This article was originally published in The Tribune newspaper.
This week's column puts the focus on
horror. So put your headphones on, turn up the volume – and
prepare
for a good scare...
We're Alive: Lockdown
Last year, I reviewed the excellent
We're Alive – a podcast telling the story of a zombie virus
breaking loose and bringing about the end of the world...
mostly.
That followed the story of a few survivors as they tried to make
their way in this post-apocalypse world. For those wanting to
take a
dip into the same world but without the huge number of episodes,
there's now a new spin-off, Lockdown, six episodes long and
following
the view of the end of the world from inside the walls of a
prison.
The show drops you straight into the
action – before flashing back to the moment when things started
to
go wrong inside the jail, just as two prisoners are about to be
released and back to the freedom they've yearned for. Suddenly,
the
bars that kept them in might just be the thing that keeps them
alive...
The production is excellent, great
voice actors and some genuine scares even in this slow
beginning.
If you want a horror story on the
radio, here's a great place to start.
Website: werealive.com
The Black Tapes
The Black Tapes is a docudrama
following host Alex Reagan as she sets off on a paranormal
investigation – starting with Dr Richard Strand, a ghost hunter
who
doesn't believe in ghosts. She uncovers his store of VHS
tapes... and
the horrors that lurk within.
Fictional, of course, but the show
presents itself as a documentary, with Reagan detailing her
investigation as she goes along in the fashion of a radio show,
with
interviews with a medium and other individuals she encounters
along
the way.
There's two seasons of the show so
far
– and bear with the first episode, it takes a while to get
going...
until a door on a video tape slowly creaks open all by itself.
Then,
things get weirder... and scarier.
Another show with excellent
production,
this is for those who are fans of ghosthunting shows on TV, who
wonder what would happen if it all turned out to be real...
Website: theblacktapespodcast.com
Night of the Living Podcast
Away from the scary stories
themselves,
there's a wealth of podcasts chatting about the horror genre –
and
Night of the Living Podcast is one of the longest established of
those. It's great fun, its format is essentially a bunch of
friends
sitting around and chatting about horror – then picking a
straight
to video movie to praise or pillory before moving on to
something
more mainstream.
A recent show focused on the movie
Trace – about a group of young people experimenting with
Electronic
Voice Phenomena when everything goes wrong, including –
according
to the NOTLP team – the script, the characters and everything
else
with the movie. They gleefully rip apart the movie, with
spoilers
galore because, as they say, if it's a rubbish movie, they'll
tell
you everything to save you the trouble.
They then move on to the Louis
Gossett
Jr classic Enemy Mine and share what they loved about the movie
–
plus lots of little nuggets of information about the movie. Bad
Guy
#2 in the movie who we can't remember his name? He ends up being
executive producer of the Paw Patrol cartoon. Parents, you know
you're singing that theme tune now.
There's a great love and affection
by
the hosts for their genre – and this particular show was also
filmed in front of a live audience too, so there's plenty of
banter.
Just beware of some fruity language from time to time.
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