Wil: Hey, everybody, this is Wil! [echo effect] From the futuure.

[pause] And I just wanted to say

that um, whoops! [laughter] We- we talked for too long. I blame it on James Oliva, because he is
too interesting. Heard it here first folks. James Oliva: Too. Interesting. So! This week’s episode is
actually going to be this week’s two episodes! That’s right. You get a bonus coming later at some
point this week hopefully. Keep an eye out for that, and uh… Yeah! Okay. Love you all, byeee.

Wil: Gavin, it’s your turn to introduce us.

Gavin: Bullshit. We have a guest today.

Wil: (laughs) Oh, does James have to do it? Aww, yay.

Gavin: Yes.

James: Hey. What am I doing?

Wil: Awesome. God, I hate doing it.

James: I’m doing, um, the intro?

Wil: Yep.

Gavin: Yes.

James: Hi everybody, welcome to Tuned In, Dialed Up. I will be your guest co-host today. Hi, my
name is James Oliva. And, uh, we have with us today Gavin, and uh, Wil Williams. How- How are
you guys doing today?
Gavin: We are doing great, James.

Wil: Yeah, so good, so good.

Gavin: [falsetto] Yeahhh.

Wil: What a professional intro.

Gavin: Yeah, that was-

Wil: We should have guests on more often.

Gavin: I make fun of- of radio intros a lot, but that was pretty solid radio intro.

James: If I didn’t stumble so much, it would’ve been better, but-

Wil: It was lovely.

Gavin: That’s what editing’s for.

(Wil laughs)

James: I don’t- I’m setting the standards high, though. Don’t think you’re going to get this out of
every guest.

(Gavin and Wil laugh)

Gavin: Aw, jeez. I’ve had dark things open on my- I’m literally- Because we’re talking about
spoooky things today, I’ve been sitting here in the dark, and I had like, a black web page up, and
it just switched to the White Vault’s website, and I’m blind.

(James and Wil laugh)

Gavin: So, normally, we start off by talking about the most fun thing that happened to us since
the last episode.

Wil: Yeah.

Gavin: Wil, would you like to go first?

Wil: Sure! I’ll go first. My most exciting thing is… [silky smooth] I got a new mic.

Gavin: Oh.

James: Oooh! That sounds very silky smooth. I like it.

Wil: [keeping it silky smooth] Thank you, thanks. I’m up real close to it. Um, Roman Mars style.
Very close to the mic.

James: We can hear plosives.

(Wil laughs)
Gavin: Okay, so we can isolate that. We can put it on iTunes for a buck ninety nine. Put it on
Youtube as well. People will pay for it.

Wil: Oh no! (laughs)

Gavin: Man, Youtube ASMR community- If you want to ever experience what it’s like to have a
fetish where you buy custom porn for it, but not actually get porn, that’s what the ASMR
community is on Youtube.

Wil: Yeah, so, I’m not going to lie. I’m kind of an ASMR person, but not for whispers. But like,
really weird- Weird textural shit. God, the other day I watched a fifteen minute video of people
cutting up soap. Like what the fuck? Also, I loved it? It was great.

Gavin: Cutting up soap’s the shit.

Wil: It’s so good. Also, cutting really thick paper. You know? Like that good paper cut sound? Oof.
Ooh. So good. Anyway, I got a new mic. I upgraded from my Blue Snowball to a Blue Yeti.

Gavin: Oooh.

Wil: It’s so cute. He’s teal, and I had seen pictures of Blue Yetis before, but like. He’s a hefty boy!

(Gavin and James laugh)

Wil: He’s real sturdy! It’s kind of colossal. I’m a little stunned by it. It’s beautiful. I love it.

Gavin: All jokes aside, I literally saw an article like two days ago, and like- Blue Yeti. Mic for ASMR
people. Here’s why.
Wil: Oh my god.

(Wil and James laugh)

James: Really? The Blue Yeti?

Gavin: Well, the Blue Yeti is the mic for anybody because the Blue Yeti is the first mic anybody
spends any actual money on.

James: Yep, well, yeah. Yeah.

Wil: Yeah.

Gavin: I know- Who’s the Welcome to Night Vale guy?

James: Oh, uh, Joseph Fink?

Gavin: Joseph Fink was just tweeting about how they still use a Blue Yeti.

Wil: They do. They also still use Audacity.

Gavin: And they still use Cecil Baldwin. Fun fact.

(Everyone laughs)
James: I actually like Audacity. I still use it quite often.

Wil: Yeah.

James: I do like simplistic editing in Reaper because I don’t- I’m still simple in Reaper. I can do a
little more complex stuff in Audacity. So, I like Audacity. There are a lot of people who just don’t
dig it. I-

Wil: That’s so interesting. I’ve actually always heard the opposite. I’ve heard that for people who
like to do more complex editing that they usually do it in Reaper and keep the simple to
Audacity. I’m curious as to why- Yeah.

James: Yeah, I’m always backwards, Wil. That’s what I do.

Wil: True, true.

James: You asked- Yeah. The most simple thing I’ll make hard, and the most hardest thing I will
make incredibly simple. Um.

(Wil and Gavin laugh)

Gavin: That’s what happens when you learn how to do something through Youtube tutorials.

James: Yeah.

Wil: Yeah, I remember back in my college days when I was doing some production work, we had
access to Adobe Audition, which I think I’ve talked about before on here. While I used that a lot
of the time, I still kind of always preferred Audacity. (laughs)
Gavin: Yeah.

Wil: At least it didn’t crash on me every four seconds. So.

Gavin: I mean not to bring up Sara Rhea Werner every episode, but like, Girl in Space is edited
proudly on Audition, or, not Audition, Audacity.

Wil: Audacity, yeah.

James: I think it’s just one of those systems that’s intuitive in a certain way that, if you learned on
that first, you just get it. To work backwards from there and to go onto Reaper, and Reaper
apparently is amazing, intuitively- We’ve learned in Reaper- You’re probably able to do a lot of
other things, but the two systems don’t necessarily match very well? So like-

Wil: No, they really don’t.

James: It was like literally- Alex was asking me to do simple cuts. He’s like, “Use the S button to
cut in Reaper!” and I’m like, “WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT? The S button- I don’t? Where?
Where should I put the cursor and hit the S button? What’s gonna happen? Like I don’t know.” I
just couldn’t handle it. Like- I had to physically have him here, showing me, “Okay, now press the
S-” “Oh, OH, OH. Okay, I see, I see.”

(Wil and Gavin laugh)

Wil: Yeah, I have to- So I record for Tuned In Dialed Up on Audacity because it’s, you know, it’s
right there, but for a secret project, I am recording in Reaper, and every time I open it, I’m like.
Hm. I’m not smart enough for this.
Gavin: I’ll be back. (laughs)

James: Yeah, yeah. Time out.

Gavin: Well, James, you’ve never been on Tuned In Dialed Up, but in the last couple of weeks,
what’s something that jumps out to you as your favorite moment?

James: I’m trying to think, like. I went on a large- See, this is not going to seem like news to
anybody, but I went on a long bender of Wolf 359.

Gavin: Ah.

Wil: Yeah! That’s totally news. I did- My last week’s, last episode’s was on Steal the Stars. You are
absolutely welcome to talk about how great Wolf 359 is.

James: Yeah! It’s interesting because I first listened and, I don’t know, it didn’t- And then, there
was just nothing really pulling me back other than a lot of word of mouth, and so- I got to meet a
lot of the people that are involved, and I love all of them. They’ve been really super kind to my
show, and really super kind to me. So, I’ve been meaning to go back and give it another chance,
and I just keep hearing a lot of good things, so I went. Alright, fine, and I’ve been doing a lot of
travelling back and forth between LA and Palm Springs, so that’s like a two hour drive each way,
so you can knock out a few episodes and make a lot of ground. I was able to, so I’m almost done
with season 2, so. Yeah, yeah. I’m really- Everyone’s right, though. Am I Alone I think is a lot of
people’s favorite episode, and I- it really is- That is the turning point. That episode-

Wil: It’s really good.

James: Especially when Hera, Hera’s like, my favorite. She’s like having this conversation, basically
letting off steam, but talking about how like right now she’s talking to this person and that
person, all at once, and she can multitask. Yeah, I just found that to be a really sort of interesting
episode. It also broke the pattern of what they were doing at that point. Yeah, I really super dig
that show, and I’m really on board. So everybody, listen to Wolf 359. You know, they need my
help right now. So, you should listen to that.

(Wil and Gavin laugh)

Gavin: Okay.

Wil: Talk to me after you’ve listened to Memoria. I really want to hear your thoughts on it.

Gavin: I’ll get to hearing it eventually.

Wil: Gaavin!

James: How- How do you like What’s the Frequency-

Gavin: You know me Wil.

Wil: I know, I know.

Gavin: I have so many- I have 104 podcasts to listen to.

Wil: Gavin!

James: Oh my god! I have to go Wil. I can’t work like this.

(Wil laughs)
Gavin: I will- I- My defense- My defense is I found out that Levar Burton has a podcast.

(James laughs)

Wil: Gavin, what’s your moment? What’s your exciting thingy?

Gavin: This is not me being cute. I found Levarr Burton Reads. (laughs)

Wil: Well, there we go! Perfect. (laughing)

Gavin: Because, actually, the day before I was lamenting on Twitter- Before I got into writing and
stuff, and all this next level podcasting whatever crap we’re doing, I listened to some podcasts,
but I also was an avid user of Audible. If you go dig through some random episodes of my erotica
review show, you’ll find me just plugging the living crap out of Audible. Not just because we had
a referral code, but the- I just love audiobooks. I love being able to enjoy tons of different kinds
of fiction, and you know, audio drama does that, it scratches that itch, but Levar Burton Reads is
someone who, A, can speak to a lot of things, because Levar Burton is a well traveled person,
and B, there- His schtick is he loves short fiction It’s not just that he’s like, “Well I can do this for
forty-five minutes and make a podcast.” These are stories that speak personally to him, so for
about five minutes after each story, he talks about, here’s why this gets me. Here’s why this is
super interesting to me. Here’s a fun story about my mom that relates to this. You get to learn a
lot- Like, you learn about Levar BUrton travelling in Japan when Roots first came, because Japan
really liked Roots it turns out.

Wil: Huh. Surprising. Interesting. Huh.

Gavin: Yeah. A lot of the authors are not white Americans, so you get to hear really good fiction
from all over the place. I mean, Neil Gaiman’s there- He’s pretty cool. Actually, the Neil Gaiman
story is pretty fantastic. It’s about an old woman who buys the Holy Grail for thirty cents at a
thrift shop. Amazing.
(Wil laughs)

Gavin: Anyways, that was my huge moment. I mean there’s a lot of fun stuff. I’ve been
livetweeting Gilmore GIrls while watching it with my girlfriend.

James: That’s adorable.

Wil: So this week’s discussion topic is horror in audio drama, and specifically, I think we should
open up with talking about the last time an audio drama podcast, maybe just a podcast in
general, the last time a podcast actually scared you. So, I think for me, I am actually really not
hard to scare. I don’t know if I have brought this up very often or on this show, but in my
undergrad, I basically more or less minored in horror. I have an English Ed degree, but I took a lot
of lit classes, and I took a capstone that I didn’t even need on horror just because I wanted to.
I’m really not hard to scare, but I am, we’ll say, a pretentious asshole when it comes to horror?

Gavin: Yeah.

James: Is that a technical term? Is that what they taught you at college about the uh-

Wil: Yeah, yeah. In most primary sources, and what have you, they’ll use that term. It’s an
industry term.

(James laughs)

Wil: (laughs) I don’t like- Okay, god, how pretentious should I get in this?

Gavin: Go for it.

Wil: Let’s go full pretentious. When talking in an academic sense about the horror genre, which
traditionally in the academic sense is actually called the gothic genre-

Gavin: There it is.

Wil: Yeah. There’s two fields of this. There’s horror and terror. So, terror is actually what most
people think of as horror.

(Gavin loses it laughing.)

Wil: I know. I know, I’m so sorry guys. I’m so sorry.

Gavin: No, no no no. No no. It is not your fault- You said terror is-

Wil: I didn’t come up with the terms!

Gavin: You said terror is, and in the back of my head I just hear, [distorted voice] “Going horny on
main.”

(Wil and James laugh)

Wil: So, terrror is like, jump scares or gore. It’s those momentary little bursts of fear that are
triggered by really immediate stimuli, basically, then there is horror, and that is sort of more
creeping, more existential, more psychological. Things that are more like- Not fears that are
produced by stimuli, but fears that are produced existing in the world and having dread. Another
example would be the uncanny. The uncanny fits into this.

Gavin: Mhm.
Wil: I am not a fan of terror. I find it boring-

Gavin: A lot of people don’t.

Wil: I find it cheap, and I don’t find it actually scary other than like, Aah! Oh!

Gavin: It’s not earned.

Wil: Exactly, whereas if something can give me legitimate horror. I’m fucking in. I looove feeling
that existential dread.

James: Yes!

Wil: It’s my shit. I- Life is horror. Life is terrifying. I like media that makes me remember that. So,
because of that, when it comes to horror podcasts-

James: Sure.

Wil: I’m picky. We’ll say I’m really picky.

Gavin: Yeah, yeah.

Wil: I would say that the last time I was actually scared by a podcast, um, I have three examples.
Should I go in reverse chronological or chronological?

James: Reverse. Yeah. Reverse. Yeah.

Wil: Reverse?

Gavin: Reverse for the first two.

Wil: That’ll be fun! Most recently was What’s the Frequency. The first episode.

James: Whaaaat! No way!

Wil: It was! Yeah.

James: No way.

Wil: It was. It was, James. I love What’s the Frequency.

James: You do?

Wil: You know, I have never said this before, but I do. (laughs)

James: Why are you keeping this a secret?

Wil: I just. You know, I just wanted to-

James: Yeah, I haven’t heard you recommend it once at the end of your podcast here on Tuned
In Dialed up.
(Wil and Gavin laughing)

James: I keep waiting, I’m like, when is she gonna recommend What’s the Frequency? And I’m
like, fine. Yeah.

Gavin: When is this gonna happen?

Wil: Listeners, if you don’t know this, What’s the Frequency is the podcast I have talked about
the most on my review site, hands down. If I have an opportunity to talk about how much I love
What’s the Frequency, I’m gonna fucking do it.

James: I love that.

Wil: Um. The first episode specifically, I was just so taken off guard by it in this really fantastic
way. I heard horror podcast, and I was like, “Eh, we’ll see!”

(Gavin laughs)

Wil: God, it just did so many things? And there is like- There are some moments that play on
that, like, almost jump scare- Not quite. But. You play with sound. You play with volume. They
feel totally earned because it’s in this setting, and it has this aesthetic that feels… Close to
home? In like a societal memory sort of way? God this is pretentious, I’m so sorry. Like, you
know, it plays on that horror of nostalgia, kind of?

James: Sure.

Wil: And it was just the perfect mix of using sound and texture to make a soundscape that was
so uncomfortable, and that- It just builds so beautifully, and on top of that there is that like
psychological, existential dread to it that I fucking love.
James: That’s where we try to hang out. That’s where we want to hang. I don’t- It’s interestin
because- I don’t know know if my show’s a horror podcast. I know that there’s horrific elements,
and I know that there are elements that definitiely touch into horror, and we have a skull on our
logo. So, that means that we’re realy fucking hardcore.

yGavin: There you go.

James: But, yeah-

(Wil laughs)

Gavin: It also means you’re edgy as shit.

James: Exactly, yeah, and I- After the fact, I was like, maybe I’m sending the wrong message.
Even though I love our logo, and I think it’s actually- there’s something kind of iconic- Yeah, but I
just-

Wil: Oh, I think it’s perfect.

Gavin: No, no. You are zero percent being full of yourself and saying that your logo is-

James: I do! I do think it is. I do. The second I saw it- It was something we had been talking
about. Alright, we want to use a skull somewhere, but use it in a way that it has a contradictive
thing happening, but we couldn’t figure it out. Then, out of nowhere, the guy making it just was
like, shits and giggles, here, this is the last one I did tonight. I was like OHHHH this is the one!
This little joke one here is my favorite.

Gavin: Save, save, save.

James: But, yeah. I struggle with how to describe my own show sometimes. I certainly believe
that it has horror elements, but then it has all these other things going on. We do go for the
psychological.

Wil: But that is- That is why I think that the horror works, and this is something I think we’ll talk
about a little bit more after we share our last time we got scared moments, but the fact that
What’s the Frequency uses contrast is exactly why it can actually instill fear. Also, because it’s
fucking good, and the sound design is incredible. But the contrast is so key. That’s the same- I
would say that that applies for my other two examples. The other times I’ve actually been scared
by a podcast were Point Mystic, which is so quiet and so calm most of the time, and just so
stirringly realistic because the actors are allowed to improvise. The other one would be
Limetown, and I don’t think that Limetown scared most people.

James: I haven’t listened to it.

Wil: Oh, god, it’s so fucking good. Limetown is the audio drama that got me into audio dramas. I
love it so much that back when I was reviewing on Tumblr, I would do star ratings, but I reviewed
them in quantities of limes.

(Gavin and James laugh)

Wil: It was very kitschy. I have grown up. Limetown is incredible, and again, I don’t think that it
scared most people. The third episode, Napoleon, which I don’t want to give anything away. If
you haven’t listened to Limetown, please go listen. They’re coming out with another season this
year. They’re also coming out with a prequel novel. The third episode, Napoleon, is so hauntingly
sad, and it’s the first episode that really explains what’s going on with everything. It’s a
devastating listen. It’s acted beautifully, and it’s just. It’s so unsettling. It really puts you where
the character is, which is something that I think more horror podcasts could do, but I will stop
rambling now. Gavin, what about yours? Last time you got scared by a podcast.

Gavin: So there’s an episode of Criminal, it’s episode 71, and for those who don’t know, Criminal
is a true crime podcast. I could also say the word podcast, that also works. Criminal is a true
crime podcast that focuses on something to do with crime, and there’s an episode, number 71,
called A Bump in the Night, and it’s about Amber Dawn, this, at the time of the thing that
happened, twenty-something marine biologist, I think. She’s fresh out of college, living in an
apartment on her own with a puppy she eventually gets, and she starts noticing food going
missing. And she lives two miles away from her brother, so she thinks he’s stealing the food. So,
you figure out real quick, there’s someone in the attic, like.

Wil: Oh no.

Gavin: Within the first few-

Wil: Oh no!

Gavin: As soon as she starts talking about hearing footsteps in the attic, there’s someone hiding
in her attic. So, you know what’s happening, and I liken it to one of my favorite shots in a horror
that depicts what is scary in horror movies that are effective I think, is in the first Halloween,
where Jaimie and her friend are walking down- It’s the beginning of the movie, like nothing bad
can happen. We know this because of horror movie rules. But the shot is Jaimie Lee Curtis in the
foreground facing away, and in the background, Mike Myers is standing next to a hedge, and he’s
just. There. And you just want to be like, “Turn the fuck around!”

Wil: Gavin, have you ever seen The Woman in Black?

Gavin: The Woman in Black…

Wil: It’s a weird one. I don’t think it got really good reception. I really love it. It had Daniel
Radcliffe in it?

Gavin: Oh, the Harry Potter thing.

Wil: Yeah. So.

James: Yeah, it was the sequel, actually.

Wil: Was it?

James: Yeah, to the Harry Potter.

Wil: (laughing) James, shut up.

James: I had you for like a second!

Gavin: I believe I watched a snarky-

(James makes a noise I could not identify)

Gavin: I believe I watched a snarky Youtube review of this, but yeah.

James: Oh, okay.

Wil: I really loved it, and what’s crazy about it is that the titular Woman in Black is very often just
in the background not doing anything, but what’s crazy is that if you rewatch it- Because there’s
like a reveal at the end where it’s like, “Oh, she’s been there the whole time.” But if you rewatch
it, she’s been there the whole time. You can see her in the background of so many shots, when
it’s just like a normal scene with nothing scary happening, she’s just in there. It’s some spooky
shit. I love it.
James: Oh, I love that. I love that. Actually, can I continue to derail us slightly?

Wil: It’s so good.

James: There was like this J Horror back in the day that I saw that had done something similar,
and it completely just scared the shit out of me called Don’t Look Up. You can watch it on
Shudder, if anyone has Shudder as part of their Amazon Prime. Or even just subscribes to it on
its own. So, basically it’s this director who’s trying to shoot this remake of a movie, and he’s
shooting it I think on the same sound stage. On the film that they’re filming, apparently, as
they’re filming, it’s picking up the old film. So like-

Wil: Oh no!

James: They’re trying to watch the dailies, and then, as they’re watching the dailies, it cuts to like
this scene from like the 1960s from this Japanese movie.

Wil: Ooh.

James: And it’s like this- You can’t hear the sound because there’s no sound being recorded, it’s
just the people mouthing things, and they would do the sound after, and in the background, you
see this out of focus ghoul- This woman, the typical white face, and her face is contorting, but
it’s like, she’s in this blurred background of this scene, and the scene’s this normal scene. So
there’s just something about it, and they constantly go back to this kind of thing. That type of
thing unnerves me in a film where you have something going on in the background that
shouldn’t be there. It, contextually, everything has to be contextually off. This shouldn’t be
happening! But it’s happening! Kind of thing.

Wil: Yeah, that’s actually- Not to get kind of hyper pretentious, but that’s the traditional
definition of the uncanny. I think that most people think of it in terms of the uncanny valley.

James: Which is also really awesome.

Gavin: Yeah, yeah.

James: Uncanny valley mask, and stuff like that?

Wil: Yes!

(James makes a scared oohoohh noise.)

Wil: Yeah, yeah yeah yeah. It’s like, so one of the most classic examples of the uncanny is, you
are walking around in a room, and the room is completely dark, but you know the layout of the
room. It’s in your house, and you put your hand out to steady yourself where a chair should be,
and the chair is just not there. That’s one of the most typical examples of the uncanny. Just
showing it’s something that’s off just slightly-

James: You literally just described what I told each and every one of our actors in their pre-
rehearsal. Like, almost exactly.

Wil: Oh my god!

James: Like, I’ll tell it to you real quick. You guys cut it out if you want, whatever, it’s boring. But I
literally said, everybody again, I took everyone through the same speech. I had this one speech I
gave everybody. So I said, have you ever had a dream? And in the dream, you’re in your house,
and you’re at a party, and everything’s really great. Everything’s really fun. And I was like, and
then out of nowhere, you’re like, oh hold on guys, I’ve got to go to my room. I’ve got to go
change real quick. And you go to your room, you get changed, and then you kind of like- Out of
the corner of your eye, you see someone in the corner of your bedroom, and you turn, you’re
like. There’s this person there, and there’s this moment of silence. You’re just staring at them,
and they’re staring back at you, and you go, “Uh, excuse me, what are you doing in here?” And
they go, “Oh no no, it’s okay, I’ve always been here.”
Wil: Gah!

James: And you go, “Uhhh yeah.” And then, like, in the dream, you sort of go like, “Uh, that’s
weird. No? I’ve got to get changed now, so you’ve got to go.” “No, it’s okay, I’ve always been
here.” And then you’re like AAH, and then in your own head, in your dream, things are starting to
change. It’s not necessarily turning into like a psycho killer’s trying to kill you, but now, you’re
uncomfortable in your own dream for the rest of the dream.

Wil: Right.

James: You’re like, I don’t know what’s going to happen. And I was like, that’s what we’re trying
to go for, and I think that’s really where horror lies, and I know I probably did this out of order.
Maybe I should go earlier on when we’re talking, but, um, I think that’s really kind of-

Wil: Yeah.

James: Another things that’s really good and sets up audio and horror, I don’t know if you guys
have ever seen the original Black Christmas?

(Long silence)

James: Oh my god.

Wil: No.

James: Guys, seriously? Soon, very soon, and Bob Clark directed it. He was an interesting
director. He’s Canadian. He did A Christmas Story. I’m sure you guys saw A Christmas Story, right?
Yeah. Famously. So that’s a family film. He also did this hardcore horror that predates Halloween.
Wil: Oh shit.

James: And, in the horror film, it’s the whole trope that you were just talking about Gavin, with
the- There’s somebody in the attic, but he’s calling them on a separate landline at this sorority.

Gavin: Is this the- Is this the origin of “the call is coming from inside the house?”

James: Yeah! That’s most exactly it, but we don’t-

Gavin: Awesome.

Wil: Ohhh.

James: These crank phone calls are some of the most terrifying bits of audio in film I think I could
ever think to recommend, so if anybody who is looking to do horror audio, absolutely go and
watch that movie, and pay attention to the crank phone calls that he- They don’t even go for
realism. It’s him, and every now and then there’s another voice on the line, and it’s a completely
different pitch, and so, like he’s doing two voices at the same time all of a sudden?

Wil: Ooh.

James: And they’re talking over each other, and it’s fucking weird. He’s making pig noises, and
like, it’s really super creepy. I highly recommend watching it just for that alone. But. Yeah.

Wil: Yeah, so Gavin.

Gavin: Yeah, so.

Wil: There’s somebody in the attic.

Gavin: There’s someone in the attic, and what really- Because I listened to this, it was at 5 PM.
Nothing’s- I’m driving a van for work, and nothing set up for me to be spooked by this. Amber
Dawn has this- I had Youtube listen to this because I doubt I’ll get Criminal permission to play,
but her voice is so close to cracking, like her natural speaking voice is very vocal fry-y without the
fry if that makes sense. It’s very-

James: I’ve heard of vocal fry, but-

Gavin: It’s an innocent sounding voice I guess? What really catches me is she’s just talking about,
“Yeah, I work with penguins, and I got this German shepherd, and then, I left the German
shepherd in the bathroom while I was at work, and the landlord called me back to let them into
the apartment because a pipe had burst, and the German shepherd was in the sink, high and
dry. He couldn’t have possibly gotten into the sink on its own.” And you’re just like Wahhhhh.

Wil: What the fuck. What the fuck.

Gavin: And that’s when you learn that, not only is this person in her apartment eating her food,
they’re just chilling, and the brand new dog thinks that’s normal. So it’s not gonna bark at them.
It thinks the person in the attic is a trust-

Wil: No. Awwww.

Gavin: And the culmination is, this woman is taking a bath, and there’s candles everywhere, and
she’s turned the lights off, and she looks up because she can see her bedroom- The attic access is
in the bedroom, and you can see from the bathroom, and she looks up, and that door’s open.

(Wil makes a scared noise)

Gavin: So she has to leave via her bedroom, and the only place in the entire apartment where
that person could have been hiding because they were in the apartment at that time is in a
closet with a full length mirror. So she has to stare at herself, hoping on hope that that door
doesn’t open as she collects her pets and leaves.

Wil: Oh my god!

Gavin: And she’s talking, and you know she makes it out!

Wil: Ohh, but yeah, fuck.

James: You’re there anyway. You sort of put yourself in there.

Wil: Yeah.

Gavin: Yeah, I listened to it three times. And it still just. It still gets me. That’s my non-fiction
suggestion because my other one requires some spoilers. So, if anyone doesn’t want spoilers for
The White Vault, which is a fantastic audio drama that, if you like horror, I highly suggest listening
to The White Vault. I mean, there- it’s about a team of experts who are brought together by a
mysterious organization- No, don’t turn of the podcast yet, I know that’s a thing. But, it’s actually
a bilingual cast. The way-

Wil: Yes, super diverse.

Gavin: The way The White Vault is presented is there is a nameless documentarian who is
presenting evidence of this expedition gone wrong somewhere in Norway, it’s in northern
Norway, where this team of experts are sent up to fix a transmitter at a bunker. A transmitter
tower needs to be sending out data because the corporation is renting out transmission space to
people, and what you find out is, something intentionally cut the wire, and they’re trapped up
there in a freakishly strong storm. As the show progresses, things get more and more fucked up,
and there’s one specific moment that I want to talk about. It’s in season- There’s only one season
so far, but in episode 9, which is titled Stoic, at this point they’ve discovered an underground
village that you have to go down this really long secret tunnel they found. They’re several
hundred feet under the ice and ground above them at this point, and they find this seemingly
natural cave with a huge village in it that has like no wood. Everything’s made of ivory and stone.
They go into one building and what they know, is they took one of the cobblestones on the floor
that was hollow, and a couple of episodes prior we learn, there’s a human heart in it and a bunch
of teeth! Which, if you go back to what Wil was talking about, is gore, and it’s- I mean, it’s kind of
messed up, but it wasn’t like, ahh to me.

Wil: Yeah, and I do think like, just to put this out there. I do think there is a place for horror.

Gavin: Yes, and that one is done well, but it’s still like. That didn’t give me the heebies. They go
back, and the whole floor of this sacrificial altar room is made of those cobblestones, and then
they start going down a staircase, and they realize the staircase is lined with human teeth, and
what’s really messed up is, um, well not messed up. But the awesome thing is that at this point,
the character who is- We experience different things through different people, based off of like,
“The following is a note from the margins of the official report by badababa.”

(Clip from The White Vault begins playing)

Documentarian: The following is an action report from Mr. Casner’s files. There are mathematic
equations calculated in the margins, and additional notes sprawled in Russian at the end.

(Clip ends)

Gavin: And, one of the characters is Graham Casner, who’s this like- (imitating the character)
Rough voiced hunter, and he knows he’s very smart about survival. He does the math on how
many teeth there would be on that staircase because thats how he processes that. You can kind
of see like, him trying to figure this out, in just doing the- If the average step was this big, and
has this many square cent-

(Clip begins)
Graham: We travelled down maybe twelve steps before we stopped and turned around, so
without calculating for the unaccounted for steps, it can be assumed there is a minimum of
35700 square centimeters of tooth laden stairs. That is 35700 teeth.

(Clip ends)

Wil: Eugh.

Gavin: And, what happens is, whoever’s at the top of the stairs goes, “Uh, guys.” And they turn
around, and the doorway to this building that they’re in- They see out into like a courtyard, and
suddenly a bunch of statues that were on the perimeter of the village are all facing that
doorway.

Wil: Mmm. Fuck that. Nope.

Gavin: And there’s this perfect scene where Graham is like-

(Clip begins)

Graham: Did you see statues earlier?

Rosa: These what? Yes.

Graham: No, look past my left shoulder to the door.

Rosa: Those were not there before!

Jonas: I can’t see up there. What’s going on?

Graham: We are going to move slowly. Follow me, and don’t do anything until we reach the rope
to the cave.

(Clip ends)

Gavin: You know they’re not going to die! Because there’s like two more episodes of the show
left, but it is terrifying because that is the first moment in The White Vault where something
happened, and they could have seen it. There’s actually an entire episode prior where, they
wake up in the middle of the night, and they hear something with giant claws scraping on the
outside of the concrete, but that’s the middle of the season, so you know nothing. Whatever. But
this one moment. Statues.

Wil: Ugh. Yeah.

Gavin: That got me real hard in the middle of the day. Bravo White Vault.

James: Yes.

Gavin: So, James, person who comes up with scary shit, what messes with you?

James: Uh, you know what, again, this is going to seem really weird, but the few shining
moments I can think of where I found myself incredibly affected by an audio drama or audio? I
don’t think you would think of these shows as typical places to necessarily find those types of
things, so um. Well, one of them, you kind of do. The Magnus Archives. There were a bunch of
them.
Wil: Yeah. God, I used to be hooked on Magnus Archives, yeah.

James: Yeah. You know, I don’t know what’s gone on with the show. I do know that accidentally-
Because they were coming up like one every week, essentially, and I was like, blown away by the
quality and the quantity. I was getting a little bit like, alright guys, enough. Enough with the great
show.

Gavin: Calm down.

James: You know?

Wil: Yeah, actually. I stopped listening because I got too spooked, actually. I totally forgot about
this. So, in one of the seasons, the overarching plot has a lot to do with- It plays on trypophobia
a lot, like the fear of little tiny clusters of holes?

Gavin: Yeah.

Wil: And then also adds bugs to that, and that’s like. I know people like to think that that’s fake,
but, hey! It. Is not. I couldn’t handle it, and I had to bail. Yeah!

Gavin: Also, to back Wil up, she was just talking about this earlier this week.

James: I believe her! Yeah, I totally believe her. Yeah, there’s lots of things to get freaked out
over. There’s things that I don’t even know that I’m freaked out over that haven’t come up that
I’m like OH GOD THAT THING. But, yeah, I feel like they did a lot of just great- The narrator was
amazing. They did this great sort of very level, uh, very particular cadence in their voice that
didn’t change up too much for what was going on in the story, so they didn’t speed up or slow
down really. They every now and then changed their voice slightly for a character when the
character was speaking, but I thought it was just a really well done that had some very, very
good spooky elements. I remember distinctly the trashman episode where they keep finding,
again, teeth! I think, they keep finding like human teeth and stuff in the trash bags, and that I
believe was unsolved.

Wil: Yeah yeah! Was that also the one where he finds the dolls-

James: Yeah, I think so.

Wil: Yeah.

James: Then like, the others- The other-

Wil: Yeah.

James: That die off, that were running the trashbags or something like that. Um.

Wil: Yeah. That’s an early episode. Yeah, that was a great one. That was- I think that was the first
one where I was like, oh this is legit. Like, yeah, this is actually really effective.

James: There was a bug one too, that really got me, where the guy brings home the girl, and
she’s like a bug or something.

(Wil makes a fake vomiting noise)

James: Um, yeah. There’s some really great effective one that I- I’m not easily shakeable, but like,
there’s just something going on in the way that they wrote it and narrated it that just got me. I
can think of a couple of moments in other shows that don’t- But they were probably the ones
that affected me the most. Okay, this is going to sound weird, uh, Rich Beef Sausages from Beef
and Dairy Network. It fucked me up! Well because-
Wil: Please explain.

James: So what’s amazing about it-

Wil: Please explain.

James: And this actually does something that I took a lesson from, or at least reminded myself
that this is something that I strive for. It was hilarious and frightening at the same time because
they had people, I guess, call into their hotline, and leave messages, or they had friends do this,
but it seemed they had an unending amount of people available to do this, so it was just people
leaving messages of what their favorite meat is, or something like that. And they would go,
(saying each quote in a different voice) “Rich. Beef. Sausages. Beep.” “Rich beef sausages. Beep.”
“Rich beef sausages. Beep.” And it just kept going!

(Gavin laughs)

Wil: That’s so up your alley, oh my god.

James: And you’re like, oh, it’s got to be over soon, no! It’s not over yet. It’s a solid minute and a
half of rich beef sausage messages. Um, and the underlining music that they’re playing under it
was also unnerving, like. It just started getting- The longer it went, the more unnerving it
became, and the more hilarious it was at the same time? So, I really super admired it.

Wil: Yeah.

James: There was this wonderful moment in Richard’s show, The Infinite Now, Richard Penner, in
the first episode he’s talking about time-

Wil: Oh, yeah.

James: Like, leap year- a leap second, and I remember being bored out of my skull, and then the
show takes a fucking hard left? And like he- All of the sudden there’s like this sound, and he’s
raised his voice, and he sounds more maniacal, and I was like- Oh no! I feel a little bit weird. And
it kind of made me feel a little bit unhappy in that moment. I was like oh my gosh, what’s going
on in my insides here. And there’s other shows like, you know, I love Lake Clarity, the first season,
I thought they did a lot of good sound design elements. I know some people take issue maybe
some inconsistencies in the acting and stuff like that, even the framing device, which I will admit
is not my favorite. So there’s that. And also, Mabel. Mabel’s amazing.

Wil: Oh, Mabel is great. Wow.

James: Those are the ones that stand out to me, but yeah, the ones that affected me the most
are not even in shows that are considered horror shows at all. Those are the ones that get me.

(Ending music)