at www.wguc.org/store.

E-mail jgelfand@enquirer.com