Podcast is the best medium for horror fiction.

Podcast is the best medium for horror fiction

If you ever watch horror movies, you know that the anticipation is scarier than the reveal. The scraping noise against the window beats the monster reveal on the terror factor every time. This is the mistake that bad horror movies make when they reveal their monster too early.

The reason for this is simple. Your imagination will create a monster far more terrifying than the best CGI in the world.

So what if it’s all in your imagination? I truly believe that podcast is the best medium for horror fiction today. There are some extremely talented story writers partnering with equally talented audio mixers to create stories that suck you in and keep you terrified.

The best of these stories embrace the limitations of the medium. They are based around listening to the radio chatter during a crisis, or found audio recordings after the attack’s aftermath.

My favourite horror and thriller podcasts at the moment are:

• The White Vault – Very heavily inspired by The Thing, it follows an Arctic expedition that takes a bad turn. It does a really good job at putting the characters in “no-win” scenarios which force them to make terrifying decisions.

• Fathom and its sequel Derelict – This is the one that got me really into the medium. The audio production is phenomenal. Season 1 is set deep in an undersea base, the sound design—creaking metal, distant water rushing through cracks—builds an auditory environment so immersive, it’s crazy.