Podcast Recommendation: The Black Tapes Podcast
About: “The Black Tapes is a weekly podcast from Pacific Northwest Stories andMinnow Beats Whale, and is hosted by Alex Reagan. The Black Tapes Podcast is a serialized docudrama about one journalist's search for truth, her enigmatic subject's mysterious past, and the literal and figurative ghosts that haunt them both.
How do you feel about paranormal activity or supernatural? Ghosts? Spirits? Demons? Do you believe?” [x]
If you like: Serial, Pseudopod, The NoSleep Podcast, The X Files, The DaVinci Code, Welcome to Nightvale
Overview: As far as horror/mystery podcasts go, The Black Tapes has quickly earned a top spot in my queue. Not only is the production quality off the charts, the story has a slow burn that quickly turns addictive. The first few episodes will no doubt pique your interest, before the story deepens and layers in sophisticated storytelling that blurs the edges of fiction and reality.
What makes The Black Tapes so outstanding in its field is not only the storytelling and production quality, but the layers of verifiable historic, cultural, religious and scientific elements tied together by the narrative of the podcast. I won’t go into detail so as to not spoil the story.
Available episodes: 12 (Season 1 finale was released October 13, 2015. No update on when to expect Season 2.)
Average length: 30-45 minutes
Scare factor: Medium Some of the episodes have disturbing audio clips, but the casual setting of the “radio show” style narrative is enough to keep things pretty tame. However, if you’re sensitive to demonology, the occult, kidnapping, stalking or “curses” (like the Ring type curses) you might want to steer clear of this podcast. Overall, it’s a slow burn and causes you to check yourself at the end of an episode that it’s indeed fiction.
Listen: iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play and on their website.
[review by @stephkaysharp]
